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Re: [vanderaj () greebo net: SF new column announcement: Strict liability for data breaches?]


From: blitz <blitz () strikenet kicks-ass net>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:14:20 -0500

RE: The radio analogy:

That took one massive disaster with thousands of lives lost. Those kinds of incidents seem to pique interest in "getting it right", much the same as the disaster of 9.11 inspired major changes to the building codes now used in regards to stairwell design, fire-proofing and emergency procedures.

So far we haven't learned of a major disaster in dataloss of any great magnitude, primarily (I would suppose) because #1) they dont want us to know about it. #2) Insurance they've bought covers it, and theres no incentive for the insurance companies to reveal the magnitude or method of the losses, lest they inspire someone else to use the same tact, or #3) (Which is my favorite, most probibal theory) They can simply charge off to the consumers, the costs of losses, either in higher rates, premiums, costs of insurance, etc. etc. etc. Which fleeces ALL equally, giving them a way to profiteer off their losses. And since this is particularly despicable, raping those that DO practice good, safe, best practices, its a thing they readily absorb, and jack up the rates making everyone pay excessive amounts. This is the theory of auto insurance, take the worst drivers, and rape everyone at a fraction of their rates, and spread the costs over the base who do not drive bad. This insures continued fleecing of the very worst drivers at confiscatory rates, while a few dollars more from everyone adds up to huge profits.

So until major dataloss incident, that can not be covered up, flows out onto the street and people scream for preventive measures, don't hold your breath. Something like a few billion being scammed by the Russian mob doesn't even come close here. Hell, the US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) took a $4 billion loss and nary batted an eyeball, (like how many of us heard of it?) so if they're not blinking at a few billion, what DOES constitute as a major incident?

Money doesn't seem to count, peoples information is more sensitive by far. Money doesn't make noise, people DO! And rest assured, one of these days, some deep pockets organization will do something horribly incompetent, and hundreds of thousands will start a class action suit that will cripple them enough to cause everyone else to rethink security from the ground up. We can all hope that's the way it goes, because if we let the law-vultures have a go at writing rules and regs, we're starting at the very rock bottom of incompetency.




Best practices also change quickly--from the introduction of radio to
the time that a ship was expected to have a radio to avoid negligence
wasn't all that long.

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