Jumping a bit, I'd say...
Quote:
Sad to say that this is the utopian world of anonymous surfing that seemed so attractive to naive geeks 15 years ago. Is it clear yet that anonymity facilitates anarchy, not freedom? We build governments to protect us from criminals and strongmen. But with governments and internetworks alike, we must take care what we build, lest its power be dangerously unbalanced.
Response:
Talk about jumping to conclusions. Crime existed a long time before the internet, and it will continue to exist long after the current technology is eclipsed. I argue that societies do not build governments to protect themselves from strongmen and extortionists, but rather that strongmen and extortionists build governments to codify their behavior.
In the natural world, no one protects anyone, save perhaps a few species' parent-child bonds. The concepts of law and government exist only in the minds of responsible individuals who choose to live by such ideas; the default biological imperative is self-enrichment and survival for all species, humans included. If you don't protect yourself, you will be victimized.
It would be insane to consider publishing your personal and financial details in perpetuity in a newspaper, yet people do it all the time on the internet. It would be madness to never install door and window locks on your home, but people routinely ignore even the barest computer security efforts. An insurer will not pay if your car is stolen because you left it unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Why do people have an expectation "the government" is going to protect their internet activities, when governments so far have never solved the problem of conventional crime?
Someday, using software "not fit for any particular purpose" will become an insurance liability, and strong financial incentives will cause a lot of these stupid exploits to go away.