Review: Digital You or Digital Poo? McAfee's Mangled Museum Metaphors

by Bob Crabtree on 10 November 2005, 00:20

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McAfee's Mangled Museum Metaphors


The company's Science Museum exhibit is trying to explain some important security issues using two big screens - each maybe 8ft wide and with a built in camera. So, anyone who walks in front of a screen appears on it.

One screen is intend to convey the idea that we are beset by computer bugs. People appearing on screen are shown with a whole lot of computer-generated insects swarming around them. They can dispel the critters by waving their arms or shaking their heads. That's not something that's ever got rid of bugs on any PC I've worked on - though I usually do both out of sheer frustration.


McAfee Digital You "bugs" screen McAfee Digital You "bugs" screen - note the lack of
information around the screen and on the right wall


The other screen is intended to convey the idea of identity theft and requires two people to stand in front of it, whereupon their heads get swapped around.

McAfee Digital You "identity-theft" screen McAfee Digital You "identity-theft" screen. A group of French teenagers somehow
got into the exhibit during the press briefing but lost interest soon after

Neither is necessarily a bad way of gaining attention but, sadly, there is no supporting information around the screens, or near them. There's also no audio (how hard to believe, is that?); and not even a URL or email address for further info – though it's hard to imagine anyone being sufficiently inspired to want to know anything more.

The only information available is a mess of hard-to-read words and phrases covering a large part of a dimly-lit wall to the left of the "bugs" screen - but some distance from it. Call me negative if you will, but I would be astonished if anyone – whether child or adult – were significantly wiser after interacting with the screens and trying to read the wall of words. I'd be delighted to be proven wrong, really I would, but deeply shocked all the same.

McAfee Digital You "words wall" The dimly-lit word wall. Click for a large image and you
should be able to read how uninsipiring the information at Digital You really is.
And this is a WYSIWYG wall; there is nothing more to read


On the plus side - from McAfee's viewpoint, anyway - the company's exhibit, called "Digital You", is reasonably well situated. Okay, it's up a flight of stairs but it's close to the South entrance. Even if visitors don't immediately go up to the Digital You balcony – The Bridge, is the museum's name for the area - most will go past it. Trouble is, the signage on the balcony can't be seen well by people walking past on the floors below and, if it could, there's really nothing on it to inspire anyone to check out what's up the stairs.


McAfee digital you balcony signage
McAfee's Digital You walk-through is behind the big sign on the balcony



Try spotting the big Digital You sign from down below From floor below, the big sign on McAfee's balcony is hard to spot - and nearly impossible to read
(and would be even if the cloth-covered table were removed). But, close up, as you can see
from the image above this one, the big sign says next to nothing, so that's alright, really


Dome deja vu

The whole thing reminded me all too vividly (if drab can indeed inspire vivid) of the numerous inadequate and boring displays that took a cold, wet flannel to visitors' sensibilities within the Millennium dome.

Mind you, some of the dome exhibits did at least get across a corporate message of a kind, though that, of course, was part of the reason why they were so irritating and inappropriate. But McAfee's little walk-through area will, I think, do little to boost the company's public profile (it seems that museum guidelines ensure that is the case), and next to nothing to inform or inspire visitors - though the screens just might give half a minute's light relief to the very young or the hard-of-thinking.

And, even ignoring the money and effort that's been wasted, that's a damn shame. The public does need a lot of educating about computer viruses, Trojans, spam email, phishing, identity theft, internet fraud generally, and all the other nasties that our ISPs are capable of delivering into our homes, and about the things that can be removed from them.

Even so, there certainly will be a few people who do get something out of McAfee's Digital You exhibit. For a start, there are firms getting truckloads of money for implementing or coming up with the company's misbegotten ideas – and for aiding in the design and hiring out the kit that's used over the two months.

Of course, further confirming that some clouds really do have high-carat silver linings, the Science Museum is also probably receiving a substantial and much-needed boost to its low-flowing coffers.

But were I a mover-and-shaker at McAfee – or indeed the Science Museum – I'd take the view that Digital You, as it stands, doesn't stack up and that a whole lot of arse kicking is in order, and hard. No one, it would appear, has had the bottle to point out that this particular emperor is stark-digital naked.

Oh, and if you think that a piece like this gets written with any degree of pleasure or without a great deal of consideration, you'd be wrong – though as a cynic myself, I'd have considerable sympathy with your viewpoint.

The private press showing of Digital You was held yesterday morning (Tuesday, September 8), and I returned early that afternoon having been told that the public would by then be allowed in.

Well, that was wrong – the stairs were still cordoned off – and that came as a bit of a relief. Deep down, I was hoping that someone at McAfee had already seen the light and the company will keep the barriers in place until it's reworked the exhibit so that it conveys some useful information. But I'm not holding my breath, having many times over the years (plenty of them recently) been astonished at the sheer lack of common sense shown by so many companies.

