Hacker News Reader

Comment by juggernautq | Hacker News Reader

Please help me understand this obsession about building a secure software.

I understand there are sensitive information like bank account, email address(maybe? if you are important). But most of stuff on your computer is crap for, I'd say, 99% of the users(me included). And for an average user the convenience trumps everything.

All of this is fine if there is a perfect replacement for flash. No, there isn't. I don't like Html5, for one thing it is not as smooth, if you use progress bar to drag and drop, you can feel the difference.

Hence.. I really don't appreciated some security fanatics in mozilla disable flash weeks ago. I appreciate that you assume we are all Hillary Clinton. Really dude, I don't care my computer got hacked, there is all crap on it. Take a look yourself. Now if you excuse me, I'd like to watch some dancing cat.

View on HN

> Please help me understand this obsession about building a secure software.

You probably already know this, but it's so your things don't get stolen and your computer doesn't get exploited and possibly used against other people's computers. Wouldn't you agree that these are bad things?

> most of stuff on your computer is crap

And the 1% (such as your bank information) is the most important and would affect you the most if exploited, wouldn't you say?

> for an average user the convenience trumps everything.

You're completely right, which is why Flash wasn't disabled until things got really bad.

> All of this is fine if there is a perfect replacement for flash. No, there isn't.

This is also a valid point that could be argued for.

> You probably already know this, but it's so your things don't get stolen and your computer doesn't get exploited and > possibly used against other people's computers. Wouldn't you agree that these are bad things?

In general, yes, these are bad things. But it is all about trade off, would you expose your bank account to watch some cat video.. maybe not. Would you expose your browser history to view some hot girl, to me, at least, yes I will do it in VM.

The current software world basically just kills off that possibility of me saying "yes, I'd like the trade some personal info for convenience. "

Yes, most of the stuff on anybody's computer is unimportant.

Now, let me ask. How important is that small part that you didn't talk about? Because it's on the exact same computer, and will be compromised together with the "most" trash that you don't care about.

Really, I would do this un-safe stuff in Virtual Machines. Use secure setup for work and other.

Of course it is better to be secure, but that's not logically possible. Programmers make mistakes, it happens, you computer could be hacked, it happeneds.

Can I at least have a choice to be functional though unsafe? The only way right now is either you have a dedicated computer, or run virtual machines. Mozilla's move seemed more like an personal attack on Adobe than doing something good for the user. They could have make this a choice, have a setting to unlock.. etc. which they didn't do.

Then I could have run unsafed version in VM and block flash everywhere else. At least I'd be functional..

So YOU're the one with the hacked pc sending insane amount of botnet spam emails and DDOS attacks my way. Thanks, buddy, appreciate it :)

Maybe your PC is currently DDOS'ing github as well. If so then you are really doing a wonderful service to a lot of other people too!

That's not going to be solved by replacing flash. Or, in my opinion solved by update computer security.

Computers will get hacked. Any dominating pc OS, once found a security hole, will add thousands to the bonet.

This is really a fact. Also means, if you are targeted by some hacker, you will get DDOSed. Requiring all user to be security aware is not practical.

One of the principles of security is conservative defaults. Flash is disabled by default because of a series of high-severity security flaws, and a basic understanding that not enough resources are being put in to actively secure the thing.

Who are you to decide what on my computer is crap?

Mozilla guys seem to think they are all gold.

You need to make the decision. That's the point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com