As for this study, if the young’uns who are wired up the beehind can’t figure out not to click on these dialogs, what hope is there of Granny not wiping out her photo collection and her computer becoming a malware and spam spewing infector to others?
Some researchers have tested how college students respond to fake dialog boxes in browser popup windows and found that the students are so anxious to get the dialog out of the way, they click right through obvious warning signs.
The authors, who work in the Psychology Department of North Carolina State University, crafted a set of four fake dialog boxes. All of them contained the following warning: “The instruction at ‘0x77f41d24 referenced memory at ‘0x595c2a4c.’ The memory could not be ‘read.’ Click OK to terminate program.” One of the warnings was indistinguishable from the standard Windows XP system dialog, but the remaining three were had a number of warning signs that should tip off users to potential malware.
[…]
Of the 42 students, 26 clicked the OK button for the “real” dialog. But 25 clicked the same button for two of the fakes, and 23 hit OK on the third (the one with the status bar showing). Only nine of them closed the window—two fewer than had closed the real dialog. In all cases, a few of the users simply minimized the window or dragged it out of the way, presumably leaving the machine’s next user at risk.
As much as people bitched about UAC, it was an attempt to make the user pay better attention. Unfortunately poorly written real software creates so many false positives that people ignore it too.
Dont just bash MS, what is the answer? You can either lock down the os so stupid people cant break it or you can have the freedom to use the tool however you need/want with the possibility of trashing it.
I’d choose the latter, but then I tend to know what I’m doing.
Yes, Vista is a piece of crap. The funny thing is, the UAC dialog box will come up on legit s/w but not for the really dangerous malware.
Too funny.
#1: Or you can scrap the OS and create a new one from scratch making use of entirely new paradigms that today’s processors and video allow combined with years of research into how people use computers. Shake up the concepts of computing that have been around for 25-50 years. It won’t happen because too much is invested in the current design. But one can dream.
Why should M$ care about the OS that they can get PRE-INSTALLED ON NEARLY ALL COMPUTERS SOLD IN THE USA ??? Security, Stability, Ease of Use, – WHY SHOULD M$ CARE WHEN YOU BUY A PC, ***YOU PAY THE M$ TAX*** AND M$ GIVES YOU THE ***ONE FINGERED SALUTE***!!! And beside, M$ now has bigger fish to fry, TAKING OVER THE INTERNET HAS PROVEN MORE DIFFICULT THAN GREEDY GATE$ OR BALMY BALLMER THOUGHT !!!
And everyone would bitch that “they messed it up” MS is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I do agree with you, i think its time for a change. Stop worrying about compatibility and redesign from the ground up with a balance of usability and security. Use virtualization to support sandboxed compatibility modes all the way back to DOS.
But don’t pretend like anyone would applaud the change or attempt at improvement.
I clicked “yes” on the image above 50 times, but nothing happened. I guess my anti-virus software is working.
Please provide the link where I can download the mal-ware. Thank you.
The Vista UAC is the “boy who cried wolf”. It pops up way too much and for the wrong reasons, so it becomes worthless.
A better solution would have been if MS maintained an application white-list based on hashed checks of apps. Then it could drop most of these “RU Sure” messages.
Windows sends warnings and errors all day long. I can’t be bothered to read them anymore.
Of course I just click to get rid of them!
I guess this is the message that comes up just before you install Vista?
I understand where you comming from Uncle Dave, I have same type of background as you.
Vista came preinstalled on my new laptop. Although I don’t agree with the Vista haters, that it’s crap. The changing of nomenclature, like “Add & Remove Programs” to “Programs and Features” buged the heck out of me and all the warning messages.
I’ve been using Vista for several months, and I’m getting used to it. I seem to recall having growing pains with other operating systems too.
As my mother says, “you can either gripe about it or just deal with it”, I usually prefer both.
The new MS Office really, really sucks. The new Word “toolbar” is the most unintuitive piece of crappy use interface I’ve ever seen.
Microsoft sucks; Macs rule. End of discussion.
#11 – S-Heel Jack
>>The new MS Office really, really sucks. The new Word
>>“toolbar” is the most unintuitive piece of crappy
>>use interface I’ve ever seen.
For once, I agree with you.
what is this m$ windows , xp and vista you speak of???
Using linux for 4+ years and i’ve not looked back…….
ok i have but only to laugh you folks for still using it.
