6 ms·

A general comment: the need of the hour is to educate the billions of 'ordinary' computer users about the basics of software, privacy, security and trust. We mu

A general comment: the need of the hour is to educate the billions of 'ordinary' computer users about the basics of software, privacy, security and trust. We must not fall into the narrative being parroted around off-late that considers end-users as pretty much dumb content consumers who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech and therefore every decision needs to be made for them by a small minority of corporations, govts, and the tech elite acting as gatekeepers and overseers. This is a dangerous road to go down unwittingly. Too much de facto power is concentrated in the hands of the few while the rest are gradually trained into normalise being helplessly manipulated and told to defer to authority.

peterwwillis 7y ago
What you're asking for is technology literacy, similar to science literacy. Adults generally don't care to learn this stuff. But you can teach the next generation.
- Santosh83 7y ago
  Yes, and the tech industry is already several decades old and multiple generations have come and gone, but today's tech consumers seem to be even less confident of poking behind the surface than those of the yesteryears. And do note that there was a point in history when even basic literacy belonged to a small few who argued in exactly the same manner than tech people do today, i.e., that most people will never be able to understand basic science and maths, and we cannot hope for any better than to be benevolent dictators. Later history proved the hollowness of those claims. Today the majority in most of the developed and some of the developing countries are basically literate and what their grandparents couldn't imagine doing, they do effortlessly today. I don't see a single reason why computer sector should be any different. I'm not talking about a deep understanding of computers, just basic literacy that would obviate the excuse for tight, walled gardens and locked down devices.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > but today's tech consumers seem to be even less confident of poking behind the surface than those of the yesteryears. To be fair, I'm less confident poking around behind the surface because what used to be relatively straight forward has become --for various reasons, few of which are legitimate in my eyes-- absurdly complicated.
  - jasode 7y ago
    >I'm not talking about a deep understanding of computers, just basic literacy that would obviate the excuse for tight, walled gardens and locked down devices. I disagree on this. I have a friend who has "basic computer literacy" as in knows how to use MS Excel, KeePass, etc. And yet, she inadvertently got a virus on her laptop. It was puzzling how she could have gotten it. She doesn't visit the usual suspects of porn/gaming/gambling/etc websites. Just normal stuff like CNN, WSJ, etc. The only reason we found out about it was her email account got locked out by the ISP. Apparently, the malware found her MS Outlook email account and used a hidden background service to send a bunch of spam messages using her email profile. Understandably, the ISP monitors SMTP traffic sent from residential addresses and when it hits an unusual threshold, they lock out the account. To clean up the malware, I reformatted her laptop and got the email reset with a new password. On the other hand, with her Apple iPhone and the locked-down walled garden, I really don't have to worry about malware to the same degree. Yes, the Apple app review process is not infallible and theoretically, she could get infected by downloading a fake bank app that steals all her money. However, the possibilities for that nightmare scenario are drastically reduced in the closed Apple ecosystem. Even programmers, who we'd classify has uber-computer-literate compared to the general population can unwittingly get bit by malware: Javascript programmers vulnerable to NPM package repository malware: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/12/npm_eslint/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/12/npm_eslint/ Microsoft's uber geek expert Mark Russinovich got infected by Sony's rootkit: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2005/10/31/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights-management-gone-too-far/ https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2005/10/... What's the solution for those programmers? Educate them on how to use computers? But they're already educated. Yes, I get the hacker ethos of not having locked-down devices but we also overestimate the ability for the general population to maintain safe computing devices. Heck, I'm a techie that programs in Xcode and I'm not confident I'm really literate on all the vulnerabilities of the iPhone. Thus, it seems unreasonable I would expect non-programmers to "just be educated" to make the App Store's curation unnecessary.
