And you're ready to hand over even the first 3 items there, you're not likely to assume or even notice that github stars about to get you knocked out of orbit.
I know this is a place of hubris but it almost comes across as a strange lack of self-awareness that this many people actually think they'd have caught that.
No, that is being an intelligent ape reacting to a twitching bush by running up a tree on the chance that a predator is behind the bush. The tables have turned since then. Back then the analytical ape would have gotten eaten and not passed his genes on, but there is no longer a biological imperative to mindlessly react to things.
Modern humanity hasn't existed for an eye blink compared to the everything that led up til now, so there's two kinds of people:
- People who understand we all have these blind spots and understand account for them
- People who don't even realize how often they run into these blind spot.
You're much better off learning to be the former, but I'm sure it feels good to proclaim from on high how you're just sloppy for not checking every dialog you come across...
- People who've heard about about the marshmallow impulse control study + the effects that medieval-plagues/cousin-marriage has had on the human gene pool
- People who say silly things like "Modern humanity hasn't existed for an eye blink compared to.."
You're much better off reading a long term study on the life trajectories of people who had their impulse control quantified as children - spoiler: they do not do well in the modern world relative to everyone else enjoying a reduced probability of incarceration.
Intelligent apes surrounded by wiggling bushes stop paying attention to wiggling bushes and get munched on by a predator eventually, no?
Agreed, but unlike a login prompt, those things are there for the benefit of others - not you. To continue the analogy: blowing through a login (or changing traffic signal, regardless of color) is like an ape exposing his belly to any silhouette vaguely shaped like a trusted member of the troop.
> ..stop paying attention to wiggling bushes..
Dunno, he could also have a breakdown - lab rats are known to practically lay down and die when you suddenly reverse the role of external stimuli in a system of punishment and reward. But I don't see how that fits here, the user isn't being plagued by nonsensical login prompts constantly springing into existence.
I'll honestly never get that point of view: it's an evolutionary disadvantage to not fall for these kinds of attacks. Our intelligence is largely predicated on how easily we can pattern match and filter out "excess" information.
So OP being bombarded with a list of harmless permissions along with one deceptively dangerous one (deceptive because they wouldn't expect to lead to being pwn'd anyways, since it's stars) and granting is not being sloppy, it's being an intelligent person.
Github is large enough to have UX experts who know this stuff, and at the very least if stars are grounds for being banned, they should be grouping it with dangerous permissions and using more confirmations.
And even better... they should just rate limit starring! How often is someone going to star 500 of someone's repos legitimately that rate limiting would ruin everyone's day?