It’s always a trade-off. Anybody who says otherwise is selling you something or clueless.
Also see: scissors.
(compliments to my friend Steve Tanner for whipping up a slider in Visual Studio 2008)
2 thoughts on “Security vs. Usability”
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Maybe I’m clueless, because I’m not convinced. Was switching to ssh from telnet really a usability compromise?
At any rate, I’m not sure there’s a straight inverse relationship as the slider suggests. IMHO, you can gain a lot in security without necessarily losing a lot in usability.
Matt, you’re likely not clueless, but the way I see it telnet comes with most desktop OSes. SSH does not. Which is changing, of course, with Mac OS and more Linux used as desktops, but you’ve likely needed an add-on SSH client for years prior. That’s the usability trade-off.
And, you’re right, there’s not a linear relationship between the two.