One has to wonder why the mainstream media bother to try and make the general public aware of security issues... such as the dangers of unencrypted wireless Internet, phishing, what not having a firewall could do and so on.

The chances are, if you watch and know what they're talking about - you're sufficiently knowledgable to avoid these kind of pitfalls... in much the same way the average person might avoid stepping in a bear trap or off a cliff. However, those not sufficiently imbued with knowledge on these matters are likely unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Which makes them rather pointless. They're simply insulting the intelligence - or perhaps, allowing people to sit back in a moment of smug superiority - of people "in the know" and not doing much more than making people who are at risk worry because all they'll do is bring on some "expert" who will tell us -"WIFI IS UNSAFE" but then make little if any effort to inform people how they might go about securing it.

It actually might be useful if they did because if you know anything about the more prolific viruses or larger DoS attacks these days, you'll know that they are in fact all down to people who allow their computers to be sequestered by trojans etc. which are then used to proliferate said virus or participate in an attack. Which of course, degrades everyone's Internet experience.