3 ms·

If I'm consistently reprimanded for not maintaining an up-to-date system against potentially hours-old zero day vulnerabilities, then pardon me for the mistaken

If I'm consistently reprimanded for not maintaining an up-to-date system against potentially hours-old zero day vulnerabilities, then pardon me for the mistaken perception that I'm not perpetually under attack. Having to assume that I am always at risk of being attacked is known as being placed under "siege mentality" and yes, it is a symptom of war. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality

mynameisvlad 11y ago
Unless you personally are constantly under attack by exploiters using hours-old 0-days (which, let's be honest, you wouldn't be as a personal user; there's far more high value targets than you), then you're not "consistently reprimanded" for not keeping your system up to date to fight these 0-days.
coldtea 11y ago
The whole idea with auto-updates is that you are neither reprimanded nor worried about "maintaining an up-to-date system" -- the browser is. You just enjoy your browsing being automagically always update with the latest available patches... Comparing the situation to "siege-mentality" etc is taking a far-reached association so far that it's not even on the solar system anymore...
- odinsen 11y ago
  Listen. It's not an absurd expectation that a system only does exactly what it's told to do, and only when told to do so. Don't paint that premise as if it were some ridiculous pie-in-the-sky unattainable cadillac of desires.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >It's not an absurd expectation that a system only does exactly what it's told to do, and only when told to do so. Now, you listen: most simple (non techie) users don't know what they need to "tell browsers to do" in the first place, aside from loading webpages. We had what you propose and people were stuck with 10 year old IE6 versions, tons of viruses from old exploits and plugins, etc. Now we expect modern browsers to be evergreen and to keep themselves secure. That's part of what browser developers are implicitly "told to do" -- and people jump to those browsers (e.g. Firefox when it pioneered that evergreen thing and then Chrome).

mynameisvlad 11y ago

Unless you personally are constantly under attack by exploiters using hours-old 0-days (which, let's be honest, you wouldn't be as a personal user; there's far more high value targets than you), then you're not "consistently reprimanded" for not keeping your system up to date to fight these 0-days.

coldtea 11y ago

The whole idea with auto-updates is that you are neither reprimanded nor worried about "maintaining an up-to-date system" -- the browser is. You just enjoy your browsing being automagically always update with the latest available patches... Comparing the situation to "siege-mentality" etc is taking a far-reached association so far that it's not even on the solar system anymore...

odinsen 11y ago
Listen. It's not an absurd expectation that a system only does exactly what it's told to do, and only when told to do so. Don't paint that premise as if it were some ridiculous pie-in-the-sky unattainable cadillac of desires.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >It's not an absurd expectation that a system only does exactly what it's told to do, and only when told to do so. Now, you listen: most simple (non techie) users don't know what they need to "tell browsers to do" in the first place, aside from loading webpages. We had what you propose and people were stuck with 10 year old IE6 versions, tons of viruses from old exploits and plugins, etc. Now we expect modern browsers to be evergreen and to keep themselves secure. That's part of what browser developers are implicitly "told to do" -- and people jump to those browsers (e.g. Firefox when it pioneered that evergreen thing and then Chrome).