- mwcampbell 7y ago
  I want to do this with my nieces and nephew, if they and their parents are willing. I think I already screwed up, though, when I bought Amazon Fire tablets for three of them for Christmas in 2017. Granted, they were around 3 years old at the time, so maybe they couldn't handle anything more. Still, I'm wondering what I should buy them next time. My sense of nostalgia tells me that I should buy them something at least as hackable as my Apple IIGS was. But that might not be practical. As one of my best friends pointed out to me, if I buy them an all-open-source computer, they're likely to protest, "But Uncle Matt, why can't it play [insert kids' TV show here]?". And they're not likely to accept my anti-DRM stance.
  - f1refly 7y ago
    Buying three year old kids tablets for Christmas is already a fuckup imo. They're not even able to have logical thoughts, don't feed them digital heroin already!
lm28469 7y ago
> that considers end-users as pretty much dumb content consumers who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech and therefore every decision needs to be made for them by a small minority of corporations, govts, and the tech elite acting as gatekeepers and overseers. That's what we do in every other domains, what's the difference here ?
- dictum 7y ago
  We can act more effectively in the domains in which we are most authoritative, knowledgeable and able to effect change.
  - lm28469 7y ago
    Yes, we, as tech workers. Most people aren't "us". It's perfectly understandable for places like the android/apple app stores to be heavily moderated. Same reasoning for forcing people to have their cars serviced by mechanics and not do their own maintenance in their backyards. Otherwise we'd have people driving cars without pipes and DIY break pads. I'd much rather have that enforced by megacorps/govt than by an infinite amount of businesses/individuals trying to game the system. For most people a smartphone is an entertainment device, a tool at best, they don't give a single fuck about the underlying tech and they should not. Feel free to root your phone and install whatever you want, you can't ask people to become tech literate, it's your hobby/job, not their. Our job is to provide them safe tools, not teach them about tech. Look at your own life, chances are you don't even have surface knowledge of 99% of the things you use daily, and that's perfectly fine, nobody expects you to be a furniture designer, building safety inspector and car mechanic.
    - jkilpatr 7y ago
      In every other field people are reasonably held responsible for their failures. As a service tech if I fill a car with tomato sauce instead of oil I pay for the car. As a programmer I can sell all the users data, leak it to hacks, then laugh all the way to the bank. As a furniture salesman I can requirements on materials transparency. If I break those I'm liable. As a programmer I can totally change the rules of my application at any time. If society wants to trust tech it will have to hold it's creators responsible.
krageon 7y ago
> who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech I have worked in this industry for long enough to know that even assuming a minimum of knowledge at all is a bad idea. You can fight this fight as you want, but this comment has nothing in it to convince be otherwise.
- CountHackulus 7y ago
  Why do you think this? It's a pretty bold statement.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - gravypod 7y ago
