In his latest Alertbox column published just a few minutes ago, Jakob Nielsen acknowledges finally the dire state of the Internet and the urban jungle it has become.

Security issues are rampant and if you are to judge by the number of security reports, patches and other prevention mechanisms and policies being put in place by most IT departments, things are only getting worse by the day.

Jakob writes:

"Computer users suffer myriad security problems, including:

• viruses and worms,


• "Nigerian" scams (email asking you to help smuggle out a supposedly large sum of ill-gotten gains),


• phishing (falsified email, purportedly from a known vendor's customer service department, asking you to go to a masquerading website and enter your account information),


• and spyware and adware that install software on your computer without your informed consent (although some operations might claim to have consent, most people don't know what they're agreeing to when they click "OK?" buttons on the Web; for true consent, users must know that software will be installed and want the adware feature activated)."

Jakob strongly argues that it is useless to keep pushing the blame onto final users and their need to be more prudent, technically knowledgeable and up-to-date with the latest patches.

This just doesn't work.

"Computer security is too complicated and the bad guys are too devious and inventive. It's simply unrealistic to assume that average users can keep up with them.

Yes, you can tell people not to click on attachments in email from strangers, but then attackers start sending email that apparently comes from your boss, your wife, or your best friends. In a modern office, you can't do your work without clicking on attachments."

Do we all need to go around carrying a digital gun?

"The virtual world magnifies the reach of the nasty guys. A single cracker who discovers a security hole can attack billions of users. Every single netizen therefore needs protection against all the world's computer criminals, not just the neighborhood hacker."

I couldn't agree more.

But where I and Jakob strongly diverge is when we talk about solutions.