Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Gervase Markham
On 18/05/10 05:20, johnjbarton wrote: Many of our potential users are inexperienced computer users, who do not understand the risks involved in using interactive Web content. This means we must rely on the user's judgement as little as possible. As Edward Felten says, given the choice between

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Gervase Markham
On 17/05/10 23:16, Robert Relyea wrote: A more telling quote is: For example, much of the advice concerning passwords is outdated and does little to address actual threats, and fully 100% of certificate error warnings appear to be false positives. Although he now admits that

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Eddy Nigg
On 05/18/2010 02:48 PM, From Gervase Markham: On 17/05/10 23:16, Robert Relyea wrote: A more telling quote is: For example, much of the advice concerning passwords is outdated and does little to address actual threats, and fully 100% of certificate error warnings appear to be

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread johnjbarton
On 5/18/2010 4:44 AM, Gervase Markham wrote: On 18/05/10 05:20, johnjbarton wrote: Many of our potential users are inexperienced computer users, who do not understand the risks involved in using interactive Web content. This means we must rely on the user's judgement as little as possible. As

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Marsh Ray
On 5/18/2010 9:54 AM, johnjbarton wrote: I mean that starting a design from the point of view that the users have faulty judgment will almost certainly lead to software that fails. The judgment starts when the user chooses the app. In effect the designer is saying The user, by selecting my

Re: NSS Environment Variable to Disable 1024-bit Support?

2010-05-18 Thread Kathleen Wilson
On 5/15/10 10:48 AM, Nelson B Bolyard wrote: On 2010-05-15 01:35 PDT, Wan-Teh Chang wrote: On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 11:18 PM, Nelson B Bolyardnel...@bolyard.me wrote: I looked through PSM for such a warning briefly. I found a warning for sites that use symmetric encryption of strength= 90

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread johnjbarton
On 5/18/2010 9:08 AM, Marsh Ray wrote: On 5/18/2010 9:54 AM, johnjbarton wrote: I mean that starting a design from the point of view that the users have faulty judgment will almost certainly lead to software that fails. The judgment starts when the user chooses the app. In effect the

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Eddy Nigg
On 05/18/2010 05:54 PM, From johnjbarton: I mean that starting a design from the point of view that the users have faulty judgment will almost certainly lead to software that fails. That might be correct, however your assumption that this was the point of view at the beginning is entirely

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Eddy Nigg
On 05/18/2010 09:44 PM, From johnjbarton: The designer here is asserting a false, one-dimensional design space and insisting that users make a choice along this false dimension. Actually the user doesn't have to make a choice I think. It's either working or it doesn't. All the rest is a

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Marsh Ray
On 5/18/2010 1:44 PM, johnjbarton wrote: The designer here is asserting a false, one-dimensional design space and insisting that users make a choice along this false dimension. Yep. But be a little sympathetic. We all have models of reality that are insufficiently dimensional. As long as

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread johnjbarton
On 5/18/2010 12:15 PM, Eddy Nigg wrote: On 05/18/2010 09:44 PM, From johnjbarton: The better model begins by abandoning the security-vs-convenience mindset. Security should be about the maximum actually and effective security experienced by users. Our reaction to users clicking through

Re: NSS Environment Variable to Disable 1024-bit Support?

2010-05-18 Thread Wan-Teh Chang
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Kathleen Wilson kathleen95...@yahoo.com wrote: So, is it the case that PSM is not actually checking for 512-bit certs? Yes, I confirm that's the case. Nelson and I didn't find the code or the bug report for checking for 512-bit certs. I just created a test

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread Eddy Nigg
On 05/18/2010 10:37 PM, From johnjbarton: 1) A shift by the security experts on this newsgroup to view challenges to their approach as opportunities to improve security solutions, (concretely I object to being a labeled on the security-vs-convenience line), not sure if this isn't

Re: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users by Cormac Herley

2010-05-18 Thread johnjbarton
On 5/18/2010 2:17 PM, Eddy Nigg wrote: On 05/18/2010 10:37 PM, From johnjbarton: 2) Openness and encouragement of better API and UI for mozilla security solutions (concretely your fabulous resources are effectively out of reach for JS developers, it's a real shame) ...but I'm certain that