    Not the original person but: In one company I had built a reporting system. An end user generated a report and contacted support. The report contained a column that they didn't understand the meaning of..... The column was "Date" and it was the date that had occurred. They suggested that we explained that in the generated report because it was confusing. This was a medical professional.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    (12 years of corporate IT support experience and 40 years working with tech in general) Because it's human nature to only care about details that you believe you need to know in order to manage some part of your life. If you don't see a clear and immediate value in learning something, you won't. No matter what anyone else says or does to try and convince you, you won't. Then you get burned by something you didn't know, and there's a 50/50 chance you'll learn about it then, and only if you're convinced that it's something YOU have to do, that can't be managed for you. And most people resent having to learn that much. I no longer try to convince anyone of anything tech related. And rarely answer much when I am asked, unless I can see that the person is truly interested, not just curious about some buzzword.
    - CountHackulus 7y ago
szczepano 7y ago
In my opinion it's not the problem of software but the problem of hardware. You can more easily write software then produce phone hardware. From consumer perspective it's quite easy to make custom computer and use custom os on it cause most of drivers are open and you can see there are plenty of computer operating systems in the world, on the other hand most of phones hardware and os is proprietary what was not an issue when we were using it for calling not using it as alternative to traditional computer. So first we need to define what is broken, from my perspective broken is phone hardware.
orbital-decay 7y ago
I've tried to educate many people on a personal level and failed miserably almost every time, being perceived and dismissed as an evangelist for some weird ideology they don't care about (and I took it very slow and tried really, really hard not to sound as one). Maybe they are right, after all? Who am I to dictate or even influence what they should care about, especially if they don't experience that clearly. People never become tech literate until it bites them in the ass. They have to face the consequences, that's how it works. Meanwhile in 2019, most people still find "nothing to hide" attitude perfectly reasonable.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  I wonder, were at some point doctors warning about cancer from second-hand smoking dismissed like that.
  - ur-whale 7y ago
    The still are today (unless you live in em-bubbled places like Cali.)
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  But it is actually an ideology... It's the same as why people don't care about climate change or other far removed things from everyday life. For the normal, everyday non-tech user, they see that all their friends use these apps and nothing has ever happened to them. The FBI didn't come knocking, they weren't fired from their jobs or anything like that. From their point of view, why should they care about repositories, digital signatures etc., when they just want to use Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp and so on for some after-work (or during-work) fun / brain-swithoff. They just post some silly pictures or watch some Youtuber videos. All these concerns about privacy just don't reach the everyday reality and real-life concerns of people and is in effect an ideological thing, similar to rejecting proprietary software on the desktop due to moral and political beliefs. > They have to face the consequences, that's how it works The consequences (app creators changing their practices and policies) will be spread over everyone, not on individual users. As long as their friends and society keeps using it, most people will as well. If it slowly dies out, people will use whatever is new. Most people are not that much attached to using these apps, just use them out of boredom or to interact with others. They'd easily move on if that's how things evolve.
IAmEveryone 7y ago
I know plenty about software, privacy, security, and trust. And I'm happy with these stores and couldn't care less about your cyberpunk libertarianism. This isn't 1984. The moment they seriously misbehave, the law will come at them, and customers will leave. Therefore they don't. You're indulging in fantasies because you would like to believe that what interests you is all-important. That's normal: all epidemiologists belief we should talk about the flu a lot more. But it's just a tiny slice of what matters. So don't disparage people as stupid just because they spend their energy and time with more important things than recompiling kernels.

