] In fact, only 10 percent of the drives I purchased had
] been properly sanitized.
]
] Much of the data we found was truly shocking. One of the
] drives once lived in an ATM. It contained a year's worth
] of financial transactionsrom - including account numbers and
] withdrawal amounts from a organization that had a legal
] requirement to not divulge such information. Two other drives
] contained more than 5,000 credit card numbersit looked as if
] one had been inside a cash register. Another had e-mail and
] personal financial records of a 45-year-old fellow in Georgia.
] The man is divorced, paying child support and dating a woman
] he met in Savannah. And, oh yeah, he's really into pornography. This is another yet another problem caused by technology becoming more and more of a black box. People don't understand how a technology works, thus people don't understand how it exposes them, and people get screwed. [rant]
I fairly sure this lack of knowledge is a bad thing, and I don't know how to fix it. It even effects techno-junkies, like me. I like understanding technology. However there are some things I really don't care about, such as my car. I just want it to run. I understand how engines work, catalytic converters, etc, but beyond an oil change, fixing a flat, or rotating my tires, I'm sunk. So basically I'm to cars like Joe Sixpack is to Computers. I just want it to work. Of course the difference is my car doesn't have any personal information in it. Or does it? I can think of at least one care of the top of my head that has a hash of the owners fingerprint and voiceprint. Granted its just a hash, but still. And I think this is a problem thats only going to get worse: How do you explain to people enough about technology to protect themselves? Especially when they don't want to learn they just want it to work. My dad is a perfect example. The man has virus software over 60 months old. Adaware found 45+ *registry* entries of spyware. Viruses, crashes, everything. And everytime time something happens I try to explain to him what I'm doing so he can learn. (ie Explaining boot order so he knows to remove a floppy disk when getting an "invalid system disk" error, instead of calling me at 5:30am). Only dad couldn't give two shits. He doesn't remember what I've said. He wants his computer working again. Its not that dad is losing his mind, its just not important to him. The computer is an appliance, and I stop being the son and start being the Maytag man. The irony of this is mature folks should get this. My dad was someone who spend time babying a car, changes fluids, tuning the engine when he was young. He should get that a computer is not an appliance, but a finely tuned and powerful piece of equipment. That if he needs to take the responsibilty to learn about the computer if he wants the utilize the power of the machine. Only this is counter to the current trend. Instead we have $300 dollar computers. If it's broken, throw it away and buy a new one. Computers are now simply tools that the everyman can use. Don't get me wrong, thats good. But people don't view the time to learn about the computer as worth the effort. So naturally they think nothing about how to protect there computer after using it to do their taxes. Why should they? They don't have to think twice about protecting the pens they used in the past to fill out a 1040. Instead they learn about protecting their computer from the news. "Hackers strike again! ID-theft ring busted!" And we wonder why the world doesn't understand why DVD Region codes suck. Why the DMCA is a bad thing. They world doesn't understand, and I'm beginning to think that no about of explaining can teach them. Because They just want it to work. Like I want my car to work.
[/rant] Ryan: Hear Hear! Inignoct and myself have long been proponents of the Black Box Theory. To the normal user, there is simply magic inside the (I suppose Beige) box. It is absolutely infuriating to have to teach the same basic trick over again. That's why there should only be like four options in each program for people like my boss and your dad. Hard-Disk Risk + RANT | 
