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Comment by danenania | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if Heartbleed could reach this point, but I think probably the only possibility for getting average citizens up in arms about this kind of thing is for them to start seeing major personal detrimental effects (like oops, all my email has been stolen and deleted and my bank account's empty), and then learn that the NSA could have easily prevented it if they weren't having so much fun being super-hackers instead.

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I don't think average people (so to speak) really care about their email.

You are very wrong.

They don't until either they lose all of their email, or they lose their email account.

You are right, I could have been more specific, they do often care about maintaining control of their account. I don't think they care very much about their message history though, and there is at least some segment of the population that considers email accounts entirely disposable.

You'd be surprised about the number of emails I've received from people who apparently don't care about their email/website asking if it was vulnerable to the heartbleed/heartbug/heartbeetle/heartblood malware/virus/bug/issue/exploit in the past week.

Though I must say I find it funny all the different names/what exactly it is I've seen.

Even n00bs understand that if their email gets jacked, that can be used to reset all their other passwords and jack those accounts.

I'm not so sure, I know plenty of people who don't realize that until it's pointed out to them. Even then, many don't even care ("I don't have anything important anyways...").

Should be possible to convince them with "Hacker makes incriminating but false post on your Facebook" -> "Employer checks your Facebook" -> "Employer shows you the door."

"Why would anybody do that?" For the lulz ("random acts of malice"), sadly.

I had a fifteen minute conversation with a relative about this yesterday.

No, they emphatically do not, at least until you explain that to them. And even then, it was "well, I don't really do anything important online anyway..."

I don't know about that. Yesterday, my sister (a person who has no interest in tech, government, and is downright afraid of both) asked me about Heartbleed and stated it was the topic of discussion during breaks at work. I was pleasantly surprised.

You know, even my bank has a special warning up about Heartbleed. I also saw it as #1 on BBC News at some point, fed to my Android phone's news, etc. It's a surprisingly big deal.

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