Editing Dancing pigs (section)

== Origins ==
The term originates from a remark made by [[Edward Felten]], an associate professor at Princeton University:
{{cquote|Given a choice between dancing pigs and security, users will pick dancing pigs every time.<ref>Gary McGraw and Edward Felten: ''Securing Java'' (John Wiley & Sons, 1999; {{ISBN|0-471-31952-X}}), [https://web.archive.org/web/19991003062947/http://www.securingjava.com/chapter-one/chapter-one-7.html Chapter one, Part seven]</ref>}}

[[Bruce Schneier]] states:
{{quote| The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time.<ref>{{cite news|last=Mills|first=Elinor|title=Q&A: Schneier warns of marketers and dancing pigs|url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10381460-245.html|accessdate=12 February 2013|newspaper=CNET|date=October 23, 2009}}</ref> }}

Bruce Schneier expands on this remark as follows:
{{quote|If [[J. Random Websurfer]] clicks on a button that promises dancing pigs on his computer monitor, and instead gets a hortatory message describing the potential dangers of the applet—he's going to choose dancing pigs over computer security any day. If the computer prompts him with a warning screen like: "The applet DANCING PIGS could contain malicious code that might do permanent damage to your computer, steal your life's savings, and impair your ability to have children," he'll click OK without even reading it. Thirty seconds later he won't even remember that the warning screen even existed.<ref>Bruce Schneier: ''[[Secrets and Lies (Schneier)|Secrets and Lies]]'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2000; {{ISBN|0-471-45380-3}}), p262</ref>}}

The [[Mozilla]] Security Reviewers' Guide states:
{{quote|Many of our potential users are inexperienced computer users, who do not understand the risks involved in using interactive Web content. This means we must rely on the user's judgement as little as possible.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/components/reviewguide.html |title= Mozilla Security Review and Best Practices Guide |date= 17 May 2002 |accessdate= 2 February 2015 |publisher= [[Mozilla Foundation]]}}</ref>}}

A widely publicized 2009 paper<ref>{{cite news|title=Please Do Not Change Your Password|url=http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/11/please_do_not_change_your_password/|first=Mark|last=Pothier|newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]]|date=11 April 2010|accessdate= 2 February 2015|url-access=subscription }}</ref> directly addresses the dancing pigs quotation and argues that users' behavior is plausibly rational:
{{quote|While amusing, this is unfair: users are never offered security, either on its own or as an alternative to anything else. They are offered long, complex and growing sets of advice, mandates, policy updates and tips. These sometimes carry vague and tentative suggestions of reduced risk, never security.<ref>{{cite conference|title=So Long and No Thanks for the Externalities: the Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users|conference=New Security Paradigms Workshop|conference-url=http://www.nspw.org/2009/|year=2009|author=Cormac Herley|url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cormac/papers/2009/SoLongAndNoThanks.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328045943/http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cormac/papers/2009/SoLongAndNoThanks.pdf|archive-date=2016-03-28}}</ref>}}