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Increased Software Vulnerability, Gov't Regulation
PogieMT writes "An
article in the New York Times
(registration required) suggests that the rash of security flaws, viruses and
worms is leading a push towards greater regulation by the government, which,
according to the piece, has largely relied on the efforts of individual
companies."
Call me cynical, but I don't think the US government are getting into this for the sake of safeguarding my PC from viruses...
Regulation is not the answer - professionalism is. The government has oversight over the construction industry for example, but engineers are accredited and the profession is run day-to-day but the professional institution, in the UK this is the Institute of Civil Engineers. Same in medicine, the government oversees, but day to day regulation rests with the BMA, the British Medical Association, and doctors answer to them. Same with lawyers, accountants, investment bankers... even lifeguards and hairdressers have professional bodies.
Software development needs to become more like engineering, and software developers should be required to take a qualification like CEng (UK) or PEng (US) in order to work in positions of authority and responsibility. Remember that engineering is about public safety - bridges don't often collapse, buildings don't often topple, and that's all because the people designing them have been certified by independant bodies. Programmers of safety-critical systems are already often required to be certified by the relevant body, usually that of the electrical engineers.
Regulation may or may not work. What would really work would be if the government (Microsoft's biggest customer, I've heard) stopped buying their products in favor of others that are more secure. Re-evaluate that when Microsoft's products have less of an issue.
I know that all systems have some security problems or another. I don't recall any of them having sent me a thousand e-mail messages every day, though. And it's not like this is the first time.
Let the government talk with it's money and people will listen.
Personally, I don't really like my tax money going so much to Microsoft. For one thing, I don't like that the privacy of my information and security of the systems relies on something that seems to have so many problems.
Sean
Gates is probably telling Bush "see, this is why we need trusted computing." Bush will declare that either you are with him, or you are with the terrorists.
Regulating computer safety makes these guys exactly like the AT&T of yore. And don't we all know what happened with that?
So let some damned competition into the market. The only reason to trust these guys in any other situtation is to simply not understand the idea of a world without them, and sadly that seems to be the way most people think.
Any user who does not patch daily and harms another due to not being patched should be punished. Here is how I think it should work....
... "If you don't patch and change your behavior, we cut you off without warning."
A few big ISPs should simply start cutting service to those who have been backdoored and are zombies, have opened virus laden e-mails, or are otherwise infected and causing others problems. For example, no firewall on an open, always-on connection. Especially cable modem ISPs and DSL providers should do this. It should be VERY heavily marketed
My feeling is that by doing this, people will finally start learning how to patch and how to not open e-mail attachments. People will get firewalls and AV software ASAP.
I have seen the threat of this work on a small scale. ISPs are dimwitted morons for not requiring this in the first place. How stupid to give a bunch of newbies loaded guns and then deny responsibility. Buy stock in firewall and AV companies!
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Corporations would develop their own distributions and make them as feature rich and easy to use as the Windows was. In other words the (alleged) superior security of linux distributions would be broken down in a day: The systems would enable logging in as root and would run all the conceivable daemons by default to avoid problems with third-party software.
You may have a point. But if there were several corporations creating Linux distros, they would probably have different features, default deamons, etc. Virus would not spread as easily as they do now.
Also, with Linux an interested user can decide by himself what stuff he wants to install. If I don't want to use IE, Outlook express, Mediaplayer, etc, because I think they are full of spyware and insecure, it is quite difficult to choose something else under Windows. Not so on Linux.
Monopolies are bad. They make viruses spread more easily.
)9TSS
Get rid of the whole regulation issue. Thats not necessary. It would be far better to make the software publisher liable for any faults or flaws in the software that led to an incident such as MSBlaster, Slammer or any other number of worms out there.
Virii like SoBig.F are not something that can be avoided because the vulnerability there is the user themself. The only way to sort out virii like that is to educate users to not open email they are not expecting or recognise. Even then its still a risk.
If Microsoft were liable for the damages caused by the worms such as MSBlaster and Slammer because their software was vulnerable, don't you think their culture would change very rapidly? Instead of having the worst security reputation, they'd suddenly have the very best. Win2k3 is a good start in the right direction by disabling everything by default. I applaud that. Now they need to sort out their coding practices so that these sorts of issues are a non-event.
Governments don't need to regulate anything. All they need to do is make it illegal for a company to not take responsibility for faulty products, regardless of the product. It worked in the automobile industry, its worked in the medical industry, its worked in the engineering industry.
If my car explodes because of a fault in the fuel line at manufacturing, I'm perfectly within my rights to sue that company. If my computer becomes completely unusable because a vulnerability allowed someone to damage it or similar, why shouldn't I sue the publisher of that software? I'd also reserve the right to sue the person that exploited that vulnerability and caused the damage.
Don't need regulation, just liability and a warranty of suitability for a purpose. 'This OS is guaranteed to perform to XXXXXXX level and is considered suitable for XXXXXXXXXX purpose.'
Now watch as Bill Gates and his cronies push for Trusted Computing, the Palladium project. After all, it's never Microsoft's fault that the bugs exist, right? It's always those darned users and by George we need to foolproof the system. Please. Trusting computing is a joke. It is a power play by top industry corporations to seize power and act as a yet another cohesive monopoly in a so-called free market. Just like the RIAA. Just like the MPAA.
Here's a thought. Hold the software companies responsible for their own goofups and bugs. Let the people sue. Let the people file their class action lawsuits against Microsoft for their errors. But don't let the government take control.
I don't want the ignorant US government, or any government for that matter, looking over the Internet and infringing on it any more than they already are. Half of those farts probably don't even know what the Internet is. I can't say I'd want these clueless individuals, easily motivated by legal bribery (lobbies) and big business (Palladium), to be involved. They will only serve to screw things up, pass ridiculous laws, and tax Internet commerce to death. Let the Internet be that one place government is unable to corrupt.
The problem is that the people who aren't on the Internet; the people who take passive interest in computers, are ignorant to these facts. That's why I feel, unfortunately, that things like Palladium are destined to pass. Microsoft and others are going to get these bills through the door while the politicians are still ignorant to computers.
I'd like to say we can stop them, but we don't have a $47 billion lobbyist group behind us.