TANSTACS-- There Ain't No Such Thing As Computer Security

A truly terrifying article by Quinn Norton.

But the thing is, there is no going back. There's no real solution.

Back in the day, the naval supply system was run out of some huge-ass depot in Mechanicsburg, PA.[1] Their system was truly fucked up. The Pork Chops'[2] inventory and tracking system for supplying parts was a mess and they routinely lost track of things the size of a home dishwasher or larger. Sometimes much larger. A report back then stated that they could fix things by a complete revamping of the inventory tracking system, but that would mean that they'd have to shut down the supply system for a month. Which isn't possible.

Lord only knows how many embedded controllers there are out there that are operating on a 286-level chip an software as old as DOS 3.0.[3] There is no way to fix it all.

And there is no real way anymore to hold down a professional-type job without being online, not if you aspire to make much above minimum wage.[4] You work with computers, you play with computers. People take college courses online. They watch TV online.

There's no going back. We left the non-digital world soon after Mosaic was released.[5] Norton recognizes that:

Executable mail attachments (which includes things like Word, Excel, and PDFs) you get just about everyday could be from anyone — people can write anything they want in that From: field of emails, and any of those attachments could take over your computer as handily as an 0day. This is probably how your grandmother ended up working for Russian criminals, and why your competitors anticipate all your product plans. But if you refuse to open attachments you aren’t going to be able to keep an office job in the modern world. There’s your choice: constantly risk clicking on dangerous malware, or live under an overpass, leaving notes on the lawn of your former house telling your children you love them and miss them.

But his solution is sort of vague, basically "rise up and demand better security."

Yep. Good luck with that, pal.

(HT1, HT2)
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[1] Probably in some then-powerful congressman's district.
[2] Because their collar device kind of looked like a pork chop.
{3] The Air Force still has systems that use 8" floppies, kind of on the same theory that car thieves are less likely to steal cars with manual transmissions.
[4] Or if you have some sort of obscure skill. But even the shipwrights working on the Charles W. Morgan are online.
[5] In `91, I had drinks with a guy who was trying to explain to me how FTP worked and that I could download things from the University of Sarajevo. I asked him: "Why would I ever want to do that". And now, I don't think I've been inside of a formal law library in a dozen years.