An internet diary
No, this isn't Google's fault; it's yours
Published on March 10, 2004 By IanTyger In Internet
I wanted to go into computer security when I was in college. So I keep a interested amateur eye out on computer security issues, and this is a big one.

But it illustrates the biggest problem with computer security - people don't want to do it. People take shortcuts to make their systems and networks easier to use, and make them far less secure in the process. They take the easiest option to make resources available, and all too often, it makes other resources available at the same time. And the true costs of these errors are hidden, so there's no incentive to fix them.

Comments
on Mar 10, 2004
I am one of those people who shortcut everything and make all of my resources available at the desktop, but i must say:
I was a little disappointed when I didn't find anything about Spiderman in this post. Oh well.
on Mar 11, 2004
Well, I'm sure I can make a cheesy web joke at the expense of Spidey, but I'm not going there...

Shortcutting stuff to the desktop is not necessarily insecure, it depends on how secure your desktop is. Running a remotely accessible account with root privileges and no password is irresponsible.