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The Insecurity Industry

edwardsnowden.substack.com

81–90 of 386 posts

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#81
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people I went to Uni with ended up in fields where the companies are liable for bad stuff, to a certain degree. It does exist. However: * you get paid a lot less * the companies and industries move very slowly * you spend a lot more time writing long-form, some time just re-using existing stuff wholesale, and almost no time building actually new things I mean like Real Engineering fields. What we do in so…

Actually it's simpler. People and organizations would just move to a jurisdiction where such liability laws didn't exist. Apple would move. Microsoft would move. Google would move. And then the US would be forced to decide whether to accept imports of foreign devices and software (created under the no-liability framework) or to stay with homegrown technology frozen in time. The best thing you can say about this propo…

> or to stay with homegrown technology frozen in time.

Why would it be frozen in time?

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#83
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does linux fare in this scenario? few things are as critical in terms of infrastructure

All the internet backbone routers, endpoint routers and switches, hardware firewalls, VPN concentrators, the SSH daemons, SSL software, RSA keyfobs and the like, the content delivery networks and DNS ecosystem, SSL public trust system, the connectivity providers from ISP networks and national and international fibre connections to cellular and wifi networks, web browsers which billions of people use to interact with…

The point is that if legislation were introduced that resulted in liability it would likely completely decapitate the FOSS ecosystem (among other things).

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#84

Edward Snowden is a traitor or a coward. Daniel Ellsberg gave the pentagon papers to the press after trying to give them to Congress. He then fought the govt in court and won. Ellsberg is a patriot.

John Kerry said the same thing nearly. Ellsberg called it disingenuous or simply ignorant.[1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel...

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#86
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's simpler. People and organizations would just move to a jurisdiction where such liability laws didn't exist. Apple would move. Microsoft would move. Google would move. And then the US would be forced to decide whether to accept imports of foreign devices and software (created under the no-liability framework) or to stay with homegrown technology frozen in time. The best thing you can say about this propo…

> or to stay with homegrown technology frozen in time. Why would it be frozen in time?

> Why would it be frozen in time?

Local development would rendered unable to compete with the fast moving zero-liability model that quickly and cheaply delivered the features that consumers wanted. Either it's import would be banned or the local industry would crumble.

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What we do in software is not real engineering, not even close. The only reason our processes and practices aren't much heavier is because the stakes are lower. People do not die if a Tweet doesn't make it through, but they do if a bridge collapses through. The threat model is also significantly different. If we go back to the bridge analogy, a company like Microsoft has to deal with tens of thousands of people try…

> People do not die if a Tweet doesn't make it through True, and what you're saying is generally true. But what were the total consequences of the Equifax breach? We can't even quantify it. Snowden himself in the article mentions activists and journalists being killed because of these vulnerabilities. There are definitely counterexamples.

That is due to issues with how Equifax operated (and related lack of meaningful consequences). It has nothing to do with a lack of liability for software companies.

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#88
> iOS's update model is 1000% better than Android's, which is a massive security improvement against most threat actors (who aren't using artisanal Israeli zero-day exploits).

What are the advantages of iOS's update model?

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#89
post #82

While his message is undoubtedly important I find his writing style is overly condescending and detracts from the message.

He probably has earned the right to be condescending as much as say Linus has. Dude risked it all to expose what he thought was wrong, and only someone as smart as him could have managed to stay alive and out of jail (albeit barely) facing off the most powerful country in the world.

Re: The Insecurity Industry

#90

"For example, if you want to see Microsoft have a heart attack, talk about the idea of defining legal liability for bad code in a commercial product." That sort of discussion is quickly dismissed on HN. And probably elsewhere on the web/over the internet. Instead we frequently see discussion blaming users of the software, i.e., Microsoft's customers, or even suggestions to make the customer liable, or comments from "…

We tried this with general aviation. Private plane manufacturers all went bankrupt, and now the minimum price for a new airplane is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Apply strict liability to software, and you'll see the same results. Every piece of software will have to be constructed with the care of a medical device. Expect most forms of technological progress to come to a halt. Some part of the HN crowd wi…

Private plane manufacturers went bankrupt, but more importantly, plane crashes have become incredibly rare.
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