As professionals often vastly overestimate the knowledge and understanding of people outside their field, I think we underestimate the lack of sophistication of

As professionals often vastly overestimate the knowledge and understanding of people outside their field, I think we underestimate the lack of sophistication of government in the then new domain of modern IT. The US military, for example, allowed private vendors to own the code and data on which warfare and lives depended, not to mention future integration and updates. The military has learned, and now requires government ownership (at least in many cases), and even open, modular systems to facilitate integration with other vendors.