http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080923-study-confirms-users-are-idiots.html

Excerpt:

Quote :

"For most of us, security issues happen to "other people"—we block popup ads, we carefully examine dialog boxes and, for those of us on the Mac platform, we snicker when confronted with something that attempts to mimic a Windows system warning. But everyone knows that they are exceptional—what's the behavior of a more typical user like? Some researchers have tested how college students respond to fake dialog boxes in browser popup windows and found that the students are so anxious to get the dialog out of the way, they click right through obvious warning signs. The authors, who work in the Psychology Department of North Carolina State University, crafted a set of four fake dialog boxes. All of them contained the following warning: "The instruction at '0x77f41d24 referenced memory at '0x595c2a4c.' The memory could not be 'read.' Click OK to terminate program." One of the warnings was indistinguishable from the standard Windows XP system dialog, but the remaining three were had a number of warning signs that should tip off users to potential malware... "

[Edited on September 23, 2008 at 6:51 PM. Reason : .]

9/23/2008 6:50:31 PM

That doesn't look anything like what the actual messages say.

9/23/2008 6:51:56 PM

what idiot would click that shit? alt + F4

[Edited on September 23, 2008 at 6:55 PM. Reason : ?]

9/23/2008 6:54:12 PM

what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click what idiot what click

9/23/2008 6:55:19 PM

I don't know how that happened....

9/23/2008 6:55:58 PM

for those of us on the Mac linux platform, we snicker when confronted with something that attempts to mimic a Windows system warning

9/23/2008 6:56:11 PM

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001164.html

well designed malware traps can be VERY convincing these days

9/23/2008 7:18:01 PM

I clicked it like 3 times, then I realized I was on a Mac

joepwnt

9/23/2008 7:18:21 PM

yay for windows classic

9/23/2008 7:49:37 PM

do you need spybot and adaware if you got vista? i havent run mines in foeva

9/23/2008 7:52:54 PM

AVG freebie will still catch stuff, so sure

9/23/2008 8:15:12 PM