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ActiveX - Arrogance rules

Alan, 

In your rant about all those morons ruining the Net you forgot to 
mention the source of your paycheck. 

>From your sig file:
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & 
Instruction(it's in the sig file). 


So you work for a firm that helps losers and morons get onto (and clog) 
the Net. Hmmm.

Despite the chest beating and rants about idiots not knowing what they 
are doing (all technically true), many of us realize that if the Net 
were full of fellow geeks who understood technology, we'd all be out of 
work.

My only request is for more content and less noise. I understand the 
technical proficiency of the average end user, and that they are paid 
to do boring things like bring in money to pay my high salary as a 
technologist. 

I joined this list not to feed my ego but to keep abreast of security 
vulnerabilities on the web.

Tom Cooper

>>

Here's what I am ranting about:

>>>>
The problem here is that you are overestimating the clues of the 
average Internet user.

Most of the people i have met who are on the net are there because they
believe that they have to be to be buzzword complient.  (Buzzword 
complience
is one of the requirements for ISO 9000 certification, as well as 
looking
younger and tasting better.)  The media has sold them on the idea that 
the
Internet is the "Cool Place to Be".

Most of these people would not know the difference between a security 
model
and a supermodel.

Most of these people have no idea what the dialogs mean that pop up on 
a web
browser or any of the myrad pieces of information that you and I take 
for
granted.  ("What is this key at the bottom of the screen and do i have 
to
split it with the sound man?")

Most of these people do not even know the basics about running their 
own
computers, let alone have any clues about security issues.

And you know what?  THEY DO NOT WANT TO KNOW!  They just want it to 
"make it
go".  They want it to be as easy as their microwave oven and they don't 
care
that their are safety procedures to keep them from putting their head 
in it.
(Hell, many of them probibly put foil in theirs just to watch the 
pretty
lights.)

"These are just simple people.  The common clay of the new Internet.  
You
know... Morons."

> In an Intranet environment, where you have
control over the code and the environment, ActiveX has a place.  But it 
does
not have a place where the majority of the users are clueless and will
believe just about anything you tell them.

Then again, maybe ActiveX is a good thing.  Maybe it will clear out a 
bunch
of newbies when they hit all the landmine ActiveX apps that will spring 
up
in the next year or so.  We can only hope.

It won't be on any of the web pages I administer...
---
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
        `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key 
                http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ 
  "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon
                "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."