One last thought has been tickling my mind when it came to that WSJ article I linked to the other day. It was about control and telling people not to cross the lines or do things they’re not supposed to do. Think about that for a moment. How far would we get if everyone stayed between the lines? While there are some ethical near-absolutes like murder, most everything else is such small beans that pushing the boundaries now and then can be a good thing. Like working out, you can’t build muscle without first making thousands of micro-tears to induce stronger rebuilding. Growing pains, which are going to be abundant in our culture and technology for some time. Even if we don’t act on them, it is good to think about them and question our policilial (yes, I make up words) stances.
Besides, even if our users know all this junk, we protect against it, right? Full disclosure?
Exactly right! Who cares if some 20 year old economics and creative writing journalist tells the world some (pretty lame) things to do with a PC? Fine, tell her she’s wrong, make her do 100 lines or something, get her to write another article saying what a bad thing it is, but why the big issue? There are simple ways to protect against everything she talks about, and if you’re not doing them, you’re bad at security!