Bad Security Driving Out the Good

Bruce Schneier has up at Wired a typically thoughtful piece on how, in the security market as in others, the lemons are winning out over the good products. Schneier harks back to "The Market For Lemons," the 1970s work of economist George Akerlof, to explain why the market's invisible hand pushes most of the best products into the abyss: "With so many mediocre security products on the market, and the difficulty of coming up with a strong quality signal, vendors don't have strong incentives to invest in developing good products. And the vendors that do tend to die a quiet and lonely death."

Comments

The best understatement of the year so far?

[ZorroXXX]

Written by no other than Bruce Schneier:

... but even I couldn't tell you if Kingston's offering is better than Secustick. ... And if I can't tell the difference, most consumers won't be able to either.

Re:Money.

[cyphercell]

Secustick is rare in that they admitted that their device was insecure when the flaw was discovered (highly commendable). This is something I see happening at work quite often, you simply don't talk about your mistakes or anyone elses, because people are so damn neurotic about it. You have to very carefully say what you're trying to say, or people will get defensive and supervisors get offensive. Quality takes a back seat because people don't have an f*ing clue what the difference is between accountability and guilt/incompetence. Secustick is holding themselves accountable, but I'm sure many see them as a joke.