Despite this, both Binary Freedom and System Toolbox don't touch much on the topic of user education - neither site is really intended for this, as they focus on well, Binary Freedom and Systems Administration, respectively.

                And yet, this editorial needs to touch on this.   Because, maybe, just maybe, it's not all the user's fault.   Now, some users are just plain ignorant and won't learn despite attempts to teach them.   But there is a flip side to this.   Allow me to explain:

                Tired with the excess of being a systems administrator (well Associate Director of IT, formerly a systems administrator) , website editor and bon vivant, I decided to go back to college full time.   Now, this experience is interesting on many levels - I drink Scotch that is older than my classmates - but one of the most educational experiences has been the mis-education of my Computer Science Class.

                Now, to level the playing field, understand that I learned Vi at the age of 9 after being handed a manual by my Dad and left alone (arguably, this is child abuse - let the Vi / Emacs battles rage...)  Understand that as soon as I left high school I quickly became a System Administrator full time.  Understand as well that this was several decades ago.

                So, then you can probably see why:

1.       I did not take IT or Comp Sci as a major.

2.       I did take Comp Sci as a Science option.  Easy A.  Beats Chemistry, anyway.

So, then, you can probably imagine my complete shock when, in the second class (the first being the syllabus), the Professor informed the class that your home computer can be hacked even if it's powered off.

I guess, maybe, if the hacker has already compromised another device on your network and your device has PXE boot configured...  Possible? Yes?  Likely?  Not a chance.

So then, I was asked, "Who invented the Internet?"

"Well, organizationally, it would have been the Advanced Research Project.  If you're looking for a person, perhaps you mean Vince Cerf?"

                "What I mean is da web!" she declared.

"Oh!" I said, "That's an easy one.   Tim Berners Lee over at CERN developed.."

                "READ DA TEXTBOOK!" She ordered.

                After a few seconds of looking, she directed me to page 36, and by page 36, she meant page 26. After some discussion I read the paragraph from the text, which, in its own roundabout way backed up what I said.  Now, we had not been previously reading directly from the text, but I guess for me, that was the option.

                So, I decided at this point that I'd not be answering any more questions today.

"So, what's a SERVER?" she asked the class.   I was afraid to find out and I was sure as hell not going to respond.   After no takers, she finally explained,  "It's what gives ya da token!   Every node on da Ethernet network waits for da token ta come around from da server.  Da server gives da token out clockwise and when ya node gets da token, ya gets to use da server.  Some ethernets have two tokens and day are two times fasta."

                I begin to suspect that she was trained backed in the coaxial days of token ring and what I was hearing was some strange reinterpretation of this...

"You!" she said, pointing to me, "How does these computers here get out to da Internet?"

                "Umm, well, you're using a 10.x address, so the traffic is routing on the LAN to a device performing Network Address Translation or even a proxy server that translates traffic that is then routed out over what I would guess would be OC3's to your ISP..."

"Wrong!"  She declared, "Da server gives da token for going out the DSL ine."

                'Well, Hell', I thought to myself, 'The token, of course.  And the DSL.  A campus with 30,000 students.  Naturally, a DSL would fit the bill.'

                So, then, this brought about an epiphany.  No, not that a sudden realization that a DSL could miraculously handle a network with 30,000 users.   No, what I realized was that although some users are ignorant despite all assistance to the contrary, there remains some responsibility for the general ignorance due to what folks are taught.   Now, most reputable technical schools are going to have a highly-effective computer science curriculum.  But I'm back in school for a non-technical advanced degree.  I am not going to a technical school; I am going to a school that specializes in what my degree program is in.   And this comp-sci course is basically a General Education course that any student can take as a science.  I don't expect that teacher to be a genius.   But I would expect that they are competent.

                So here's the thing - just like in a business where IT is not the main objective, education with IT is relegated to a secondary or tertiary concern at non-IT institutions.   Without the attention it requires, these courses do more harm than good.  Basically, these schools take a half-hearted attempted to cover IT for their students and they hire half-competent people to teach it.  The result being that the students - future users -are leaving college with a half-baked concept of how IT works.  The problem is that these future users have half an idea of how to use a computer - and the other half of what they were taught is completely wrong.   But, since it was taught in college, well, it must be right.   This explains both the level of comprehension that most users seem to possess as well as the self-righteous attitude that many seem to possess even when they're wrong.