4 ms·

> Engineers aren’t allowed “one small fuckup” when building bridges and buildings. Doctors aren’t allowed “one small fuckup” in the OR or when calculating dosag

> Engineers aren’t allowed “one small fuckup” when building bridges and buildings. Doctors aren’t allowed “one small fuckup” in the OR or when calculating dosages. I do agree with the rest of the post but this is definitely NOT true. Your house probably has small issues here and there if you are willing to pay for an inspector. Doctors fucking up things is not news too, plus you never know if there is "one small fuckup" as long as you don't feel particularly bad afterwards. The thing is I think you guys regard real world engineering too high. Small fuck ups happen all day.

nousermane 5y ago
Exactly. Threat modelling is a thing outside IT secutiry too. Youtube channel "MentourPilot" [0] has some excellent examples of how civil aviation was built to withstand "small fuckups": with "Swiss cheese" model. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/MentourPilotaviation/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/MentourPilotaviation/videos [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
- dcow 5y ago
  I think most of the quibbling is over the semantics of “one small fuckup”. It’s in quotes for two reasons 1) because the comment I was responding to worded it that way it and 2) I’m deliberatly calling that characterization bullshit: one _truly_ small fuckup obviously doesn't leave you vulnerable to ransomware. Systems need to be able to withstand of small things, have redundancies, engineers build in tolerances, yada yada.. of course! Were talking about *things that leave your entire business in the hands of ransom ware criminals* or *things that kill people* or *things that crash planes* or *things that cause bridges to collapse*. Those things can’t be tolerated by definition because they are fatal failures. That’s my point. We would not tolerate companies that build bridges that collapsed all the time and keep letting them build bridges so why should we tolerate companies that get hacked repetitively by ransomeware groups? Insurers are running because it’s not good business to insure these risks. Sounds like the market is working just fine.
hulitu 5y ago
You can sue the doctor for malpraxis. You cannot sue MS because , funny, they have an army of lawyers and their product does not claim to be usable and secure.
dredmorbius 5y ago
"Small fuckups" in home construction which have no material consequence are acceptable. "Small fuckups" which result in catastrophic failure, property damage, injury, or death, are not. For the latter, you'll find all manner of standards, codes, practices, maintenance, and inspections. What we're discussing with regards to infosec aren't "small fuckups", they're repeat major catastrophies, bearing little or no risk to the firms and organisations perpetrating them. A large component of the risk resides simply in collecting and retaining data, as well as exchanging it with other organisations. That turns out to be a very high-risk activity, though the risks are externalised. The point is to internalise those costs, and to sharply reduce the incentives for the practices which present those risks. This includes incentivising the IT products and services sector toward architectures which can be more adequately protected.

nousermane 5y ago

Exactly. Threat modelling is a thing outside IT secutiry too. Youtube channel "MentourPilot" [0] has some excellent examples of how civil aviation was built to withstand "small fuckups": with "Swiss cheese" model. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/MentourPilotaviation/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/MentourPilotaviation/videos [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

dcow 5y ago
I think most of the quibbling is over the semantics of “one small fuckup”. It’s in quotes for two reasons 1) because the comment I was responding to worded it that way it and 2) I’m deliberatly calling that characterization bullshit: one _truly_ small fuckup obviously doesn't leave you vulnerable to ransomware. Systems need to be able to withstand of small things, have redundancies, engineers build in tolerances, yada yada.. of course! Were talking about *things that leave your entire business in the hands of ransom ware criminals* or *things that kill people* or *things that crash planes* or *things that cause bridges to collapse*. Those things can’t be tolerated by definition because they are fatal failures. That’s my point. We would not tolerate companies that build bridges that collapsed all the time and keep letting them build bridges so why should we tolerate companies that get hacked repetitively by ransomeware groups? Insurers are running because it’s not good business to insure these risks. Sounds like the market is working just fine.

hulitu 5y ago

You can sue the doctor for malpraxis. You cannot sue MS because , funny, they have an army of lawyers and their product does not claim to be usable and secure.

dredmorbius 5y ago

"Small fuckups" in home construction which have no material consequence are acceptable. "Small fuckups" which result in catastrophic failure, property damage, injury, or death, are not. For the latter, you'll find all manner of standards, codes, practices, maintenance, and inspections. What we're discussing with regards to infosec aren't "small fuckups", they're repeat major catastrophies, bearing little or no risk to the firms and organisations perpetrating them. A large component of the risk resides simply in collecting and retaining data, as well as exchanging it with other organisations. That turns out to be a very high-risk activity, though the risks are externalised. The point is to internalise those costs, and to sharply reduce the incentives for the practices which present those risks. This includes incentivising the IT products and services sector toward architectures which can be more adequately protected.