The 'Joke' of Browser Vulnerablities
Wow. Another browser flaw. Quick, hide under the bed.
Just got one of my usual news updates, and this caught my eye - a mail about some problem with Android:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39616082,00.htm
The thing that sparked this post was this line in the news story:
"researcher who found a security hole ... says is serious enough for him to recommend people not use the Android browser"
I can think of no better recent example that highlights one of my older posts about the age of the web, or perhaps more accurately how completely naive most people are about what this means. Let me try and paraphrase that line above to illustrate what I'm on about:
"researcher has found unlocked door in Trevor Shankley's shed ... recommends everybody on the planet stay indoors until Trevor has fixed it"
Ok, so I'm being melodramatic, but it is a bit weird isn't it? The web is huge, vast, literally unimagineable in scale, yet this person is really suggesting people stop moving about in it until some bizarre tiny hole somewhere that almost certainly no one (and I mean no one) will ever find is fixed. Or maybe they're just trying to plug their own company, one who's job is scaremongering (sorry, I mean securing) things for the common man?
Yes there's lot's more going on that just the central issue about security online, but we just seem to have so little grasp of the real impact and importance of these things right now. Tiny issue given huge importance, almost certainly for commercial impact, but with huge socialological consequence. Not good.
The sooner people understand the real meaning of what it means ot be in the world wide web the better ...
Just got one of my usual news updates, and this caught my eye - a mail about some problem with Android:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39616082,00.htm
The thing that sparked this post was this line in the news story:
"researcher who found a security hole ... says is serious enough for him to recommend people not use the Android browser"
I can think of no better recent example that highlights one of my older posts about the age of the web, or perhaps more accurately how completely naive most people are about what this means. Let me try and paraphrase that line above to illustrate what I'm on about:
"researcher has found unlocked door in Trevor Shankley's shed ... recommends everybody on the planet stay indoors until Trevor has fixed it"
Ok, so I'm being melodramatic, but it is a bit weird isn't it? The web is huge, vast, literally unimagineable in scale, yet this person is really suggesting people stop moving about in it until some bizarre tiny hole somewhere that almost certainly no one (and I mean no one) will ever find is fixed. Or maybe they're just trying to plug their own company, one who's job is scaremongering (sorry, I mean securing) things for the common man?
Yes there's lot's more going on that just the central issue about security online, but we just seem to have so little grasp of the real impact and importance of these things right now. Tiny issue given huge importance, almost certainly for commercial impact, but with huge socialological consequence. Not good.
The sooner people understand the real meaning of what it means ot be in the world wide web the better ...
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