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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

It's time to start issuing PC licenses

55 comments

TAGS:botnet, desktop linux, patch, security, spam, Windows
IT TOPICS:Desktops & Servers, Hardware, Laptops & Netbooks, Linux, Operating Systems, Security, Software, Windows & Microsoft

If you think I'm about to make fun of Windows users because one in three of them haven't patched their PCs for a known security hole, which has been used by the Conficker worm to infect more than a million Windows PC in 24-hours, you'd be wrong. I'm also not going to make fun of Ubuntu Linux, because one Dell user couldn't get Linux to connect to the Internet or run a word processor.

No, what I think both situations show is that the most common problem with PC today is between the monitor and the keyboard, aka Joe User.

Joe, you see, is dumb. You'd think that in the 21st century with no one under the age of 40 able to remember when there were no PCs and no one under the age of 30 who can recall when there was no Web, that we'd be over basic computer illiteracy. You'd be wrong.

While Windows is insecure by design, you can stop most of its security problems just by patching it on a regular basis and using an anti-viral program. So simple even a chimp could do it right? Well maybe a chimp could, but not Joe User.

No matter how many times people are told to "Patch your computer," or "use anti-virus software," many of them don't. The result? According to MessageLabs, a security company, about 90% of all spam came from botnets.

Botnets, in turn, live on unprotected Windows PCs. In fact, by December 1st, we already knew that Conficker was being used to build botnets. So, several months after the problem was fixed, and six weeks after we knew a botnet was being built around this security hole, more than a third of Windows PCs were still wide open for attack. Amazing isn't it?

On the Linux side, we have a college student who was unable to manage even the basics of PC 101. She couldn't get an Internet connection up or open a word processor.

What both these cases have in common is that in 2008 we still have tens of millions of PC users who can't master even the basics of using a computer.

So, my modest suggestion is it's time to start licensing computer users. If you can't show that you're able to at least update your computer and use its software's basic functions, you're not allowed to play on the Internet.

I'm serious. Idiotic Windows users are costing everyone who uses the Internet time, trouble and money by enabling it to be flooded with malware and spam. Dumb users, on all operating systems, are showing that they're incapable of even using their PCs. So, why should they be allowed to run one?

Come on, we don't let drunks behind the wheel of a car, why should we let idiots on the Internet? Isn't it time we required at least Internet users to show that they have some kind of clue?

I'm not asking for people to show that they really understand their PC, operating system, or applications. I just want them to show that they know how to start, run, and stop their PCs. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

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I work in retail PC sales,

Submitted by Mordd on February 5, 2009 - 5:07 A.M.

I work in retail PC sales, and I can honestly not wait for the day when I can say:

"Sorry, no PC Licence, No Sale, thats the Law." and then point ominously to a government sign like ones you would see in a licensed premises.

Ah, but then the problem with PC Licences is they would still give them away in cereal boxes like they do with drivers licenses.

Although a PC License would create a black market for technology for stupid people, meaning we could rort them even more for the crappiest hardware than major retailers do at the moment, that is defintely an incentive.

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Wrong fix...

Submitted by Mark Walker on January 26, 2009 - 4:31 P.M.

Steven,

Go to the root cause to make the fix. If you want to license something, look no further than the software vendors. It has been amply demonstrated most lack sufficient incentive to produce quality software. And then, they crank out the vulnerabilities and we are the responsible parties for dealing with the repercussions?

Get real and take your head out of the shrink-wrap dude. PCs are nascent in-home appliances not automobiles which risk causing great bodily harm if misused.

Sure there's a history here, but just because we've been going about this *-backwards doesn't mean that's how we should continue, down the same path, happy with more potholes.

The right folks to avoid getting into this mess were the folks in a position to make the necessary changes to the products. Now they have to be stopped from digging future hole upon hole.

Just exactly why wasn't Microsoft at the forefront of dealing with malware abatement from the beginning? Why were they unable to acknowledge there was a problem brewing? Have they acknowledged it takes a different mindset to find how things fail than it does to figure out some way to create a new feature? Do they realize it is probably impossible for most people to succeed at working with the two different mindsets to create software and make it secure?

Given all the well known unix-land flaws that predated Windows, one would have thought there was plenty of warning to avoid going down the same road with newer software products.

Operating systems, their apps and major third-party applications need to be certified to be free of known exploitable flaws, pass source security analysis tools, survive statistical penetration efforts, etc.

We as customers must require this of the vendors before using their products if we want our systems to be ours rather than potentially "owned" by others.

Until we bite that bullet, it will be potholes as usual.

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Your recent article

Submitted by Charles Norrie on January 25, 2009 - 5:47 A.M.

While much of your article may be correct, I think your argument is wrongly directed.

In this world one should not have to patch patch and patch again standard industry software so it works.

It should work first time, and be quietly, invisibly and unintrusively corrected if it fails.

I don't expect to have a row with my light switch when I turn on the light, and software should try to do that too?

In fact, if you install Ubuntu that's exactly what happens.

Patching is invisibly carried out on frequent updates, it's all free including the packages, and by design it appears to be safe, the last virus attack in 1995.

Why not change the tone of your articles showing that there is a safe and convenient way of using PCs that you don't need either Microsoft professional certification or a degree in mathematics to use.

Why hide the good news?

Charles Norrie

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Definitely people are clueless..

Submitted by Anonymous on January 23, 2009 - 12:34 P.M.

