Well, putting the analogy aside for the moment, I see at least three contributing problems...
 
1) Humans are trusting/gullible/greedy.  Con artists have depended on this for centuries, and many of them are very successful at it. Computers and the Internet have given con artists the ability to con not just one or two victims per day, but potentially millions. 
 
2) Computers are ubiquitous and they are probably the most complicated devices in such widespread use, so consequentially most users have little understanding of them. They really have no idea of how to tell the difference between a prompt from their computer to do something safe/necessary and a prompt to do something suspicious/risky. To them all the prompts look the same. So when it comes to computers, you can take the trusting/gullible/greedy from number 1) and add ignorant to it. This addition makes the con even more likely to be successful.
 
3) An unbelievable number of programmers are incredibly sloppy.  A huge, huge proportion of vulnerabiilities fall into the basic category of buffer overflows.  I learned very early on in my programming career that a section of code should not use a parameter coming from elsewhere without checking that the value of the parameter is within the expected range. How can we have so much commercial software, especially parts of the operating system itself, that doesn't follow this basic rule? Is it a lack of trained programmers? Is it pressure to get code written faster?
 
So I was going to then try to extend these comments to the house analogy, but I think this fails because the house analogy is not a good one. The true situation with malware is more as if the thief comes and knocks on the door, talks to the homeowner and convinces the homeowner to let the thief live in the spare bedroom for a while, at which point the thief starts stealing things from the house or otherwise creating havoc (selling drugs out the bedroom window? using the phone to make death threats against the president?) without the homeowner knowing about it. Or perhaps it's as if the house has thousands of rooms in it, most of which the homeowner never enters, so he has no idea whether he has left a window open.
 
I could go on with other examples, but I think this shows that the house/thief situation is just too simple to serve as an analogy for computers and malware.

From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Charlot, Firmin
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] XP or Vista Antivirus 2008 ..... Here is one mechanism of infection

There is no doubt that there are strong feelings here.  Why don't we step back for a moment, cool off and take a look at this analogy just for fun.
If a house (user's computer) gets broken into because windows (WindowsXP, Vista, etc) were breached whose at fault?
Do you blame the house, the windows, the thief (hacker) ,the neighborhood (network) ,law enforcement (IDS, IPS, Firewalls, Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, Anti-SPAM, etc) or even the owner?

Firm.


-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group on behalf of Troy Murray
Sent: Thu 6/26/2008 4:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] XP or Vista Antivirus 2008  .....  Here is one mechanism of infection

Amen

-t


On Jun 26, 2008, at 3:21 PM, STeve Andre' wrote:

> No, more like terminally disgusted.  We're talking about a company 
> that
> has created a world-wide standard of an operating system, which has
> helped the world considerably.  I remember the days of individual op
> systems, all entirely incompatible and generally strange.
>
> But MS did not care about security.  Not one bit.  I have talked with
> three software people who once worked there who were publically
> excoriated by none other than Bill Gates himself, for expressing "The
> dumbest idea I've ever heard" when talking about issues that related
> to security and reliability.  How MS has managed to avoid massive
> ostracism for creating this OS--or rather, how MS managed to teach
> the average person that a computer "naturally" blows up, slows down,
> gets sick, crashes and is difficult to use is one of the most amazing
> PR jobs in history.
>
> Windows has some good points.  Its existence has created a playing
> field unequal to anything that has ever come before it.
>
> But at an unbelievable cost: hundreds of billions of dollars in total
> on "security" and security related incidents over Window's lifetime.
>
> THAT is what I am disgusted at.
>
> --STeve Andre'
>
> On Thursday 26 June 2008 14:58:14 Ehren Benson wrote:
>> Haters....  :/
>>
>> Ehren J. Benson, MCSE
>> Windows Systems Administrator
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> 517-884-5469
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
>> On
>> Behalf Of STeve Andre' Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:27 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] XP or Vista Antivirus 2008 ..... Here is one
>> mechanism of infection
>>
>> That was me...
>>
>> --STeve Andre'
>>
>> On Thursday 26 June 2008 14:09:30 Tom Rockwell wrote:
>>> Interesting Diane Rehm show yesterday
>>> http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/06/25.php
>>>
>>> Listen for the caller from MSU unloading on Windows.  :-)
>>>
>>> -Tom
>>>
>>> John Valenti wrote:
>>>> Which humans are you referring to?
>>>>
>>>> (I'm assuming you mean the people who click to follow a random link
>>>> in my rant...)
>>>>
>>>> Where is the outrage about the crappy OS? We are now in a world 
>>>> where
>>>> people infect their computers by clicking on a link, and we blame 
>>>> the
>>>> victims?  I could see the Internet developing in the late '80s 
>>>> and if
>>>> you would have told me it would turn out similarly to the current
>>>> Windows situation I would have laughed at you. What set of
>>>> intelligent people would let things get to this state!
>>>> -John
>>>>
>>>> On June 26, at 2:14 PM June 26, Robert Kriegel wrote:
>>>>> Yup,
>>>>>
>>>>> Unfortunately, its the humans whose risky behavior security 
>>>>> patches
>>>>> still refuse to stick too.  I guess Ron White is right.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bob Kriegel
>>>>> Animal Science
>>>>>
>>>>> At 11:42 AM 6/26/2008, you wrote:
>>>>>> Holy crud -- I got a message about a disaster in China that has
>>>>>> killed "millions", and a web site to see video.  At that point 
>>>>>> I was
>>>>>> offered beijing.exe, which clam didn't know about as of an hour
>>>>>> ago.  So its definitely spreading.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --STeve Andre'

--
Troy Murray
Systems Administrator
Michigan State University
Biomedical Research and Informatics Center (BRIC)
100 Conrad Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: 517-432-4248
Fax: 517-353-9420
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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