peterwwillis 7y ago

What you're asking for is technology literacy, similar to science literacy. Adults generally don't care to learn this stuff. But you can teach the next generation.

Santosh83 7y ago
Yes, and the tech industry is already several decades old and multiple generations have come and gone, but today's tech consumers seem to be even less confident of poking behind the surface than those of the yesteryears. And do note that there was a point in history when even basic literacy belonged to a small few who argued in exactly the same manner than tech people do today, i.e., that most people will never be able to understand basic science and maths, and we cannot hope for any better than to be benevolent dictators. Later history proved the hollowness of those claims. Today the majority in most of the developed and some of the developing countries are basically literate and what their grandparents couldn't imagine doing, they do effortlessly today. I don't see a single reason why computer sector should be any different. I'm not talking about a deep understanding of computers, just basic literacy that would obviate the excuse for tight, walled gardens and locked down devices.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > but today's tech consumers seem to be even less confident of poking behind the surface than those of the yesteryears. To be fair, I'm less confident poking around behind the surface because what used to be relatively straight forward has become --for various reasons, few of which are legitimate in my eyes-- absurdly complicated.
- jasode 7y ago
  >I'm not talking about a deep understanding of computers, just basic literacy that would obviate the excuse for tight, walled gardens and locked down devices. I disagree on this. I have a friend who has "basic computer literacy" as in knows how to use MS Excel, KeePass, etc. And yet, she inadvertently got a virus on her laptop. It was puzzling how she could have gotten it. She doesn't visit the usual suspects of porn/gaming/gambling/etc websites. Just normal stuff like CNN, WSJ, etc. The only reason we found out about it was her email account got locked out by the ISP. Apparently, the malware found her MS Outlook email account and used a hidden background service to send a bunch of spam messages using her email profile. Understandably, the ISP monitors SMTP traffic sent from residential addresses and when it hits an unusual threshold, they lock out the account. To clean up the malware, I reformatted her laptop and got the email reset with a new password. On the other hand, with her Apple iPhone and the locked-down walled garden, I really don't have to worry about malware to the same degree. Yes, the Apple app review process is not infallible and theoretically, she could get infected by downloading a fake bank app that steals all her money. However, the possibilities for that nightmare scenario are drastically reduced in the closed Apple ecosystem. Even programmers, who we'd classify has uber-computer-literate compared to the general population can unwittingly get bit by malware: Javascript programmers vulnerable to NPM package repository malware: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/12/npm_eslint/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/12/npm_eslint/ Microsoft's uber geek expert Mark Russinovich got infected by Sony's rootkit: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2005/10/31/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights-management-gone-too-far/ https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2005/10/... What's the solution for those programmers? Educate them on how to use computers? But they're already educated. Yes, I get the hacker ethos of not having locked-down devices but we also overestimate the ability for the general population to maintain safe computing devices. Heck, I'm a techie that programs in Xcode and I'm not confident I'm really literate on all the vulnerabilities of the iPhone. Thus, it seems unreasonable I would expect non-programmers to "just be educated" to make the App Store's curation unnecessary.
mwcampbell 7y ago
I want to do this with my nieces and nephew, if they and their parents are willing. I think I already screwed up, though, when I bought Amazon Fire tablets for three of them for Christmas in 2017. Granted, they were around 3 years old at the time, so maybe they couldn't handle anything more. Still, I'm wondering what I should buy them next time. My sense of nostalgia tells me that I should buy them something at least as hackable as my Apple IIGS was. But that might not be practical. As one of my best friends pointed out to me, if I buy them an all-open-source computer, they're likely to protest, "But Uncle Matt, why can't it play [insert kids' TV show here]?". And they're not likely to accept my anti-DRM stance.
- f1refly 7y ago
  Buying three year old kids tablets for Christmas is already a fuckup imo. They're not even able to have logical thoughts, don't feed them digital heroin already!

lm28469 7y ago

> that considers end-users as pretty much dumb content consumers who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech and therefore every decision needs to be made for them by a small minority of corporations, govts, and the tech elite acting as gatekeepers and overseers. That's what we do in every other domains, what's the difference here ?

dictum 7y ago
We can act more effectively in the domains in which we are most authoritative, knowledgeable and able to effect change.
- lm28469 7y ago
  Yes, we, as tech workers. Most people aren't "us". It's perfectly understandable for places like the android/apple app stores to be heavily moderated. Same reasoning for forcing people to have their cars serviced by mechanics and not do their own maintenance in their backyards. Otherwise we'd have people driving cars without pipes and DIY break pads. I'd much rather have that enforced by megacorps/govt than by an infinite amount of businesses/individuals trying to game the system. For most people a smartphone is an entertainment device, a tool at best, they don't give a single fuck about the underlying tech and they should not. Feel free to root your phone and install whatever you want, you can't ask people to become tech literate, it's your hobby/job, not their. Our job is to provide them safe tools, not teach them about tech. Look at your own life, chances are you don't even have surface knowledge of 99% of the things you use daily, and that's perfectly fine, nobody expects you to be a furniture designer, building safety inspector and car mechanic.
  - jkilpatr 7y ago
    In every other field people are reasonably held responsible for their failures. As a service tech if I fill a car with tomato sauce instead of oil I pay for the car. As a programmer I can sell all the users data, leak it to hacks, then laugh all the way to the bank. As a furniture salesman I can requirements on materials transparency. If I break those I'm liable. As a programmer I can totally change the rules of my application at any time. If society wants to trust tech it will have to hold it's creators responsible.

krageon 7y ago

> who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech I have worked in this industry for long enough to know that even assuming a minimum of knowledge at all is a bad idea. You can fight this fight as you want, but this comment has nothing in it to convince be otherwise.

