SleepyEgg

Study after study has shown that users are the weak link when it comes to security. Some of it, however, is not their fault: best security practices often go against everything we know about human behavior or mental capacity. A study that will be published in the Journal of Consumer Research adds another one to this list. It turns out that the warning signs that might tip users off to a web site that's more likely to compromise their personal information actually causes many users to treat said information casually.

The authors approached the issue with a simple question: what motivates people to reveal personal information on the Internet? Understanding the phenomenon could go a long way towards explaining everything from blogging to phishing victims, but the authors chose to focus specifically on whether people would hand over embarrassing personal information, including sexual habits and illegal acts. After several rounds of tests, they conclude, "A central finding of all four experiments, is that disclosure of private information is responsive to environmental cues that bear little connection, or are even inversely related, to objective hazards."