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Procrastination
Nov. 6th, 2006 08:55 amAfter I posted about NoScript, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cairmen commented saying that I'd disabled all analysis scripts, including the one that he used on his site (Google Analytics). To which my response was that while I'd never have got around to downloading something to prevent javascript tracking, the chances of me specifically turning tracking on were zero.
I thought of it as the difference between actively going out and buying a tin-foil hat to stop the satellites tracking my every move (could do it, can't be bothered) and deliberately carrying a small black box to make it easier to tell where I am (not going to happen without a darn good reason).
Which is the kind of inertia I see all the time in computer users of all types. Trying to explain to people that they ought to switch to Firefox is nigh-impossible, because they're 99.9% ok with things the way they are, nothing is causing immediate harm and they're happy to carry on without thinking about things/making a decision unless something forces them to. Unless you have security by default 99% of users will never be secure.
And in fact you can generalise that into real life - people just don't like thinking about things - and they don't like making decisions. So if something you want depends on a large proportion of people spending time thinking about something that's not overtly urgent/immediately important then it's not at all likely to happen.
cairmen commented saying that I'd disabled all analysis scripts, including the one that he used on his site (Google Analytics). To which my response was that while I'd never have got around to downloading something to prevent javascript tracking, the chances of me specifically turning tracking on were zero.I thought of it as the difference between actively going out and buying a tin-foil hat to stop the satellites tracking my every move (could do it, can't be bothered) and deliberately carrying a small black box to make it easier to tell where I am (not going to happen without a darn good reason).
Which is the kind of inertia I see all the time in computer users of all types. Trying to explain to people that they ought to switch to Firefox is nigh-impossible, because they're 99.9% ok with things the way they are, nothing is causing immediate harm and they're happy to carry on without thinking about things/making a decision unless something forces them to. Unless you have security by default 99% of users will never be secure.
And in fact you can generalise that into real life - people just don't like thinking about things - and they don't like making decisions. So if something you want depends on a large proportion of people spending time thinking about something that's not overtly urgent/immediately important then it's not at all likely to happen.
