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Then let's talk liability. Nobody comes and takes away your car if you fail to have safety-related recalls performed. You might face significant liability if yo

Then let's talk liability. Nobody comes and takes away your car if you fail to have safety-related recalls performed. You might face significant liability if you cause injury as a result of ignoring a recall. I am perfectly fine with a world in which end user companies or individuals assume liability when they fail to adhere to a manufacturer's prescribed update regime. In the business world, I expect insurers to drive this. As "cyber attacks" get more and more costly the insurance industry is going to put the hammer down.

WorldMaker 6y ago
The car analogy isn't a great one here either because there are seatbelt laws, light/lamp laws, etc that do carry serious penalties (such as fines and even jail time). Nobody will necessarily repossess your car, sure, if you fail to fix a broken headlight or seat-belt, but you can still be fined or jailed for it. (Though even repossession can happen as those fines/jail time can in turn cause repossession of your car as a secondary effect, depending on your loans/liens/bonds and the state in which you live.)
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  There is the potential for personal liability as a result of ignoring recalls. I'm not talking about failure to maintain a vehicle. I'm analogizing willfully ignoring safety-related recalls.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    I'm not talking about "failure to maintain a vehicle" in a general sense, either; I'm talking safety-related recalls as well, because there have been serious repercussions in willfully ignoring safety-related recalls in the automotive world. IIRC, under the aegis of seatbelt laws some states impounded cars that didn't get a critical safety-related recall due an issue with the Toyota automated seatbelts of the late 80s/early 90s. Issues like that often end up with class action suits to deal with corporate liability issues, it's not all personal liability either. Maybe that's still too "one time for one particular issue" to easily dismiss the flaws in your analogy. What about emissions-related recalls? Some states still have ongoing vigorous emissions testing requirements and some of those requirements include checking for emissions-related recalls. Failures are sometimes impounded, almost always disallowed permits/registrations to use of the roads. One of the largest scandals of which should still be in recent memory, "Dieselgate", where VW was forced at great expense to recall entire models of cars that would not be allowed on the roads of all states that followed US EPA laws. Which the US federal government led a lawsuit (which included several states as additional complaintants) against VW for the problem, and leveraged a massive corporate liability fine. VW had to work to buy back all the recalled vehicle models, and had to do massive corporate restructuring in response to the US provided mandates that they accepted in lieu of fine payment. Your car analogy is over-simplified, even if it is not entirely wrong.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
I'm not sure what you're suggesting (often the case with analogies). I'm not going to even guess where you think liability in that analogy interfaces with someone, who doesn't even know what Flash is, using Windows on their home computer that gets pwned by a Flash exploit. But you need to temper your argument across your posts here with the various benefits of the appliancification of computing for most people. Since you don't, it becomes impossible to parcel whatever argument you're making from the arguments of "people should care more about <arbitrary thing that I happen to care about>" and "anything that addresses the needs of others over me is bad" and "there is literally nothing good about an automatic Windows update removing Flash."

WorldMaker 6y ago

The car analogy isn't a great one here either because there are seatbelt laws, light/lamp laws, etc that do carry serious penalties (such as fines and even jail time). Nobody will necessarily repossess your car, sure, if you fail to fix a broken headlight or seat-belt, but you can still be fined or jailed for it. (Though even repossession can happen as those fines/jail time can in turn cause repossession of your car as a secondary effect, depending on your loans/liens/bonds and the state in which you live.)

EvanAnderson 6y ago
There is the potential for personal liability as a result of ignoring recalls. I'm not talking about failure to maintain a vehicle. I'm analogizing willfully ignoring safety-related recalls.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  I'm not talking about "failure to maintain a vehicle" in a general sense, either; I'm talking safety-related recalls as well, because there have been serious repercussions in willfully ignoring safety-related recalls in the automotive world. IIRC, under the aegis of seatbelt laws some states impounded cars that didn't get a critical safety-related recall due an issue with the Toyota automated seatbelts of the late 80s/early 90s. Issues like that often end up with class action suits to deal with corporate liability issues, it's not all personal liability either. Maybe that's still too "one time for one particular issue" to easily dismiss the flaws in your analogy. What about emissions-related recalls? Some states still have ongoing vigorous emissions testing requirements and some of those requirements include checking for emissions-related recalls. Failures are sometimes impounded, almost always disallowed permits/registrations to use of the roads. One of the largest scandals of which should still be in recent memory, "Dieselgate", where VW was forced at great expense to recall entire models of cars that would not be allowed on the roads of all states that followed US EPA laws. Which the US federal government led a lawsuit (which included several states as additional complaintants) against VW for the problem, and leveraged a massive corporate liability fine. VW had to work to buy back all the recalled vehicle models, and had to do massive corporate restructuring in response to the US provided mandates that they accepted in lieu of fine payment. Your car analogy is over-simplified, even if it is not entirely wrong.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

I'm not sure what you're suggesting (often the case with analogies). I'm not going to even guess where you think liability in that analogy interfaces with someone, who doesn't even know what Flash is, using Windows on their home computer that gets pwned by a Flash exploit. But you need to temper your argument across your posts here with the various benefits of the appliancification of computing for most people. Since you don't, it becomes impossible to parcel whatever argument you're making from the arguments of "people should care more about <arbitrary thing that I happen to care about>" and "anything that addresses the needs of others over me is bad" and "there is literally nothing good about an automatic Windows update removing Flash."