deliberately crashing ancient computers (was: Re: A mighty fortress is our PKI)

[Jonathan Thornburg]

On Tue, 27 Jul 2010, Jack Lloyd suggested:
> http://www.crashie.com/ - if you're feeling malicious, just include
> the one line JavaScript that will make IE6 crash, maybe eventually the
> user will figure it out. (Or maybe not).

Please stop and think about the consequences before using something
like this!  People who are still using IE6, Windows 95, etc, are
usually doing so for reasons which make sense in their lives, things
like
(a) very low computer literacy
(b) slow/unreliable internet connections (dialup?)
(c) old/small/slow computer (& lack of money to buy a better one)
(d) English not her/his native language (to read your how-to-upgrade msg)
(e) that's what all their friends & professional colleagues use

These people are unlikely to change just because your site makes
their computer crash.  (They're also unlikely to distinguish between
"IE6 crashed" and "the computer crashed", and yes, they're likely to
blame your website for the problem.)

I too would love to see IE6 die.  Ditto Windows 95.  But I don't think
actively trying to crash my colleague Professor X's computer is either
ethical or an appropriate solution to her ancient computer environment.
(She is elderly, retired, lives in a very poor country in South America,
and has only dialup internet.  The local computer shops/geeks where she
lives usually recommend Windows 95 for upgrades/reinstalls.  I don't
know what web browser they pitch...)


> Ultimately though, the only thing that's going to get some people off
> IE6 is the machines they are running it off of finally dying, either
> due to hardware failure or being so badly owned by worms that the
> machine becomes inoperable, at which point it goes into the trash
> and they buy a new one.

Yup.

-- 
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" <jthorn at astro.indiana-zebra.edu>
   Dept of Astronomy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
   "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
    powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                      -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

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