Our Society Is Computer Illiterate

[Sashswash]

:flame:
Man..this really sucks. I walk downstairs, and my mom is complaining about how she keeps getting e-mails from eBay asking about all of her information, and that she has sent it 3 times, with the same response. That struck me as a little weird. So i sit down, and notice that THE SUBJECT OF THE E-MAIL IS SPELLED WRONG. That's not to professional if you ask me, and eBay is a HUGE company. Then, i go to the eBay site, under security, and read that eBay never asks for personal information through e-mails. GREAT. Next, i investigate the URL of the site where she "verified our account". I figured out it's a free small-business web-hosting site. Defenitly not eBay. So, to make the long story short, my family now has to cancel all our credit cards, and somehow get newones before someone opens an account in my dad's name. I have some auctions ending too, so i guess i'll just have to wait to pay those.

So, to get to the moral of this, OUR SOCIETY IS COMPUTER ILLITERATE. I don't see how we can fix this problem. My mom fell victim to this because it said it was from eBay. She didn't KNOW ENOUGH to look at the URL, and realize that she wasn't sending her information to eBay. I think some big steps need to be taken to teach the general public about computing. I have sat down with my mom, and she has learned alot, but this is one spot where her knowledge failed...i feel like i failed in teaching her about computers and such :x

One last thing...although i was pissed off the whole time (just because of the mess / loss of time this is going to cause), i was amazed at the whole thing. The creator of this scam realized a weakness in todays computer-driven society, and exploited it, and my mom ended up being the victim (well...my whole family for the time being). The page was an excellent replica as well (only a few bad links, which were hard to find). One would only know it was a fake if the looked / researched the URL (which my mom didn't know enough to do). I just wish she would have not responded to it, and been more careful. Oh well, we will learn from this experience.

Time to go help fix things...

 

[Pitbul]

your mom = pwned by noobs

 

[Ames]

We have a pretty stupid society:

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

 

[SubKamran]

God, it farking sucks doesn't it. There's no patch to fix ignorance.

 

[Sashswash]

God, it farking sucks doesn't it. There's no patch to fix ignorance.

lol...that would be great if there was a 'patch'.

 

[Edcrab]

My sister (who, in her defence, is significantly younger than me, being an idiotic angsty teen) sees those fake "error message" pop up ads and thinks they're genuine. She also managed to ruin the DVD drive and sound card of the old 600mhz AMD I gave her, as well as infesting it with spyware; torturing my faithful companion from so many years ago.

I feel your pain, albeit to a lesser extent.

 

[The Mullinator]

Its not so terrible when you think about it though, 50 years ago most people didn't even know what a computer was. The majority of people who are completely computer illiterate are either so young that its only natural for them to have these problems or they are of a generation that never even had computers. Either way people who are computer illiterate are slowly being replaced by people like us, so it really isn't as bad as everyone thinks.

 

[outpost]

Well my dads prety bad with computer but thank god he doesn't buy stuff on ebay or sign up on sites. He would easily fall for these tpyes of scams. My mom on the other hand isn't too bad with computers actually. But I'm still afraid that she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between fake sites and such like the on you mentioned.

 

[Adidajs]

:flame:
Man..this really sucks. I walk downstairs, and my mom is complaining about how she keeps getting e-mails from eBay asking about all of her information, and that she has sent it 3 times, with the same response.

wow, your mom got phished. actually some weeks ago i had got an email from Citibank i think asking for my nfo. first, i don't have citibank. second, the guy couldn't spell english words for the life of him. i had to post the ridiculous email on my friend's forum.

And here it is:

Posted - 05/11/2004 : 19:38:25
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i got this in my email.