Digital You shut after the press event
Even from the bottom of the stairs, there's nothing to draw you in. After the
press event, McAfee kept the area closed - hopefully to try to sort out some of its shortcoming

So what, you may ask, is the answer to the serious problems of computer security? Well, if I thought I had one, you can be sure I'd tell you. Right now, other than legislation, I don't know what to suggest. But, since I don't trust the legislators on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I'm not actually going to suggest that.

What I would like to do, though, is hear your ideas and debate them with you, so come and have your say over in the HEXUS. community.

* Editor's note - yes, we know that the screens aren't, strictly speaking, metaphors but we just couldn't resist that headline (or, indeed, stop ourselves using it repeatedly).


HEXUS Forums :: 2 Comments

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Agreed that the general populace is in a dire state when it comes to general knowledge of the pitfalls of internet activity…

I think, though, that the ball doesn't necessarily lie in the court of public knowledge. The average computer user often feels that they are “forced” by todays society into using computers, and, in turn, the internet. As such they aren't interested in learning more about the potential risks, and how to help prevent them. They want to be able to check their emails, make a job application, look for a house, and leave their computer alone… What they don't want is to sit down for a day trying to figure out how the hell to set up this firewall (which they've probably had to fork out for) only to find that things which they could use before, now don't work. It's a similar scenario with antivirus softs.

I think the biggest step in the right direction lies in the hands of Windows Vista. And what protection it offers from the off, already set up, and easy to use. Not in what is later released in service pack 19, because, again, to the general populace, this will never touch their PC. They'll buy a computer, be baffled by it for six months (because it doesn't behave in the same way as their previous machine) eventually start to feel comfortable with it, only for the machine to slowly grind to a halt, till, two or three years later, they go through the whole process again.

The presentation is also pants. And pretty damned rudimentary, aswell ~ the “identity theft” one being particularly crude.

Pah.
Hoodi,

I hope you are right about Vista, but I know you are right about how many people feel about computers, though, perhaps, the situation is actually rather worse than you suggest.

Heck, it's bad enought trying to sort out the timer on a VCR or the kitchen cooker, never mind get your head around all the twaddle that computers require.

I remember the Microsoft commercial that used to appear on TV perhaps five or more years ago, showing a woman returning to work after having her kids grew up a bit. She sits at a PC and then, all on her own, figures out how to use a mouse and Windows' GUI - and gets going straight away.

Complete cobblers. Can't be done.

Oh, and let me tell you a little story - and this really is true.

From 1994 to 1997, I worked for myself doing a whole lot of different things, including IT consultancy for small business and even training kids (and parents) to use their computers in their own homes.

I went to one bloke's house and it took me more than 20 minutes to convince him that I knew the first thing about computers, on account of I tried to explain to him, from the off, that the way he'd been using a mouse was wrong.

I'd thought it would be unwise to delay telling him until half an hour in - but he struggled to believe that he wasn't doing it right, holding the mouse upside down in one hand, and moving the ball around with the other.

Not surprisingly his self-esteem was shot to hell, despite my handling him with kid gloves, and he never ask me to tutor him again.

During that period, it really made me sad to see how many of the people who called me had done so as a final resort - they had spent a LOT of money on their PCs, money that would have bought them a car or a decent holiday, and yet they were prepared to spend out more cos the next step was going to be sticking their PCs away in cupboards or trying to flog them off cheap.

They just could cope with them. The whole experience - understandably in my view - was a frustrating mystery, until someone sat down with them and helped clear the fog.

I started teaching myself about computers in the early 80s - because I wanted to. They seemed interesting to me (and still do).

But lots of people feel they have to learn about them to keep up and that hardly puts them in the right frame of mind to make the necessary effort - and a lot of effort, rather than a lot of skill or intelligence, is required to reach a stage where you can use computers comfortably and “safely”.

And do you realise how many people, in an office environment in the UK, do actually have to start using PCs without any training? It's frightening.

Of course, more kids today get training of sorts at school - but generally, pretty poor training, judging from what I hear from my kids, and their friends, and also from my own personal knowledge of teachers (they're in the family, you understand) and the teaching environment in which they themselves get inadequate training about PCs.

But, returning to security, in my view, a lot of companies need to start take their responsibilities serious.

In the front line, I see the OS makers (and the makers of web browsers and email apps - whether or not they are the OS maker as well), the ISPs, the makers of computer hardware, and those who run web sites.

Companies such as McAfee really don't count - and can't reasonably be relied on - since, logically, if the security issues were resolved, they'd be ought of business.

Oh, and just for laughs, guess how many emails are trapped by my anti-spam filter every day (note, I didn't say, “correctly” trapped).


Bob