Why do you think someone is innocent if they let some third party use their computer without permission? For essentially all malware that makes your computer part of a larger botnet, you have to be extremely careless to let it get on your device, not dissimilar to leaving your car unlocked when it is subsequently stolen and used in a crime (or just misused by playing kids). The latter is illegal[0], why should the former be ok?
Tell dont not to open .exe file in Email.
"What is .exe files?"
Dont use IE
"What is IE? Next time they click on it to get to the Internet"
Can You please stoping using XP?
"Why should I pay for upgrade when everything i do is working perfectly fine?"
Honestly, there are people who dont know Shxt. And they dont want to know about it either. To them even basic computer usage is extremely complex. That is why Tablet, is getting the traction in Grandma and others who dont want anything but a Internet and Application capable Appliance.
How much do you know about your car's internal combustion engine and components?
Your home electrical?
Your home plumbing? Natural Gas? Lawn care?
The pumps that fuel your car tank?
Not everyone can be an expert in everything. Someone who makes their living perfecting one of those aspects might look at things you do and say "don't do that, you're damaging it" but to you its "who cares? I just need it to work and its been fine up until now!"
Computers/software might be your thing but they're not Grandma's so don't push your agenda on someone just because they might have some ignorance you don't.
Yeah, exactly. We almost live in computers, most of our friends and colleagues do, but there are so many people for who computer is just a black box. And there is nothing to be angry about. You don't want car mechanic, or plumber to be thinking that you are an idiot, casual users don't want that either, they just have more important things to care about :)
Indeed. I used to catch tons of shit about not understanding cars from a mechanic friend until his laptop died and I helped him recover photos of his kids.
Now we're both content to be wizards of our own domains without talking down to each other about it.
I would have expected a lot of HN users and a majority of those working professionally in technology to have at least basic high school knowledge of electrical and mechanical principals.
If I where interviewing some one for a developer role and they had not at least heard of ohms law or similar basic principals I would probably pass on them.
"not dissimilar to leaving your car unlocked when it is subsequently stolen and used in a crime"
In the US at least, this is not a crime. If someone leaves their car unlocked by accident, why should they get punished if someone steals it and uses it for a crime?
Victim blaming is not the answer, it's just silly.
> In the US at least, this is not a crime. If someone leaves their car unlocked by accident, why should they get punished if someone steals it and uses it for a crime?
Negligence. If you own a powerful tool, you are at least in part responsible for it not to be misused. Similarly to how you are usually required to keep your guns locked away and are held responsible (at least ideally…) if someone steals them from your kitchen table and misuses them, you are held responsible if someone just sits in your car and drives off to kill someone.
> Victim blaming is not the answer, it's just silly.
Except that the victim in a DDoS is the person being ddos’d, not the random user who installed malware. If someone gave you a key and said “Enter this flat over there, take the computer, bring it to me and I’ll give you 10€“, you couldn’t later claim to be a “victim” because they stole your time. If someone sends you a file and goes “double-click this and you’ll get fantastic porn”, I don’t see how you could later claim to be a victim if they stole part of your data cap.
If someone tells you "Enter this flat over there, take the computer, bring it to me and I’ll give you 10€", its on you to realize that that is illegal (and morally wrong) and refuse to comply.
"Double-click this for fantastic porn", on the other hand, will sound perfectly legitimate to many unsuspecting computer users. And there is nothing inherently illegal about the act.
A gun is one of the few things you could reasonably make the negligence argument with. Anyone can get a car, or a knife, or a big plank, and leaving one in the street with no lock does not meaningfully contribute to crime.
[0] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvo_2013/__14.html