Microsoft report: Users responsible for half of all infections

Yes, I'm sure.

"Wow, some of you are clearly from this new generation that harbors this sense of "entitlement"

I'm not sure exactly which generation wat0114 is talking about, but by 'new generation' I assumed that he was talking about people twenty-five & under. I could be wrong about this though. I just think that it is essentially wrong to stereotype all young people with being irresponsible. You wouldn't make racial, geographical or ethnic judgements so sweeping & bigoted. I should hope not anyway.

I'm not blaming the OS for panicking, hitting or installing anything. I'm not blaming young people or older people, for that matter I'm not blaming Uncle Tom Cobley & all either. In my opinion most people who become infected are not irresponsible, communists, anarchists, international terrorists or young savages who have been overly spoonfed, but merely average people who are inexperienced with computers & possibly unfamiliar with some certain invasive or socially engineered forms of malware.

Many have been fooled by the Ammyy.com cold-call scam, does it make them irresponsible & spoon fed nihilistic anarchists? Or are they vulnerable people targeted by criminals & scammers?

 

I agree with you that a app store is not the "holy grail", but it mitigates malware attacks more effectively. Off-topic: I have no idea why I have a " " emoticon in my original post, that was not towards you .

 

There was no intent in getting into a political debate on young people and lableing them all as feeling a sense of self entitlement. The intent was only to use an analogy against what's seen in this and other threads where some are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of MS for security issues.

Completely barking up the wrong side of the tree in interpreting what I was suggesting.

 

The issue is obviously more complicated than first meets the eye, it's worth remembering that this report is from Microsoft itself. Obviously users are responsible for infections, usually computers don't deliberately infect themselves. My point is that this statistic of 'half' of all infections is probably caused as much by ignorance & unfamiliarity with computers as anything else.

 

I'm not the one who's barking mate, you distinctly wrote: "It's prevalent in society nowadays with the younger age group in particular. You see it in the news where the offender of a crime has more rights than the victim, because somehow it wasn't the fault of the offender for comitting the crime; rather it was the fault of their parents or society in general by not spoonfeeding them through life."

I fail to see what this has to do with half of all users getting themselves infected, which in my opinion has nothing to do with prevalences in society, the younger age group in particular, the news reports of 'offenders' with more rights than 'victims' or spoonfeeding of any description.

Unless you wish to enlighten us on why you felt the need to mention specific age groups, supposed government legal policies or the apparent spoonfeeding of specific groups of individuals.

 

Maybe point form will make it clear?

- Some people in this thread and others blame MS and others such as Google and Apple for security exploits.

- Those same people want these companies to take FULL responsibility for securiing their products.

- They suggest users of these products should not have to take any responsibility for computer secuirty. I disagree.

- I suggested this is a sense of entitlement prevalent in the new generation today (you will be hard pressed to disprove this, btw, but that's a completely unrelated topic for a secuirty forum).

- My post was directed, rather clearly I thought, at those in this forum who hold this stance.

 

I think the idea wat0114 is referring to is seen more in youth than older generations, not that all youth or a percentage of youth prescribe to it. A common analogy could be that I have been at my job for 24 years. I have done the manual labor, I have as they say "paid my dues". Now I get jobs that require more "know how and experience", which happens to require less physical labor. A person who feels they are entitled then thinks they should have my job even though they have only been here for 2 years. They feel they deserve it more than me, perhaps because they have a boiler-makers license or just that they are "better". They give no credence to the fact that I have started at the bottom and through diligence and effort, literally worked my way to the top (whatever top is). I think that is the sort of "entitlement" wat0114 is referring to. (btw, that is a true story).

I realize you are not blaming anyone, you just used an analogy. I did not take it any way but an example you were giving. I agree, most people who have problems are just regular people who really don't have an interest in this stuff at all. They are easily fooled and have lots of problems. They unfortunately though are using a tool which now requires some sort of basic education when it comes to security. A great number of average users really don't want to learn such things, as they have better things to do than learn about computers. But, the way of people being stupid (hackers/crackers/amway salesmen ) by taking advantag/being malicious, there really isn't an option any more. If you want to use the internet, and you want to stay away from problems, you had best learn some basics at a minimum.

You are absolutely right IMO on this. This is where the average user lies to this day. If they don't know what amway is, then they might still fall for the MLM tricks. But also, at some point you must use your brain. Even if you have never heard of amway, the sales pitch to "get rich quick" should (one would hope) make you really think about what you are being told. In the end, while you would not think of people who give in to amway sales pressure as anarchists, they really did have a choise to join or not. They can't blame it on the fact that they did not hear about this before, as they chose to buy into it. Blaming a consumer advocacy program or the government or some other entity for not informing them is passing the buck, and not taking the responsibility for thier own actions.

