ReadWriteWeb wrote a blog post titled "Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login". Google indexed the page, so it quickly appeared at the top of search engine listings for "Facebook login". Amazingly, a rather large number of people landed on the blog from Google searches, didn't realize they weren't on the Facebook login page, and began leaving comments. Here's a sampling:

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Ok If I have to I will comment,I love facebook so right now just want to log in if thats ok with you..lol Keep up the good work...
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I just want to sign in............
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I just want to log in to Facebook - what with the red color and all? #
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I was just learning,why would you mess it up?
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ok cool now can I get to facebook
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wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz
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Reading the comments, linguistically the majority of the "lost loggers" appear to be younger. This would be a generation that grew up with a "Popcorn" button on the microwave. And it begs the quite serious question, if the popcorn button failed, would they know how to pop it any other way? I don't mean using a stove, a pan, and some oil either - but simply the ability to program in the right amount of time?

I ask this because the thread, funny at times but mostly quite sad, indicates that a large number of Web surfers have no understanding of even the very basics of their Web browser. And because they are used to accessing sites via search engines, they aren't at all familiar with the address bar - much less how a URL is formed.

If users don't understand the basics of how a normal URL is formed, how can they ever recognize a malformed URL that points to a phishing site? Likewise, if these users cannot distinguish a valid search engine listing for Facebook from a listing for a blog discussing Facebook, how can they even begin to decipher spamdexing listings?

And if they can't do any of the above, how will those of us in the security industry ever be able to help them understand the sophisticated and highly criminal attacks that are taking place via the Web today? Because while it might be tempting to chuckle at these users' lack of basic understanding of how the Web works, the thing is that most of them probably have jobs. They could even be working in your own enterrpise. And it's your intellectual property that's at stake. And it's these very same users that might be the only thing standing between your sensitive data and those that would steal it.

It's not funny. It's downright scary.