Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I've quoted the New York mother
who taught her daughter, in a city with many dangers, "Be alert, be aware, but never be afraid".
That came to mind again when a writer I usually like, Scott Granneman, wrote about the abuse of fear to sell computer products.
His poster child example is Bill Gates trying to frighten people away from the Macintosh: "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally." Completely false, worse than any good-faith exaggeration could be, but it will stick in people's minds regardless.
Reason is your best ally in staying safe online. When I advise you to avoid all version of Microsoft Internet Explorer before version 7, it's because of the security bugs listed at Secunia and the prevalence of web pages that are dangerous to IE users (and the sheer extent of the damage they can cause you). But don't be afraid: install Firefox with the NoScript extension and enjoy the treasures of the web.
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That came to mind again when a writer I usually like, Scott Granneman, wrote about the abuse of fear to sell computer products.
His poster child example is Bill Gates trying to frighten people away from the Macintosh: "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally." Completely false, worse than any good-faith exaggeration could be, but it will stick in people's minds regardless.
Reason is your best ally in staying safe online. When I advise you to avoid all version of Microsoft Internet Explorer before version 7, it's because of the security bugs listed at Secunia and the prevalence of web pages that are dangerous to IE users (and the sheer extent of the damage they can cause you). But don't be afraid: install Firefox with the NoScript extension and enjoy the treasures of the web.
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