As the number of Internet users has grown, so have the security threats that they face online. Security warnings are one key strategy for trying to warn users about those threats; but recently, it has been questioned whether they are effective. We conducted a study in which 120 participants brought their own laptops to a usability test of a new academic article summary tool. They encountered a PDF download warning for one of the papers. All participants noticed the warning, but 98 (81.7%) downloaded the PDF file that triggered it. There was no significant difference between responses to a brief generic warning, and a longer specific one. The participants who heeded the warning were overwhelmingly female, and either had previous experience with viruses or lower levels of computing skills. Our analysis of the reasons for ignoring warnings shows that participants have become desensitised by frequent exposure and false alarms, and think they can recognise security risks. At the same time, their answers revealed some misunderstandings about security threats: for instance, they rely on anti-virus software to protect them from a wide range of threats, and do not believe that PDF files can infect their machine with viruses. We conclude that security warnings in their current forms are largely ineffective, and will remain so, unless the number of false positives can be reduced.
During terrestrial activities, sensation of pressure on the skin and tension in muscles and joints provides information about how the body is oriented relative to gravity and how the body is moving relative to the surrounding environment. In contrast, in aquatic environments when suspended in a state of neutral buoyancy, the weight of the body and limbs is offloaded, rendering these cues uninformative. It is not yet known how this altered sensory environment impacts virtual reality experiences. To investigate this question, we converted a full-face SCUBA mask into an underwater head-mounted display and developed software to simulate jetpack locomotion outside the International Space Station. Our goal was to emulate conditions experienced by astronauts during training at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab. A user study was conducted to evaluate both sickness and presence when using virtual reality in this altered sensory environment. We observed an increase in nausea related symptoms underwater, but we cannot conclude that this is due to VR use. Other measures of sickness and presence underwater were comparable to measures taken above water. We conclude with suggestions for improved underwater VR systems and improved methods for evaluation of these systems based on our experience.
CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; • Software and its engineering → Virtual worlds training simulations.
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