Re: "Tech News on ZDNet" -- OS makers: Security is job No. 1

[der Mouse <mouse () Rodents Montreal QC CA>]

> We need to remember that users are generally illiterate when it comes
> to the details of how their computer functions.  That's why they are
> USERS.  They don't know (or care) how or why their computer works.
> All they care about is that it does what they need for it to do.
> Quite frankly, that is all they really SHOULD have to care about.

Yes.  But...

> It is not necessary for me to understand all the gory intimate
> details of how my car works in order for me to use it in a safe
> fashion.  The same should be true of my computer.

...the technology isn't there yet.

Back in the early days of automobiles, every car owner - or at least
driver - more or less had to be a decent mechanic.  It took many
decades to get from there to here with cars.  I don't see it as at all
surprising that computers - much more complex in relevant ways - aren't
really ready for use by people who just want a tool, nor do I expect
that to change soon.

The actual problem is that people (mostly with a vested interest in
increasing the computer-user population) have marketed them as usable
by the blinking-twelve crowd, and we (whoever "we" are) are now faced
with a mess thus created and are being expected to make the fantasy
that was sold to them cone true.

I for one am not interested in trying to do so - at least not in any
way other than playing my own small part in the natural evolution of
the field in that direction.  "Dammit, Jim, I'm an OS hacker, not a
miracle worker!"  (Well, okay, I do do application work sometimes. :)

/~\ The ASCII                           der Mouse
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