_Dear _Citibank User,

_This messaage was _sent by_the _citibank server_ to veerify _your_ _e-mail_ address.
You must complete this process by clicking on _the link below and enteering
in the smmall _window_ your Citibank Debbit full card nummber and card pin that
_you use on the _ATM_. That is done - for_your protection -e- becouse some_of_our
membres _no_longer_ have access to their _E-MAIL_ adresses and we must verify it.

www.yahoo.com/?LeqHD2gQXGlTnzAZm0XwQ4IF4y2aQ2IDhakVdBLah93GTEF6ECDwGmbKWd

To verify your E_MAIL _address_ and accees your _citibank
account, click on_the link _bellow_.

WMgFqxOMt3ofdHohm7W3eAFQ 6let8av4Y KIpizdLDC2Qir9

i think is user is from the Netherlands or Belgium. Look at all the double e's. :E

 

[Hazar]

For the time being, I totally agree that our society is computer illiterate. However, most of the illiterate ones are over 30 years old. I think that the more our generation replaces the current one the less computer literate we will become.

 

[Sashswash]

For the time being, I totally agree that our society is computer illiterate. However, most of the illiterate ones are over 30 years old. I think that the more our generation replaces the current one the less computer literate we will become.

So true, because practically everyone in our generation uses computers on a daily basis.

 

[Javert]

It's called phising, and obviously illegal. It should serve more as a warning than a rant because the threat is very real, and you are fortunate to have caught it.

Report it immediately.

 

[Interitus]

Society isnt computer illeterate, theres just a lot of dumbasses out there who are stupid enough to fall enough for a scam like that. And no offense man, but it serves the people who fall for it right. Any bank account or any account that deals with money explicitly says when you're signing up that they'll never email you for account information. Not to mention how often scams like this have been mentioned in news bulletins and such.

Still sucks tho

 

[Starfish]

For the time being, I totally agree that our society is computer illiterate. However, most of the illiterate ones are over 30 years old.

lol... I have a mate I went to uni. with who is over 50, he's got a 1st Class Degree in Software Engineering - try calling him computer illiterate. It's not about age... it's about education....

 

[Sashswash]

Society isnt computer illeterate, theres just a lot of dumbasses out there who are stupid enough to fall enough for a scam like that. And no offense man, but it serves the people who fall for it right. Any bank account or any account that deals with money explicitly says when you're signing up that they'll never email you for account information. Not to mention how often scams like this have been mentioned in news bulletins and such.

Still sucks tho

I think you got more to the point i was trying to hit on...idk if it 'serves them right', but i DO know that we were lucky to catch this, and my parents have learned a lot from it in just a few hours.

 

[slicktick]

For the time being, I totally agree that our society is computer illiterate. However, most of the illiterate ones are over 30 years old. I think that the more our generation replaces the current one the less computer literate we will become.

This is so true, my Mom is very bad at computers and doesnt care to learn as much as our generation. She just gets my help when needed. But the problem with our entire society is some people always take things at face value. They dont question whether that email is from E-bay or not, they just respond. This is why you almost need to be educated to use the internet and email safely nowadays.

 

[outpost]

Back in the day when one of my friends was computer illiterate he asked "How do I download more megabytes?".

 

[outpost]

My parents just don't understand how its normal for younger people to be on computers today. My mom likes to find the most random reasons to ground me from the computer on the weekend just because she doesn't want me on it. Also she doesn't trust me on it eighter, she thinks that I'm going to look at porn all day, or videos of real people dying(wouldn't want to), thats the only reason she won't let me keep my comp in my room. Once my brother leaves collage thoug I'll probably move it up into my room with a wireless router.

 

[Hazar]

lol... I have a mate I went to uni. with who is over 50, he's got a 1st Class Degree in Software Engineering - try calling him computer illiterate. It's not about age... it's about education....

Yes, I know of several older people that are quite computer literate. One of them is (I think) over 60 years old! He was involved in NASA during Appolo 13 and has been technology savy over the years. However, I think the trend is that older people are, in general, are less educated about computers.

 

[Letters]

My dad works for Hewlett-Packard (and other computer stuff before that) so I've never had to worry 'bout that. Oddly enough, my mom sorta makes a point not to touch them, though since they can't be trusted.

