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> ...including jail time, if their companies steal and sell user data, > or allow a massive data breach to occur at their company. What if the government lo
by plainOldText 8y ago
> ...including jail time, if their companies steal and sell user data,
> or allow a massive data breach to occur at their company.
What if the government loses our data? Then what? Will they go to jail too?
Software is a moving target. It has become such a complex endeavor, always changing, always evolving. It's difficult to determine who's responsible for which part of the system; and by this I'm not suggesting we abolish responsibility. Good outcomes will be the result of multiple forces, balanced in the right mix:
A. Users should ask more of their favorite companies (and mean it, e.g. boycott your favorite tech company when they behave unethically)
B. Legislators should be more mindful of the legislation they propose (for one separate data (re)selling from data breaches, and what exactly is my data vs data generated by machines, etc)
C. Reckless tech leaders should have their reputation affected by lose security, privacy & business practices
D. And engineers should be more aware their craft affects the lives of millions and maintain a high standard of quality across their work
In the grand scheme of things, we've just barely gotten off the ground with this thing called software. And software changed everything, but so did agriculture, which is 10,000 years old.
If we develop careless regulation and start throwing people in jail for software faults, we're hardly encouraging innovation.
- donatj 8y agoOf course not. The government is never held accountable.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoYes, but they obviously can't all fit at once so they will have to take turns serving it, just like how all employees of companies are also collectively sentenced.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoSeriously though, what sort of question is that, don't you have rule of law in your country?
- gmuslera 8y ago"loses"? What about collecting, and even forcing private companies to give them your data without telling you? What was disclosed on 2013 is still running. The reason I don't think this will work is because the government and related contractors are major players on collecting, distributing and hacking private data. And if this works, it won't be because the government will stop doing it, but because want to control who else does.
- 908087 8y agoHow many more decades does the "tech" industry get to continue using the "you can't regulate us because we're new and stuff, also innovation or something" line for? I've been working in this industry for nearly 30 years, and it wasn't even "new" when I got my start. I can't help but laugh at people who act as though it just popped up last year. Is this just a result of young kids trying to convince themselves and others that they got in on the ground floor of something that existed well before they were born?
- plainOldText 8y agoSoftware is unlike any industry we've had before. Software is now the craft of developing extensions of our minds, and it is evolving rapidly. It's easier to delegate responsibility and enforcement rights to some higher authority, but since software is so complex, a much more powerful and robust solution in the long run is to embrace personal responsibility and agency. Complex systems evolve faster without or limited centralized control. For example, the cryptocurrency space is already providing us with a playground where we can experiment with the next generation social systems. But like I've mentioned earlier, we're just beginning to scratch the surface and no one truly knows what will come next. But the beauty of it, is that we have the freedom to thinker, and figure out what works best.
- Apocryphon 8y agoSounds like an excuse to behave without accountability or responsibility.