21 February 2011 - computer security 1

Computers are insecure, so let’s ask: Who should fix that? Users don’t mind security, as long as they don’t have to do any hard work like, say, click the mouse once. Network providers don’t want to lose customers. Governments are having way too much fun spying to mandate any real change. Operating system companies have an interest in avoiding bad publicity, which they can do by fixing occasional problems that are bad enough to get into the newspaper. Ordinary programmers could solve the whole problem themselves with formal methods, but that would involve using math, which is what they went into computers to avoid. So in fact, despite appearances, nobody benefits from secure computing and we should stop wasting time on it.