As for older people, my grandfather does pretty well... he's kinda weird with it, but he manages to do a lot of imaging and online stuff.

 

[Shippi]

My dad always complains that he doesn't know how to work the 'bloody things', even though he makes no effort to learn. My mum's a little better, and she's mastered the art of email, although she's still figuring out how to work everything else. I try to help her in some things, but she just ushers me away, saying 'I've got a certificate! I know what I'm doing." She got the certificate from this person who gave my parents a month long spreadsheet course a couple of years ago.

Once she got all panicky when the computer performed an illegal operation, and she worried all day about that until I told her she wasn't actually doing anything illegal...

 

[Deadline]

Once she got all panicky when the computer performed an illegal operation, and she worried all day about that until I told her she wasn't actually doing anything illegal...

OMG I would have been like "Ohhhh #*@& Now the cops are going be busting down our door any minute!!! We better hide!!!!!"

Haha that would have be freaking hilarious!!!! :cheers:

 

[disruptioN_]

Yeah, that illegal operation crap back in Win 95 or whatever scared the hell out of me. (I was under 10 years old.)

 

[DizzyOne]

Rofl @ illegal operations

My mom used to blame videogames for all the popups she'd get, I dont know how she gets them but her program files has the biggest popup dlls collection evar... luckily she has firefox now ^^

 

[Murray_H]

Haha yeah i crapped myself (not literally..or did I.....) about the illegal operation, it doesn't exactly make it clear that the application has just messed up, not that you are going to jail for 6 months.

It would be funny to program in a little timer at the bottom of the error window with 'Time until SWAT dispatch' i bet some people would really be scared then!

 

[Direwolf]

As for general computer training today, for most high-schools in the US it is a total joke. There is no excuse for it. Everyone gets that horrible course in Excel or Word, but no one learns a thing about computers unless they actively seek it out in college, or possibly as a high-school elective. However, that doesn't cut it. Computer training is vital, and should be top on the list of priorities for any educational institute. Computers are in every aspect of our lives, we all need to use these machines. Why so little attention is paid to that fact is beyond me.

I'd actually guess this is because of the same problem we're talking about. We have a hard enough time finding computer literate older people, think about trying to find highly computer literate teachers. I think we have two that could really do the job at my highschool, and they're both math teachers anyway.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I cringe every time I'm called to the computer. Just simple shit like "this task is not responding and will be ended in 30 seconds, to end this task manually click end now". And they're always in a huge panic like if they don't do something urgently the comp's gonna turn inside out and swallow the universe. So I just press enter and walk off. Been called over for the same damn errors so many times. Hey, how about reading it? Christ...

 

[ray_MAN]

Everyone in my family can use a computer to an extent. My mom doesn't know much at all. She can check her e-mail and all that jazz. My dad taught me everything he knows, which is a whole lot. My sister only talks to her friends and makes greeting cards and the such. I am the only one in my family how can map, program (A bit), and make music. Let me guess, the title of the e-mail was "Uptade your eBay account". I got that a year ago.

 

[Ames]

My first illegal operation...I was eight or something.

I just shrugged it off.

Go computer literacy!...(OK, I actually didn't really understand the word....)

 

[Kyorisu]

IT all depends on education thank god my mother knows what she's doing with ebay and hasn't yet fuxored her Limited Account on my machine with spam.

Meanwhile the Microsoft certified guys that work at my school don't know anything.

Me - The HDD is faulty
Tech Guy - Format then Ghost
Me - I said the HDD is faulty you can't format something you can't even detect
Tech Guy - I'll be back

He never came back thats for sure.

 

[G-Dub]

lol, i read that all, very amusing

 

[Brian Damage]

Well, my mum's better than most, but still not that good. She knows enough to be careful of any EMail with a weird subject line, and she's recently learned a tricky little way to get a look at the contents of an EMail without having to actually "open" it, as such... But I still get called out to the front room (Where her computer is) for the simplest little things.

I've been railing at her to clean up her hard drive to make defragmenting the sonofabitch easier for about six months now.

