3 ms·

In the paragraphs I quoted, the point was basically: If Microsoft had tried what Apple actually did, it would have been a disaster for Microsoft. I think that's

by chroma 11y ago

In the paragraphs I quoted, the point was basically: If Microsoft had tried what Apple actually did, it would have been a disaster for Microsoft. I think that's accurate regardless of whether they were a monopoly or not. > Also malware infested vs walled garden is a false dichotomy How so? The vast majority of users can't tell if an application is malware. Better for them to put their trust in an authority who can tell (and who can punish authors of any malware that gets through).

loup-vaillant 11y ago
No uneducated user is safe. And I believe malware on smartphones are not unheard of. Short term, sure, give in to the walled garden. Long term though? Learning what a computer is might be a good idea.
- carapace 11y ago
  Sad that this is getting downvotes, it's one of the most important points about this vast machine we are building around ourselves: You cannot secure [people who suffer from] ignorance. "No uneducated user is safe." Very much so. Personally, I feel that this is a disgraceful failing on the part of the global computer industry et. al., but that is beside the main issue of, "What the heck are we going to do about this!?"
  - loup-vaillant 11y ago
    My take on it is, the computer industry, because they're capitalists like any industry, care about money. The engineers working there often care about the users of course, but the shareholders don't give a damn. They just want money. Ultimately, that greed determines the output of the engineers far more effectively than the ideals of the engineers themselves. (This could be generalised to basically any public company, and any of their employees. Employment is an amazing crowd control tool.) To sell stuff, promise of usefulness is more important than genuine usefulness. We only care about the substance insofar as it reinforces the appeal (fortunately, the stuff gotta be genuinely useful, or the scam would be exposed). The industry could explain how computers work, but that would be far less effective than selling selling a magic wand. So we end up with computers that hide their internals, so the user doesn't have to deal with them. Language based interface (command line) is put aside for the point & click "caveman interface" (Bret Victor showed us some amazing GUI, but rarely ever saw this since sketchpad). And we pile up abstractions on top of abstractions without stopping for a minute to consider the sheer madness of the distributed cognitive load implied by a personal computing system that requires over 10.000 thick books to write.
    - carapace 11y ago
      Yes, all of the above. This wasn't so bad when our reach was less, but today with Siri-like things being built into Barbie dolls it seems we should be spending more time thinking deeply before we chase that dollar, eh? (P.S. I'm a fan of your Earley Parser Explained post. Kudos, great job!)
- mamon 11y ago
  Do you decompile every Android app you install? Are you doing anti-malware analysis of their code or binaries? If not then being "educated user" doesn't really help you much. And in iPhone's case Apple is doing that security threat scan for you.
  - loup-vaillant 11y ago
    I don't, and I don't. On the other hand, I do know what I am clicking on, and I don't execute a program I have not explicitly trusted. (Mostly. The OS itself trusts many programs, which trust programs…) When I download stuff from the Debian repository, I trust the Debian team to do the security scanning for me. When I download The Witness, I trust Jonathan Blow, his team, and the distribution channel not to put malware in there. When I download a crack for some game I might or might not have bough, I trust the popularity of the corresponding torrent to correlate with a lack of malware. And when a pop-up bugs me, I just close it. I won't deny my computer is at risk. It is. Unlike most people however, I can use Windows for 2 years and have almost zero malware on it. Many people on the other hand let enough malware in to lag their computer to a crawl after a few months. Education doesn't solve all problems, but it does solve many —maybe even most.

by chroma 11y ago

loup-vaillant 11y ago

No uneducated user is safe. And I believe malware on smartphones are not unheard of. Short term, sure, give in to the walled garden. Long term though? Learning what a computer is might be a good idea.

carapace 11y ago
Sad that this is getting downvotes, it's one of the most important points about this vast machine we are building around ourselves: You cannot secure [people who suffer from] ignorance. "No uneducated user is safe." Very much so. Personally, I feel that this is a disgraceful failing on the part of the global computer industry et. al., but that is beside the main issue of, "What the heck are we going to do about this!?"
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  My take on it is, the computer industry, because they're capitalists like any industry, care about money. The engineers working there often care about the users of course, but the shareholders don't give a damn. They just want money. Ultimately, that greed determines the output of the engineers far more effectively than the ideals of the engineers themselves. (This could be generalised to basically any public company, and any of their employees. Employment is an amazing crowd control tool.) To sell stuff, promise of usefulness is more important than genuine usefulness. We only care about the substance insofar as it reinforces the appeal (fortunately, the stuff gotta be genuinely useful, or the scam would be exposed). The industry could explain how computers work, but that would be far less effective than selling selling a magic wand. So we end up with computers that hide their internals, so the user doesn't have to deal with them. Language based interface (command line) is put aside for the point & click "caveman interface" (Bret Victor showed us some amazing GUI, but rarely ever saw this since sketchpad). And we pile up abstractions on top of abstractions without stopping for a minute to consider the sheer madness of the distributed cognitive load implied by a personal computing system that requires over 10.000 thick books to write.
  - carapace 11y ago
    Yes, all of the above. This wasn't so bad when our reach was less, but today with Siri-like things being built into Barbie dolls it seems we should be spending more time thinking deeply before we chase that dollar, eh? (P.S. I'm a fan of your Earley Parser Explained post. Kudos, great job!)
mamon 11y ago
Do you decompile every Android app you install? Are you doing anti-malware analysis of their code or binaries? If not then being "educated user" doesn't really help you much. And in iPhone's case Apple is doing that security threat scan for you.
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  I don't, and I don't. On the other hand, I do know what I am clicking on, and I don't execute a program I have not explicitly trusted. (Mostly. The OS itself trusts many programs, which trust programs…) When I download stuff from the Debian repository, I trust the Debian team to do the security scanning for me. When I download The Witness, I trust Jonathan Blow, his team, and the distribution channel not to put malware in there. When I download a crack for some game I might or might not have bough, I trust the popularity of the corresponding torrent to correlate with a lack of malware. And when a pop-up bugs me, I just close it. I won't deny my computer is at risk. It is. Unlike most people however, I can use Windows for 2 years and have almost zero malware on it. Many people on the other hand let enough malware in to lag their computer to a crawl after a few months. Education doesn't solve all problems, but it does solve many —maybe even most.