Look how many still are not ready for the move
to digital broadcasts, and who was just elected
president!

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I must say here is a bit of

Submitted by Elliot on January 22, 2009 - 6:38 P.M.

I must say here is a bit of food for thought with certifying computer users. However, there is an operating system that has none of security flaws of Windows, but remains easy to use for everyone - namely the Macintosh computer.

Elliot

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Hmm, a hissy fit issue

Submitted by Anonymous on January 21, 2009 - 10:15 P.M.

Joe User is dumb? That's your topic? Can I get paid if I do what you do?

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Davros, a very good attempt

Submitted by Barry on January 21, 2009 - 1:01 A.M.

Davros, a very good attempt at rebuttal. It started off well but degenerated into a typical insider rant. Calm down and write some more please.

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Davros, a very good attempt follow-up

Submitted by Davros on January 21, 2009 - 4:52 A.M.

I thought the rant part was clearly deliniated as such with the description of "Tangent not directed at anyone". This whole idea is driven by people like the author and myself snapping after years and years of lowered expectations. We stayed calm too long. Even though I support the ideas expressed in the article, I still consider it kind of irrational. Insane ideas for insane times it would seem. Perhaps talking about something so extreme outloud is the first step in a solution that does not involved the actual licencing idea.

BTW, one of the reasons I put in the tangent was because I never, ever, read or hear someone willing to talk about this. I would love to be shown stuff that made it "typical". Maybe I could find an outlet with others to vent out the "holly crap" angry part of it before starting on the practical goal of just making the discussion of expected levels of user education more widespread.

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Analogies

Submitted by Davros on January 20, 2009 - 4:29 A.M.

Barry: Relative to expectations about computer usage people are expected to know allot about cars. They must know that a key starts something called an ignition, that fuel is required to keep the car running, and various symbols such as stop signs are to be memorized. I would use your analogy to support the point of the article. We think these things are intuitive but they are learnt. It's just that cars are so ingrained in our society that we consider these things obvious. The current situation is equivalent to people calling Toyota screaming that it is unfair to expect them to know what gasoline is and that they "just want a car that goes" and how dare they be expected to be experts. Ala, http://users.rcn.com/alderete/humor/comp/cars-as-computers.html

motie38: There is a difference between a few people in a group doing something bad and the current situation with computers. Your guns analogy would only work if 99.999% of gun owners had shot and killed four people each and got mad at gun manufacturers because of it.

Doc: No one would suggest that but would you be in favour of allowing people to become doctors if their entire medical knowledge consisted of knowing the names of four organs? Computers, like bodies have a minimum level of complexity, some knowledge is required. Reducing the need for knowledge to as little as possible in order to use the computer is great, but it can never be made to be nothing. The attitude that article wants to fight appears to be the one of reducing the requirements to be a doctor because the human body is hard to understand and we should not limit medical advances only to people who want to invest time in learning.

Anonymous who posted at January 17, 2009 - 1:13 A.M: You are probably right that the suggested measures would not work as well as what you describe, but maybe we should do them just in general principle. I know how the author feels and as terribly wrong as it may be in some ways, damn it would feel good to give a metaphorical slap to the stupid and tell people you have to have a modicum of knowledge to use this tool -you have to know that a screwdriver needs to be turned, and that using it to smash the top of a nail was unintended usage.

Tangent not directed at anyone, but directed to everyone:

I am a very big believer in making computers easy to use and allowing one and all to take advantage of them. However we are at a point where people are too stupid to exist and they blame the computer's designers.

Imagine if you had an amazing computer from say... the 25th century. A computer that you could speak to like a human and it would respond to your commands with whatever displays or sounds appropriate to help you. "Computer, please name three mountains found on Mars" you would say. "Certainly..." the computer would reply, "Mount Olympus, Mount Pavonis and Mount Arsia".

If current computer users and some of the posters here were having this conversation they would then exclaim "That doesn't tell me what I should eat for lunch! What a piece of crap. I am calling who made this and yelling at them about how difficult this thing is to use. Perhaps my local television station can help."

To make fire our ancient ancestors had to know to create friction by rubbing wood together, to make a wheel you had to know to carve the stone/bronze/whatever into a circle, all of our ancestors knew if you walked into a lake you would get wet. Now that we have these astounding and intricate, complex, technologies that bring us computers, we are expected to know less than nothing.

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To agree with you while still defending my analogy

Submitted by motie38 on January 26, 2009 - 6:56 P.M.

Referencing the malware, 99.999% of computer owners do not write malware. Only a very small number of computer owners and/or users write malware, just as only a very small number of gun owners and/or users commit crimes with them. Thus, my analogy stands.

However, I agree that a majority of computer users are ignorant, and a majority of those who are ignorant, and probably many of those who are not ignorant are still just plain stupid.

I think computer skills, including knowing the difference between hardware and software, and an operating system and an application should be taught in school, at least by third grade, if not before. Computers, in fact, should be a standard tool in education from day 1. But I have no faith that public education can deliver on that, considering public high school graduates do not know how to figure sales tax or count back change.

I also don't have much faith that Microsoft can deliver a secure operating system. So, as much as I hate it, I think part of that education should address the insecurities inherent in Microsoft operating systems and how to deal with them. And of course, one good way to deal with them is to avoid Microsoft operating systems. Hey, that should be an answer to a test question!

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