Thursday, August 07, 2003

It's all your fault

Imagine what it would be like if home security were like Internet security. Somebody broke into your house and robbed you? Well, you dummy, that's your own fault. Obviously you were just asking to be robbed by not having fences, barred windows, a steel security door, attack dogs, and a burglar alarm. You can't expect people to stay away from an unsecured target like your house.

Oh, you did have those things? Well, of course you got robbed, you see, you didn't have a sophisticated enough burglar alarm. You're just asking for trouble with a cheap model.

You did have a good burglar alarm? Wait, I see what the problem is! You didn't upgrade it to the latest version that came out a month ago. You can't expect to stop criminals with an outdated system! You have to keep on top of updates and patches. See, it's all your fault you got robbed. Don't be such an idiot next time.

Why is it that on the Internet, it has become the victim's fault for being attacked by criminals? And it has become the victim's responsibility to take measures to actually make the crime impossible. We don't expect that in the physical world. In the case of burglary, our peace of mind comes not from living in fortresses to make burglary physically impossible, but from such things as law enforcement and insurance coverage. Maybe there's something to that.

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