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>The computer belongs to the User. It's sole purpose is to compute, FOR THE USER. If your software is running on someone else's machine. And you want data exfil

>The computer belongs to the User. It's sole purpose is to compute, FOR THE USER. If your software is running on someone else's machine. And you want data exfiltrated back to you, normatively speaking, you should ANNOUNCE your intention, EXPLAIN it, and ASK for permission, this includes honoring their decision if they say NO. I can literally pop open a dialog box asking for permission to browse your Documents and extract some 'interesting' data and I bet 70% of users will click "ok", since, well, that's what The Computer (like it's its own sentient entity) "wants me to do", and I need to get my work done. Your suggestion simply cannot work, because 99.9999% of users don't hack their own .vimrc and have no idea what the heck those annoying boxes are asking of them, but they do know that by clicking "OK", the box goes away.

jacquesm 8y ago
What you can get away with does not change ownership. If you ring the doorbell of all apartments in a 20 unit block someone will open the door for you. That you can then walk in to the hallway and take whatever is there does not give you the right to do so.
salawat 8y ago
That computer is there for them to not do with as they please, as another poster mentioned. Yes, there are a LOT of defaults people will just "go with" on the basis of path of least resistance. That does not absolve we programmers and software engineers to write well behaved, principled software that respects the sanctity of the user's digital sovereignty. A computer is a tool, not a playground for the first person to throw code at it. Attitudes in the vein of your comment aren't uncommon, but that doesn't make them right. The fact it has taken so long for technical literacy to get to where it is at is because most people have grown accustomed to the machine making decisions for them because it didn't occur to the programmer to present the option to think for themselves. Or, that saintly programmer wanted to, but got shot down in the name of UX and quick KPI boosts rather than creating an experience of the computer as a tool a user can do something with. So again, I beg to differ.

jacquesm 8y ago

What you can get away with does not change ownership. If you ring the doorbell of all apartments in a 20 unit block someone will open the door for you. That you can then walk in to the hallway and take whatever is there does not give you the right to do so.

salawat 8y ago

That computer is there for them to not do with as they please, as another poster mentioned. Yes, there are a LOT of defaults people will just "go with" on the basis of path of least resistance. That does not absolve we programmers and software engineers to write well behaved, principled software that respects the sanctity of the user's digital sovereignty. A computer is a tool, not a playground for the first person to throw code at it. Attitudes in the vein of your comment aren't uncommon, but that doesn't make them right. The fact it has taken so long for technical literacy to get to where it is at is because most people have grown accustomed to the machine making decisions for them because it didn't occur to the programmer to present the option to think for themselves. Or, that saintly programmer wanted to, but got shot down in the name of UX and quick KPI boosts rather than creating an experience of the computer as a tool a user can do something with. So again, I beg to differ.