Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

give them the resources to educate themselves

Exactly. Instead of encouraging an environment of healthy suspicion and "I don't know what this does, maybe I should find out more first; else I shouldn't run it" type of attitude, we've gotten into a situation where people are seemingly loathe to educate themselves - and have been conditioned to trust whatever some piece of software says about whether something is malware or not.

As this comment a few days ago mentions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9032087

Exposure to malware helps build the "immune system" in users. This is similar to the biological concept too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis



I appreciate your desire to improve user security, but it is a huge uphill battle, and many things that you imagine will help will just make users switch to something that nags them less.

Teaching users to be safe -- assuming that's possible -- is a battle that has to be won in very very small steps.


>make users switch to something that nags them less.

Or perhaps even worse, conditions them to bypass any nags automatically without thought as to if they should or not.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: