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Saturday, January 20, 2001 |
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You know how bank ATMs have those little buttons down the side of the screen
to select from an on-screen menu? Mostly, they're useful: they allow only
the valid options to be presented to the user, and keep the number of
different buttons required down to a minimum. But ATMs also have a variety
of other buttons on the keypad (usually including "OK" and "Cancel") and
this split screen/keypad user interface can lead to problems.
For example, today I met young lady who was quite distressed because she
thought the ATM had "eaten" her card. The problem was that the on-screen
menu was laid out as follows:
Push here for other services --> [::]
Press Cancel if finished [::]
The poor lady was pushing the bottom (non-active) screen button, rather than
reading the instructions to press a separate key. The screen layout here is
not terribly helpful, since it suggests that the bottom button might do
something.
But the real risk is that if you provide shortcuts to perform common tasks,
then users won't learn how to do things that aren't available from a
shortcut.
Austin [Austin Donnelly via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 22]
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A quote from a message sent to a list I am on:
>Or HTML being rendered automagically without some restriction of
>functionality, even if *that* is done within tcl/Tk instead of an
>external program. (Think "Web bugs". When some scientific conference
>requested that submissions be sent in HTML, I used a
>pointing to my Webserver and presto, not only did I see in the Web logs
>who was refereeing my paper - highly confidential info, as far as
>confidentiality goes in academia -, I could even tell how thoroughly
>they had read it in the first place!! 8-} )
>
>(To add insult to injury, when these guys confirmed receipt of
>submissions, they sent Word *.DOC's, which included a list of the last
>ten files loaded into Word - and they had chosen to name the files by
>submission number *and contact author*. Oooooooops again - the names of
>authors whose papers were rejected are the *other* confidential data in
>scientific conferences ... Oh, did I mention that the first version of
>their Call for Papers read "please send HTML, double spaced, no more
>than ... pages"?) ["Lindsay F. Marshall" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 21]
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From the Guardian, Saturday Jan 20, an update on the proposal for GPS speed
control of vehicles, where the car determines its maximum speed from an in
vehicle database of speeds of roads.
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,425344,00.html
The government has commissioned a trial of speed limiters in cars, which
could lead to computer-controlled overrides as a standard fitting within
five years. Twenty trial vehicles will be fitted with a system which has
won praise on a prototype Ford Escort driven over thousands of rigidly
monitored miles in the past three years.
The tests, which prevented the car from topping 30mph, 40mph and other
limits, were "highly reliable" according to the Institute of Transport
Studies at Leeds University, which has won funding for the expanded trials
from the Department of Transport, Environment and the Regions."
"We've had two dozen people driving along a 40 mile route, including the
A1M motorway," said Oliver Carsten, head of the project, which has also been
demonstrated on the north circular road in London.
The system uses a computerised navigator linked to the car's electronic
controls and a positioning satellite. Areas with speed restrictions are
fed into the system to trigger action as soon as a limit is breached.
Just think how much fun you'll be able to have by a UK motorway in five
years time from jamming the GPS signals. Or how much a 'chipped' database or
speed limiter will be worth. A more rigorous trial would be to place the
speed limited vehicles in the hands of well known violators of the speed
laws to see how much effort it takes to disable -- the UK home secretary
himself, for example.
Steve Loughran
[Home, Secretary, and don't spare the tires. PGN] ["Steve Loughran" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 22]
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A quote from a message sent to a list I am on:
>Or HTML being rendered automagically without some restriction of
>functionality, even if *that* is done within tcl/Tk instead of an
>external program. (Think "Web bugs". When some scientific conference
>requested that submissions be sent in HTML, I used a
>pointing to my Webserver and presto, not only did I see in the Web logs
>who was refereeing my paper - highly confidential info, as far as
>confidentiality goes in academia -, I could even tell how thoroughly
>they had read it in the first place!! 8-} )
>
>(To add insult to injury, when these guys confirmed receipt of
>submissions, they sent Word *.DOC's, which included a list of the last
>ten files loaded into Word - and they had chosen to name the files by
>submission number *and contact author*. Oooooooops again - the names of
>authors whose papers were rejected are the *other* confidential data in
>scientific conferences ... Oh, did I mention that the first version of
>their Call for Papers read "please send HTML, double spaced, no more
>than ... pages"?)
["Lindsay F. Marshall" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 21]
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Maximillian Dornseif, 2002.
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