One more example of why computers should not be used for every damned thing one can imagine. For many years now, the criminals (the word hacker is not appropriate) have been breaking into just about everything. Yet, most purveyors of the technology do not take proper steps to safeguard their data, nor do the end users demand it.
One of the things I blame this on is the lack of computer knowledge by the general public - and that is the audience for which these organizations are designing their software. I won't even mention that most programmers today have only a small amount of the knowledge required for their jobs.
If your users are uneducated - and my god they are - you cannot implement secure transactions and if you could, the users would not stand for the trivial additional effort they would need to expend. An example of the lack of user knowledge was demonstrated to me just a few weeks ago when I was in a discussion with several quite intelligent people about the problems of data being stolen (as in the IRS case). One person stated that he had nothing to worry about because he had anti-virus software on his PC. Another claimed to be perfectly safe because he was using an Apple, "which everyone knows are safe from hackers." Neither of them had any idea of what the problem really was or where, in fact, it occurred.
I'm not a Luddite, but I do think that about ninety percent of the uses to which computers have been put should be done away with. (And have you noticed that the Luddites have their own web sites? Isn't there something terribly wrong with that?)
Home 
