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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Security and usability
From:       Roland Seuhs <roland.seuhs () hasos ! com>
Date:       2003-08-18 15:28:45
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Am Montag, 18. August 2003 14:39 schrieb Lauri Watts:

> > Anybody who thinks that these popups are increasing security is just
> > wrong: First he is wrong because those popups are ignored, secondly he is
> > wrong because cookies and forms are no security problems. I repeat it: If
> > you say "But it's just about educating the users that the connection is
> > not encrypted" - You are wrong: Users will ignore the popup, many won't
> > even read it. It simply doesn't matter. If pressing "OK" is the only way
> > to use the website, users will press "OK", no matter what you write into
> > that annoying popup.
> 
> No, they are increasing *privacy* though.

Sorry, but I don't see how an ignored popup is improving anything.

> I have a right to know what, and
> when, information is being requested by a website.  Users who don't care,
> turn it off (or never turn it on, this is not the default setting after
> all).

First, cookie-popups are turned on by default on every default KDE-install I know. \
Second, I don't advocate removing that feature, I just say it should be off by \
default. (Maybe I wasn't clear on that)

> > Sniffing passwords from ftp and php3 accounts are *REAL* security issues
> > that cause *REAL* problems, unlike the hype around cookies and html-forms
> > which are basically just hysteria with not a single documented case of
> > harm caused.
> 
> Wrong.  Trackware or spyware cookies are exceedingly common.
> http://www.safersite.com/PestInfo/db/spyware_cookie.asp lists a couple
> hundred of them.  Their definition, which I find quite fair, is:
> 'Any cookie that is shared among two or more unrelated sites for the
> purpose of gathering and/or sharing (private) user information. Definitions
> of "private" may differ. Some consider any code "private" if it uniquely
> identifies a user, even if it is not their name or email address.'
> 
> You're right many people don't care however there's a whole heck of a lot
> of people who do.  This same site is home to the PestPatrol software, and
> their stats say they received 511,017 pest reports from PestPatrol users
> for the past month.  That's a whole heck of a lot of people who care very
> much, and PestPatrol isn't even the most popular software of it's type, but
> Ad-Aware don't seem to post their stats on their site.

As a compromise, maybe we could agree only to ask the user via a popup if the cookie \
is from another server and don't ask for cookies from the same server?

(Of course I talk about the defaults here. Any user should be able to turn anything \
on/off according to his needs)

> > Dumping the cookie, html-form and file-upload popups and introducing
> > rarely shown "use scp instead of ftp" popups would increase security
> > *BECAUSE* it would reduce hassles and popups and concentrate the user's
> > attention on the things that actually matter.
> 
> An exceedingly rarely triggered case would see a small increase in security
> - I can't even remember the last time I uploaded something to an ftp site
> via ftp.

You can sniff passwords everytime you connect to a ftp-server, it doesn't matter \
wether you up- or download.

> I would *never* see this dialog.  I think it's a cute idea, and
> might be worth adding as well, but it's not a case of 'well we add this, we
> have to now remove the highly regarded and widely used privacy features on
> cookies.

Yes, of course these two are unrelated, it was just an example of what I would think \
of a good popup.

> I can also see us getting yelled at for port probing home windows
> admin's ftp servers on port 22 and tripping their zone alarms.

Since this all should not happen on anonymous logins (where security is no issue, \
obviously), I don't see it happening.

Roland

P.S.: Everybody is only talking about cookies. What about the html-form and \
http-upload warnings, is everybody agreeing that those should be turned OFF by \
default?

-- 
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love 
our enemies; probably because they are generally 
the same people.
                               -- Mark Twain

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