Recently the hard drive has decided that it isn't a hard drive, too. I mean, we can still add/delete/alter files on it, but none of the bloody disk tools want to work...

 

[SubKamran]

Well, everyone in my family can use a computer including my 4 year old brother (Putt-Putt roolz!). My mom does email, internet, egroups, and ebay stuff. She is a smart person so she can tell immediately if someone is an idiot and knows that people just don't ask for your personal info out of the blue. If she's in doubt, she'll call me.

My dad is perfectly literate...software engineer. 'nuff said. I still know a bit more about hardware, but he can fix most problems too.

My 10 year old bro plays Counterstrike and other games...no email, just surfing...I have Google toolbar and Content Lock installed upstairs so no reason to fret over popups or pr0n

I have been computer literate since 7 or 8 years old when my grandpa bought a Windows 3.1 machine and I was addicted to Scorched Earth (I still have it on my comp). My grandpa is pretty literate, he does Access stuff, emails, web, drivers, and sometimes uses Linux so he knows how stuff works (we're talking 60 year old man, here).

Grandma doesn't know too much She checks her email and stuff, but since they have dial-up she isn't online.

So yah...we've never been hit with any scams...

 

[PvtRyan]

My dad's alright with pc's, he can do the basic stuff but also maintainance on it. My mom recently learned to do stuff on it, like emailing and surfing. She knows Google (oh how I hate the way she pronounces Google) but still blames Google when she can't find something (while I can).
Probably both their pc's are loaded with spyware, no virusses though, luckily we have virusscanners. I installed Adaware on my dad's pc, doubt he ever uses it though. I'm often called for problems by my mom (mostly because she's doing something wrong and shouting at the pc for it...)

Do you guys also hate when people pronounce every URL with "doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou dot ...."? Aarggh I can't stand that, we all know what you're saying, stop staying the damned www! Only when it's an exception like ftp or www2 which never happens.

 

[Pogrom]

Do you guys also hate when people pronounce every URL with "doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou dot ...."? Aarggh I can't stand that, we all know what you're saying, stop staying the damned www! Only when it's an exception like ftp or www2 which never happens.

What about addresses that have no 'www' at the beginning? Just the domain name?

 

[SubKamran]

What about addresses that have no 'www' at the beginning? Just the domain name?

www isn't a requirement. Watch http://halflife2.net/

 

[SubKamran]

Scorched Earth rocks! i need to find that again. Anyone remember Wordstar?

Google "scorched earth" and you'll get the download page You must extract it to C:\Scorch though.

[edit] WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. I'm appearing before the last post! Even though I posted after I saw the last post.

 

[Adidajs]

Do you guys also hate when people pronounce every URL with "doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou dot ...."? Aarggh I can't stand that, we all know what you're saying, stop staying the damned www! Only when it's an exception like ftp or www2 which never happens.

lol. i saw a cartoon about that. The show is Home Movies on the Cartoon Network here in the states. .

i remember growing up with dos, and then the windows revolution. Scorched Earth rocks! i need to find that again. Anyone remember Wordstar?

 

[Tommmo]

Don't be too hard on the people caught out by phishing, its not always completely clear that the message is malicious. Ok, fair enough...if the email's obviously come from a 42-year old Botswanan emu farmer who found a computer at the local market and wants to make a few extra pennies then you can laugh at the person they fooled, but some of the phish pages are designed quite well.

I've seen excellent understanding of CGI and site design put into a Paypal scam email I received not so long ago! Although its clear enough if you're computer literate, they're getting very clever.

 

[Sui]

lol, ive been having great fun reading that link!!!

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid

people are just so damn stupid sometimes. our school it supposed to teach ICT, but they do nothing of the sort... they just teach us how to use microsoft excell. WTF!!! people can use Excell in our school, and most of the other MS office programs, but loads of kids still dont know what a folder is or how you even open word.

ICT education sucks... its no wonder people are computer illiterate.