Howardism: Those are Features

Those are Features

You may remember those commercials of yesteryear where they shampooed (is that how you spell that word?) someone's head, but used two different shampoos (one on each side). The person then responds that he/she likes the side that is "tingly" that way, "I know it is working."

Talk about an effective ad campaign to cover up a product's defect.

I mean, I expect my topical ointments to be nearly as inert as water, and I'm sure after the products development, they were testing it on people who complained about a "burning sensation" on their head. I can just see the CEO standing in front of his marketing department saying, "I can't believe we will be loosing all that money in research and development." Then a little pimply-faced intern exclaims, "Why don't we have an ad campaign to promote our product as tingly instead of burning."

"That's marvelous," booms the CEO, "You're now V.P. of Marketing." And so another product defect become a feature.

Yes, Corporate America thinks we are all a bunch of mindless gits who will fall for such advertising. It works for shampoos, and it works for computer software as well…

"Yes, Mr. Customer, what you've encountered is a software feature. In our extensive research and testing, we found that most people appreciate multiple ways to quit the application. Granted, some of the buttons respond with a "Are you sure?" dialog, and others respond with a "General Protection Fault" dialog. The effect is always the same. Thank you for calling."

I find that a lot of security vulnerabilities are considered "access features" … they don't want to make it too difficult for their customers to access their own information, right? Well, yes and no. I think that most people, if they are going to have a computer plugged into the internet fully expect that it should be more difficult to access that data, and will prefer that over the possibility of exploitation from a fourteen-year old hacker.

This seems to be the response from Microsoft after a worm infected Microsoft's SQLServer. The worm exploited a vulnerability that was published in June 2002. This worm brought the Internet to its knees. Well, that "feature" is now considered a "bug" now that there is a fix available. Lovely.

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	Internet Rudeness Creative Commons Licensing Storytelling and Programming Programming Suicide Starting an LLC Quality of Software The Sword and the Shovel Languagistical Musings Advice to the Young Interviewed Read other entries in Other...	Those are Features You may remember those commercials of yesteryear where they shampooed (is that how you spell that word?) someone's head, but used two different shampoos (one on each side). The person then responds that he/she likes the side that is "tingly" that way, "I know it is working." Talk about an effective ad campaign to cover up a product's defect. I mean, I expect my topical ointments to be nearly as inert as water, and I'm sure after the products development, they were testing it on people who complained about a "burning sensation" on their head. I can just see the CEO standing in front of his marketing department saying, "I can't believe we will be loosing all that money in research and development." Then a little pimply-faced intern exclaims, "Why don't we have an ad campaign to promote our product as tingly instead of burning." "That's marvelous," booms the CEO, "You're now V.P. of Marketing." And so another product defect become a feature. Yes, Corporate America thinks we are all a bunch of mindless gits who will fall for such advertising. It works for shampoos, and it works for computer software as well… "Yes, Mr. Customer, what you've encountered is a software feature. In our extensive research and testing, we found that most people appreciate multiple ways to quit the application. Granted, some of the buttons respond with a "Are you sure?" dialog, and others respond with a "General Protection Fault" dialog. The effect is always the same. Thank you for calling." I find that a lot of security vulnerabilities are considered "access features" … they don't want to make it too difficult for their customers to access their own information, right? Well, yes and no. I think that most people, if they are going to have a computer plugged into the internet fully expect that it should be more difficult to access that data, and will prefer that over the possibility of exploitation from a fourteen-year old hacker. This seems to be the response from Microsoft after a worm infected Microsoft's SQLServer. The worm exploited a vulnerability that was published in June 2002. This worm brought the Internet to its knees. Well, that "feature" is now considered a "bug" now that there is a fix available. Lovely. Tell others about this article:
	2014, Howard Abrams Some rights reserved	Originally written on 2 July 2003. Updated on 8 February 2014.