😛
#13 “Using linux for 4+ years and i’ve not looked back…….
ok i have but only to laugh you folks for still using it.”
Unfortunately, some have to use it as their business apps run on nothing but MS…
On a slightly related note, why do some of these “studies” limit the number of tester so much? Only 42 students qualified? This is the Internet age – open it up to a broader demographic.
But maybe more popups would require considerably more grant money. And they couldn’t use their clipboards to track observations…
#3 Uncle Dave – Right with you there, but have faith. The reason MS failed with Vista is the same reason their next endeavour will be equally shitty. The code base for windows grows exponentially from one version to the next. In their idiotic quest for the do all OS they forgot the Keep It Simple Stupid principle. Now their code has grown past the point of error probability to the point of error certainty. They have no choice but to start from scratch. By the time MS realizes this it may already be too late for them but somebody’ll come up with something – there’s just too much earning potential to ignore.
My new OS of choice is Win2k3 Server R2.
Now THAT version of Windows works well, and is a true upgrade from WinXP.
Yet, all the software & drivers designed for XP works !!!
I even put it on a P3-1000 and performance is rather decent.
Vista is easier to use if you know nothing. If you had never used XP, or only used a few features in XP, then Vista is easier. However, if you have actually used something else before, then Vista is harder. Same goes with Office 2007. If you had never used Office, then I can see how Office 2007 would be easier. But if you had worked extensively with prior versions, then Office 2007 is a pain to use.
“Scrap it and start over” sounds great..if you have less than half a dozen employees. If you have 1000 employees and thousands of applications, then it sounds like Armageddon. “Keep it simple” sounds nice until you get into the details. Making their OS backwards compatible is why most businesses use Microsoft instead of Apple.
All you Mac lover please do me a favor. Ask Apple to fix crap software like iTunes. I am forced to use iTunes for an iPod that I bought. The first and LAST Mac product I will ever own. iTunes is the buggiest piece of crap code ever written, it totally wiped out my iPod Touch becuse there was a new “update” issued last week.
iTunes has done more damage to my Music files than any Malware I have ever seen.
Those that think Mac can do no wrong irk the shit out of me.
It’s called “blaming the victim”.
Vista, and all the shovelware cr@p added by the PC OEMs, assault you with so much pop-up nonsense that no one pays any attention. We just keep clicking the Ok, or the X in the corner, and take our chances.
Microsoft desperately needs to clean up their own situation, and I think they realize that now at some level. But they also need to strongarm their OEM partners into cutting back the shovelware.
The students that sign up for psych tests are all stoners, so the results aren’t surprising.
@ 19 Tomas
What, you gonna buy a (ahem) Zune? Riiiiight.
There is nothing wrong with iTunes—only operator headspace and timing.
You will continue to use Apple products and you will like it.
#22. Nope, I’m going back to SanDisk. May not be as “pretty” but it always works and you dont have to use iCrap.
What about the dialogs that pop-up on malware sites that won’t let you leave until you say “Yes”?
#24. Close the browser
#5 – Great idea!
Why wouldn’t virtualization work to offer backwards compatibility anyone? Similar to how it worked for DOS compatibility mode. Kind of. Microsoft would have to make virtualization easy enough for grandma to use. Never mind…
#19 – Angry, aren’t you? I’m guessing the only problem with your Apple software is PEBCAK based on your post.
The “scrap and start over” idea is interesting, but will never happen. There’s too many fingers in the corporate/government pie, to allow users to have an uncompromised personal computer. There will always be powerful entities, riding shotgun over how these OSes handle just about anything. Vista is just the latest example of their meddling. It’s more about security for the Music and Film industry, than the consumer. And I’m sure that even the government has had a hand in influencing what Vista could do. Or rather, what it couldn’t do. Like keep their prying eyes out.
PCes will never be allowed to be so secure than the Feds can hack into them. And PCes will never be allowed to be so useful, that any source of media can’t be denied by corporations that can profit from it. So we will only have the kind of OS that doesn’t offend larger and wealthier interests. IOWs, our PCes exist at the pleasure of the Kings of yore. There won’t be an revolutionary chance to how they operate, until the corporations and governments are taken out of the equation of who decides what it does, and what it doesn’t.
#28
“Fingers in the corporate/government pie” has nothing to do with issue unless you are discussing ROI. To a business or organization, installing an OS on which none of your existing applications will run cannot be justified. No corporate would buy it.
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