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Recently, someone(s) in the ./ crowd moderated some comments of mine on a thread -1 troll...three times. I wasn't trolling, so I take it by this action that I hit a nerve with a telling point.
My comments were to the effect that when prosecuting a teenager for 'hacking' on decades-old security flaws, the company that didn't fix the flaws should ALSO be held responsible. (Sorry for the shout, I wanted to be sure that you understood I wasn't letting the script kiddie off)
Looking back at it, I realize this was actually a multiple.
a> The false dichotomy of who's to blame, and
b> the strawman that computers are hard to secure, therefore, security problems should be prosecuted on the basis that the intruder is solely to blame, and
c> Companies can be held responsible by lawsuits.
The truth is, phone companies allow phreaking to occur cuz it is easier to prosecute than fix. Phreaking used to be as easy as playing sounds into the mouthpiece of a pay phone. Allowing the flaw to exist for decades shows the company would rather use criminal records to ruin people than use a little more engineering to prevent nuisance losses.
Companies require motivation beyond just loss versus cost to fix. The human cost outside the company's balance sheet requires greater consideration than company profits. Lawsuits don't fix this.
The story of David and Goliath is in the bible because David took such a risk, and winning was (literally) such a long shot. So it is with lawsuits by individuals against big bizniz. It is unreasonable to expect every individual harmed by a company's (in)actions to have David's courage.
I'm putting this here cuz I really don't want any more unreasonable damage to my karma - the troll moderations were unwarranted.
I've never been down-trolled on ./ before, I thot I was being ignored.