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Yes, building a safe airplane is doable. But this is not a good comparison. Securing a company is like saying that you have to chnage all of the wiring in a co

Yes, building a safe airplane is doable. But this is not a good comparison. Securing a company is like saying that you have to chnage all of the wiring in a country without impacting power supply. ALL of them - the house wirings, the cables transporting power, everyting. At once. Security in a company is not a single system, it is a messy interaction of unknown dependencies nobody understands. And this mess runs a business. Of course, there are plenty of things one can do but even for simple tasks such as "let's reset all the 100,000 accounts to make sure they are long/complex/whatever". This is asking for apocalypse. How it is difficult is visible when you work in information security and have to balance the "we MUST NOT be hacked" and "we MUST NOT impact the business".

WalterBright 5y ago
> Yes, building a safe airplane is doable. It didn't start out that way. It took a long time to figure out how. > But this is not a good comparison. I can't agree with that. I don't see any rationale for either airplanes or software systems being special. > Security in a company is not a single system, An airplane isn't, either. For example, part of airplane safety is the air traffic control system. Part is the weather forecasting system. And on and on.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  Imagine you had airplanes be built the way they wanted, crashing from time to time, not starting and having people work on the wings to fix things in flight. If this was something done for fun and without impact on people then nobody would care. Suddenly, a Monday morning, someone says "woah, this cannot be - you have to fix this". But this is not fixable, you have to build a new plane from scratch, or completely review the existing ones. Planes would be grounded. Now a software company: typically your old plane flying by more or less miracle (when it flies). You cannot fix it, you have to rebuild it. Either you ground the company and force them to build something new, or you will always have legacy. The legacy is not fixable - it simply is not. You need money to redo everything and if you do not have the proper pressure then it will not happen. Then, building a new company/software can be done the right way. This is not even difficult, I would even say that having these constraints will help in the overall quality. But this is a new software, not a "fix" of the old one.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Um, airplanes are constantly undergoing revision and improvements and bug fixes. Only very serious ones result in grounding. Eventually, they become too expensive to upgrade and Boeing/Airbus designs a ground up replacement. Just like software.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > Yes, building a safe airplane is doable. It didn't start out that way. And now only FAA/EASA etc. certified companies and individuals can build a commercial aircraft. And they can only build the aircraft they are certified to, using the same certified components, and the same certified tools. They cannot change any aspect of the construction without another round with the authorities. Let me know when the CIOs of listed companies are up for that kind of lifestyle for their email and word processors.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Certification/regulation is something orthogonal to the design methods used.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      I disagree, mandated certification ensures that the budget required for certain design (and testing) methods is available. And its precisely those methods that keep the planes in the sky. Its not orthogonal, is a necessary prerequisite.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Dual path systems came first. Regulation came much later, it wasn't a prerequisite. Regulation didn't design airplanes, it standardized existing practice.
  - hospadar 5y ago
    > Let me know when the CIOs of listed companies are up for that kind of lifestyle for their email and word processors. I think you're absolutely right that this kind of rigidity is not part of our tech culture, but maybe it should be if that tech is running power grids, [oil] pipelines, and other critical infrastructure. In summary - maybe we should spend more money so that we get systems which are reliable and resistant to this kind of attack. (_I_ think that's probably a good investment for power/transit/core network/safety systems)

WalterBright 5y ago

> Yes, building a safe airplane is doable. It didn't start out that way. It took a long time to figure out how. > But this is not a good comparison. I can't agree with that. I don't see any rationale for either airplanes or software systems being special. > Security in a company is not a single system, An airplane isn't, either. For example, part of airplane safety is the air traffic control system. Part is the weather forecasting system. And on and on.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago
Imagine you had airplanes be built the way they wanted, crashing from time to time, not starting and having people work on the wings to fix things in flight. If this was something done for fun and without impact on people then nobody would care. Suddenly, a Monday morning, someone says "woah, this cannot be - you have to fix this". But this is not fixable, you have to build a new plane from scratch, or completely review the existing ones. Planes would be grounded. Now a software company: typically your old plane flying by more or less miracle (when it flies). You cannot fix it, you have to rebuild it. Either you ground the company and force them to build something new, or you will always have legacy. The legacy is not fixable - it simply is not. You need money to redo everything and if you do not have the proper pressure then it will not happen. Then, building a new company/software can be done the right way. This is not even difficult, I would even say that having these constraints will help in the overall quality. But this is a new software, not a "fix" of the old one.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Um, airplanes are constantly undergoing revision and improvements and bug fixes. Only very serious ones result in grounding. Eventually, they become too expensive to upgrade and Boeing/Airbus designs a ground up replacement. Just like software.
throwaway210222 5y ago
> Yes, building a safe airplane is doable. It didn't start out that way. And now only FAA/EASA etc. certified companies and individuals can build a commercial aircraft. And they can only build the aircraft they are certified to, using the same certified components, and the same certified tools. They cannot change any aspect of the construction without another round with the authorities. Let me know when the CIOs of listed companies are up for that kind of lifestyle for their email and word processors.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Certification/regulation is something orthogonal to the design methods used.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    I disagree, mandated certification ensures that the budget required for certain design (and testing) methods is available. And its precisely those methods that keep the planes in the sky. Its not orthogonal, is a necessary prerequisite.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Dual path systems came first. Regulation came much later, it wasn't a prerequisite. Regulation didn't design airplanes, it standardized existing practice.
- hospadar 5y ago
  > Let me know when the CIOs of listed companies are up for that kind of lifestyle for their email and word processors. I think you're absolutely right that this kind of rigidity is not part of our tech culture, but maybe it should be if that tech is running power grids, [oil] pipelines, and other critical infrastructure. In summary - maybe we should spend more money so that we get systems which are reliable and resistant to this kind of attack. (_I_ think that's probably a good investment for power/transit/core network/safety systems)