slightly OT: preventing user stupidity

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 02:38:47PM -0500, Fairlight wrote:
> This public service announcement was brought to you by Jay Ashworth:
> > The *real* goal here, of course, is to provide a requirement that
> > allows you to say, in court, "Did you make an action that required a
> > conscious act of choice?" and get the answer "Yes."
> > 
> > Then it's their fault.
> > 
> > :-)
> 
> I duly note the smiley.  However, if you're even halfway serious with the
> first paragraph and the smiley is just for the witicism, I don't think this
> does any good.  They made a conscious choice when they bought and installed
> the software to begin with.  If that's your criterion, it's an open and
> shut case already.

No, seriously: this is why recent EULA display windows require you to
*page down* all the way to the end before they enable the "I Agree"
box.  You have a defensible case in court if the vendor didn't force
you to at least *be able* to read the entire agreement, but gave you
the I Agree checkbox anyway, that it's the *vendor's* fault you checked
yes without reading it.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

      If you can read this... thank a system adminstrator.  Or two.  --me