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How is wear and tear equivalent to hostile humans purposefully trying to fuck it up? Even military installations needs armed guards to stop people from just cut

How is wear and tear equivalent to hostile humans purposefully trying to fuck it up? Even military installations needs armed guards to stop people from just cutting through the fence. Wear and tear is more equivalent to keeping your site from going down to high traffic. Show me a road that's still safe when three guys with guns are standing in the middle of it shooting at passing drivers.

akiselev 6y ago
How about a skyscraper in downtown New York that can withstand a nuclear blast? [1] Or a bunch of nuclear blast shelters built all over the world? Or every fighter jet or other heavy duty piece of military equipment literally built to withstand guys shooting at them? Engineers design stuff to withstand adversaries all the time, when it's required. Designing with adversaries in mind is always required for connected systems in our field. The computer equivalent to "three guys with guns are standing in the middle of [a road] shooting at passing drivers" would be three gunmen gaining physical access to a datacenter - game over. We don't try to protect against that attack vector any more than civil engineers protect against terrorists when designing some intersection, except maybe we encrypt some data at rest and they put up some bollards and CCTV. You're getting hung up on the agency aspect when the most important thing is the attack by attrition. It doesn't matter whether it is a force of nature like corrosion or all the bad actors in human civilization, the point is that it is a known quantity that will eventually degrade and break every nontrivial system. We don't know which future zero day exploit will break our systems any more than civil engineers know which wave or car will cause the ultimate collapse, but we know that it is inevitable. That's why we have defense in depth. It is the nature of the beast. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
- fendy3002 6y ago
  > How about a skyscraper in downtown New York that can withstand a nuclear blast? [1] Or a bunch of nuclear blast shelters built all over the world? Or every fighter jet or other heavy duty piece of military equipment literally built to withstand guys shooting at them? Well if they're exists, why don't we use them for everyone on daily basis, since it'll be safer? Because they're hella expensive and resources are limited. If any smaller shops or businesses try to implement highest security for their system, their development and operation cost can multifold easily, and the ux can be reduced due to security.
bluGill 6y ago
If I was regularly getting shot at while driving my car I'd take action. Bullet proof glass would be a must - sure it is expensive, but I'd pay that price. In fact if this was a regular thing the average car would be built more like a tank - armor, fun flat tires (or metal tracks), probably a scuba type air supply so I can't be gassed out... But since it isn't a regular thing I don't bother with that. My car wouldn't survive long in a real battle and I'm okay with that as I don't expect to have to drive my car in a real battle. The warning is out to everything network connected: it is time to invest in the equivalent of armor and bullet proof glass.

akiselev 6y ago

How about a skyscraper in downtown New York that can withstand a nuclear blast? [1] Or a bunch of nuclear blast shelters built all over the world? Or every fighter jet or other heavy duty piece of military equipment literally built to withstand guys shooting at them? Engineers design stuff to withstand adversaries all the time, when it's required. Designing with adversaries in mind is always required for connected systems in our field. The computer equivalent to "three guys with guns are standing in the middle of [a road] shooting at passing drivers" would be three gunmen gaining physical access to a datacenter - game over. We don't try to protect against that attack vector any more than civil engineers protect against terrorists when designing some intersection, except maybe we encrypt some data at rest and they put up some bollards and CCTV. You're getting hung up on the agency aspect when the most important thing is the attack by attrition. It doesn't matter whether it is a force of nature like corrosion or all the bad actors in human civilization, the point is that it is a known quantity that will eventually degrade and break every nontrivial system. We don't know which future zero day exploit will break our systems any more than civil engineers know which wave or car will cause the ultimate collapse, but we know that it is inevitable. That's why we have defense in depth. It is the nature of the beast. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street

fendy3002 6y ago
> How about a skyscraper in downtown New York that can withstand a nuclear blast? [1] Or a bunch of nuclear blast shelters built all over the world? Or every fighter jet or other heavy duty piece of military equipment literally built to withstand guys shooting at them? Well if they're exists, why don't we use them for everyone on daily basis, since it'll be safer? Because they're hella expensive and resources are limited. If any smaller shops or businesses try to implement highest security for their system, their development and operation cost can multifold easily, and the ux can be reduced due to security.

bluGill 6y ago

If I was regularly getting shot at while driving my car I'd take action. Bullet proof glass would be a must - sure it is expensive, but I'd pay that price. In fact if this was a regular thing the average car would be built more like a tank - armor, fun flat tires (or metal tracks), probably a scuba type air supply so I can't be gassed out... But since it isn't a regular thing I don't bother with that. My car wouldn't survive long in a real battle and I'm okay with that as I don't expect to have to drive my car in a real battle. The warning is out to everything network connected: it is time to invest in the equivalent of armor and bullet proof glass.