CountHackulus 7y ago
Why do you think this? It's a pretty bold statement.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gravypod 7y ago
  Not the original person but: In one company I had built a reporting system. An end user generated a report and contacted support. The report contained a column that they didn't understand the meaning of..... The column was "Date" and it was the date that had occurred. They suggested that we explained that in the generated report because it was confusing. This was a medical professional.
- zentiggr 7y ago
  (12 years of corporate IT support experience and 40 years working with tech in general) Because it's human nature to only care about details that you believe you need to know in order to manage some part of your life. If you don't see a clear and immediate value in learning something, you won't. No matter what anyone else says or does to try and convince you, you won't. Then you get burned by something you didn't know, and there's a 50/50 chance you'll learn about it then, and only if you're convinced that it's something YOU have to do, that can't be managed for you. And most people resent having to learn that much. I no longer try to convince anyone of anything tech related. And rarely answer much when I am asked, unless I can see that the person is truly interested, not just curious about some buzzword.
  - CountHackulus 7y ago

szczepano 7y ago

In my opinion it's not the problem of software but the problem of hardware. You can more easily write software then produce phone hardware. From consumer perspective it's quite easy to make custom computer and use custom os on it cause most of drivers are open and you can see there are plenty of computer operating systems in the world, on the other hand most of phones hardware and os is proprietary what was not an issue when we were using it for calling not using it as alternative to traditional computer. So first we need to define what is broken, from my perspective broken is phone hardware.

orbital-decay 7y ago

I've tried to educate many people on a personal level and failed miserably almost every time, being perceived and dismissed as an evangelist for some weird ideology they don't care about (and I took it very slow and tried really, really hard not to sound as one). Maybe they are right, after all? Who am I to dictate or even influence what they should care about, especially if they don't experience that clearly. People never become tech literate until it bites them in the ass. They have to face the consequences, that's how it works. Meanwhile in 2019, most people still find "nothing to hide" attitude perfectly reasonable.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
I wonder, were at some point doctors warning about cancer from second-hand smoking dismissed like that.
- ur-whale 7y ago
  The still are today (unless you live in em-bubbled places like Cali.)
bonoboTP 7y ago
But it is actually an ideology... It's the same as why people don't care about climate change or other far removed things from everyday life. For the normal, everyday non-tech user, they see that all their friends use these apps and nothing has ever happened to them. The FBI didn't come knocking, they weren't fired from their jobs or anything like that. From their point of view, why should they care about repositories, digital signatures etc., when they just want to use Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp and so on for some after-work (or during-work) fun / brain-swithoff. They just post some silly pictures or watch some Youtuber videos. All these concerns about privacy just don't reach the everyday reality and real-life concerns of people and is in effect an ideological thing, similar to rejecting proprietary software on the desktop due to moral and political beliefs. > They have to face the consequences, that's how it works The consequences (app creators changing their practices and policies) will be spread over everyone, not on individual users. As long as their friends and society keeps using it, most people will as well. If it slowly dies out, people will use whatever is new. Most people are not that much attached to using these apps, just use them out of boredom or to interact with others. They'd easily move on if that's how things evolve.

IAmEveryone 7y ago

I know plenty about software, privacy, security, and trust. And I'm happy with these stores and couldn't care less about your cyberpunk libertarianism. This isn't 1984. The moment they seriously misbehave, the law will come at them, and customers will leave. Therefore they don't. You're indulging in fantasies because you would like to believe that what interests you is all-important. That's normal: all epidemiologists belief we should talk about the flu a lot more. But it's just a tiny slice of what matters. So don't disparage people as stupid just because they spend their energy and time with more important things than recompiling kernels.