One could say that about a car too. If a certain car is problem prone, and you buy it, only to find out later that consumers research has a great article that says "don't buy this car", is consumers research to blame because you did not read that? Of course not, your are because you decided to buy the car.

Of course there are many legitimate reasons to pass the blame. If you buy something that does not work as advertised, it isn't your fault when you bought it thinking it would do something it claimed to do. It is the fault of the advertising, whomever that blame falls on.

I think HungryMans idea of the OS being responsible for our security is a nice idea, but I don't think it will ever happen. As long as the user (whether us experienced users or average joe user) wants to have the right to install what they want, or run what they want (have root rights), how can we really, honestly, expect the OS to protects us from ourselves? The "entitlement" issue wat0114 mentions applies in this type of situation (IMHO) because the idea that it is the responsibility of the OS to keep us secure while at the same time allowing us to install/run whatever we want is just wrong. You cannot allow the user to have carte blance control and also maintain complete security - the two are mutually exclusive. You either let the user have root and help them as much as possible (UAC, DEP, EMET, LUA, IL) or you retain control over what they do to insure they don't bork the system. Passing the buck to the OS would only be pertinent for exploitable holes they should have patched, not problems incurred when you accidentily said "yes" to the wrong thing.

Opinions differ, this is just mine.

Sul.

 

It's clear enough.

That's their subjective opinion & I'm sure that they have cogent arguments to back them up.

See above.

OK.

Not only is it an unrelated & irrelevant topic for a security forum, you would be hard pressed to prove the cogency of the 'sense of entitlement' case. Where is your evidence & statistics? I'd dearly love to see them. There is no evidence is there?

Not clearly enough obviously. I'd have thought that you would have directly addressed the spoon-fed entitlement prevalent generation themselves. Wouldn't that make more sense?

 

Yes, fair-do's, but I don't know how you can apply this to Microsoft's statistics about infections. Plus, it is easy to stereotype any generation & make sweeping generalisations, which is essentially what wat0114 was doing. That was what I was disagreeing with.

I agree, it's just that computer security isn't a priority for most people. Most of my work colleagues think that I am a bit of an anorak for merely mentioning computer security. Educating the general public is a must these days. I honestly think that MS are trying a bit though. I like MSE LOL!

I think that wat0114 had a different definition of 'entitlement' in mind. Overall though, I tend to agree with everything you've said. Security on the Net is a big issue for all of us now & should be treated more seriously by everybody.

 

Well dave,

my apologies if I hit a nerve with you. That was not the intent, even if my statements were rather blunt and even somewhat scathing, as they often are, I admit, but there really is a method to my madness, and it's not to attack people but rather an attempt to get people to take a step back and reasses their stance on whatever security topic is at hand, and a topic I feel strongly about. It simply nonplusses me that there are people who expect full responsibility from the vendors of O/S' and other programs for ensuring 100% security, expecting nothing at all from the end user. Clearly I'm not alone on this, so I can't be completely off my rocker, LOL.

Thank you Sully for your support and attempt to clear the air. You explain things far better than I, especially when it comes to logic and diplomacy and I want to make it clear I did not enlist Sul for his help. He volunteered it without my request. He's a good man

 

It's OK. I probably shouldn't have beleaguered the point. I just think that it is too easy to blame a certain group or creed without reason. I'm sure MS is fully aware of its limitations in security & the complexity of the average end-user factored into that. Of course, the real blame should be on the people who distribute malware to begin with.

 

lol alright

I agree that an app store is a nice help.

 

Doesn't Microsoft say that pirated versions are insecure?

 

If they do they're lying.

 

If I remember correctly I think I read one time that if it isn't genuine, you cannot be sure it hasn't been modified - thus insecure. That seemed to make sense to me at the time, that if you get a torrent of a pirated OS, how can you be sure it isn't meant to phone home, etc.

Sul.

 

That's why so many at Wilders prefer to download software from the "original" source rather than third-party sites.

I think that by not taking any visible measures to stop piracy of its products, Microsoft is doing a great disservice and this deliberate act of neglect detracts from its other highly visible and well-publicized campaigns to show its operating system and browser as the safest.

Neglecting to combat piracy also impacts its shareholders. I don't follow MSFT closely enough to know whether shareholders are aware of this deliberate destruction of value.

Someone mentioned Android. Now, with Microsoft collecting a percentage of Android sales, wouldn't they also be blamed for Android's security weaknesses?

I hope this particular post is not perceived as being off-topic.