I don't necessarily like the idea of a company wiping their hands clean and saying "well - not our problem!" either though.

Companies shouldn't wait to solve issues like this - they should be proactively helping their most vulnerable users. That is the "do no evil" motto.

I don't know enough to say whether this method is the right approach however.

>Companies shouldn't wait to solve issues like this

Unless you built your house yourself, you should expect the construction company to be responsible for verifying the identities of anyone entering your house. Asking for a passport and a one time payment, just in case the person who rings the bell may not be a friend.

That should be proactively helping you in case you're a vulnerable homeowner. Not checking in on every visitor would be evil, no?

I can't think of a better approach.

I lived in an apartment building, and one of the upsides was that the building had a security system and a front desk that helped control who could be wandering down my hall.

Me too.

But we, owners, collectively choose that. We choose the security company, we pay then, we can vote them out. Most importantly: the construction company has zero say in this.

Also, no one actually check the IDs of my friends, and they don't have to pay the construction company when they first come.

I give the codes, they ring, I open. I hire a company to monitor the building but I can kick then out any day.

I own the place, you see?

Doesn't really seem like it fits the analogy. Even ignoring that, I doubt they were checking passports and collecting tolls from guests, right?

Saying that computer/OS manufacturers should prevent malware is effectively equivalent to saying that they should not sell general purpose computers to the public. A general purpose computer is one that can run any program the users tells it to, which necessarily includes one that's malicious.

That doesn't necessarily preclude helping the user to notice when they're doing something dangerous, but a waiting period before the computer becomes general-purpose seems pretty extreme.

> Saying that computer/OS manufacturers should prevent malware is effectively equivalent to saying that they should not sell general purpose computers to the public.

(in Gilbert Huph (Wallace Shawn) voice) Yes, precisely!

The general consumer does not care about the distinction of if a product is technically a "general purpose computer" or not. They care about if the device is able to do what they want from it, providing them value.

> Companies shouldn't wait to solve issues like this - they should be proactively helping their most vulnerable users.

I think they should help their median users and empower their power users, and they should absolutely throw a few "most vulnerable" users under the bus if that's necessary. Otherwise you think about banning kitchen knives to protect the "most vulnerable users" who are too stupid to handle a knife. No, we shouldn't do that. Their stupidity should be their problem, not our problem.

Some degree of collateral damage must be accepted to maximize the expected value of a product or service. Minimizing risks can't be the top priority. Don't ban kitchen knives. What you are effectively arguing for is transforming both Windows and macOS into a closed iOS. Don't do that.

> Do people complain about being scammed with Windows

They do. They absolutely do. Where have you been in the last 20 years? Windows has had a reputation as an unsafe ecosystem for decades. Even amongst non-tech people. And even with the various exploits the biggest source of viruses on windows was always that, lacking a proper channel to distribute applications, they had trained their users to double click any .exe on the internet and the next>next>next in whatever installer. I don't agree with the tightening of developer account requirements, but this argument doesn't hold at all.

> They do. They absolutely do. Where have you been in the last 20 years?

The last time I heard these complaints were before Windows XP Service Pack 2, which added automatic Windows updates and ended the flood of viruses like Sasser or MyDoom.A. That was more than 20 years ago. On top of that, Windows Vista later added an integrated virus scanner and UAC dialogues, which gave you a big warning whenever you wanted to open an executable file. I haven't heard of any widespread viruses since. Nowadays most people don't even need to install software because most things are SAAS/cloud and run via the browser now.

Now the biggest "security issue" seems to stem from not-so-bright users being convinced by phone scammers to transfer them money or something like that. I don't think this is a problem with Windows.