'Geek speak'

Most users don't know much about computers and really don't want to know.
To them a PC is a machine just like a car or a microwave if it does something odd then it is broken and should be fixed or thrown away. I've heard of many machines that were thrown away when all that was needed was a reformat.
Most of the machines I've fixed in the last year have problems caused with spyware. The users are usually quite surprised to find out what a nasty place the interweb is. I'm finding I spend at least as long explaining what has happend to their machine as I do fixing it.

The users are not usually thick they just find the workings of a PC a bit abstract. If you use a metaphor they can cope with they will get the idea quite quickly. I often describe using spyware scanners as being a bit like washing your car, the crap builds up over time and mileage and you should give it a clean once a week or so.
It's not accurate and it's overly simplistic but it gets the idea across. Similar silly stories work with AV and updates.

They're not geeks after you speak with them but they are a bit less of a noob.

Quote:

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A quarter said they knew what "spyware" was, although almost one in 10 of those thought it was a computer program that kept an eye on unfaithful partners.

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Now that's funny :D Maybe we should 'advise' all those people that come here asking "How can I hack into my girlfriend's hotmail, I think she is cheating on me" to install spyware :lildevil:

I loved the phishermen's cartoon :D

Whoa whoa, a lot of name calling and no one stepping foward to explain why. The reason AOL users are typically looked down upon is not because of their ISP choice merely being OMFGWTFBBQ aol, it's because of how limiting AOL is as an ISP.

I remember being on it WAY back in the day. Limited telnet access depending upon country, multiple proxy/firewalls (aol-based) inbetween you and the page you connect to, thus eliminating proper origonal proxy usage, incompatible standards meaning ssh was always a little buggy, and that you are never actually on the internet, but just on their network. Rather than being on the 'net, per say, and asking backbones to download the information to your computer... on AOL you end up asking the AOL proxies to ask the other proxies to download the information from a backbone computer and then send it back to the proxy chain to send it to you. A lot of bandwidth wasted and time spent waiting.

It isn't that the AOL users are dumb by nature. We assume they are newbs because they are using an internet service which is going to hinder their network security testing/exploration/learning. And because of this hinderence and incompatability, it is eventually going to leave them far behind in terms of hand-on knowledge and 'at home' capability.