3 ms·

This kind of apocalyptic manifesto concerns me on two fronts... One, it makes me worry about the mental health of the author. They are clearly really not havin

by jmull 2y ago

This kind of apocalyptic manifesto concerns me on two fronts... One, it makes me worry about the mental health of the author. They are clearly really not having a good time living in our reality, and I hope they can find a way to relieve the suffering. Two, I hope no one else gets caught up in it. There are a lot of strong words and claims but nothing remotely actionable. It's pushing pure panic/fear/angst. cloudstrike is just a company that is strong on sales/marketing but weak on tech, who found a market that requires you to be strong on both. I don't think there's anything wrong with such companies existing, but it seems clear they should never be in a position to break everything. The fix could be the market, regulatory, and/or technical. There are tradeoffs, so we probably need to work through the arguments of different approaches and different combinations of approaches.

quohort 2y ago
> One, it makes me worry about the mental health of the author. They are clearly really not having a good time living in our reality, and I hope they can find a way to relieve the suffering. > Two, I hope no one else gets caught up in it. There are a lot of strong words and claims but nothing remotely actionable. It's pushing pure panic/fear/angst. This made me laugh, it comes off as so condescending. Don't worry about my "mental health". The purpose of life is not to just be content all the time, it's to overcome suffering and achieve some level of self-actualization. If we are on the verge of the apocalypse, It should feel apocalyptic. The question is of how urgent the apocalypse really is (taken with a grain of salt to make room for the unknown) and what can be usefully done. > cloudstrike is just a company that is strong on sales/marketing but weak on tech, who found a market that requires you to be strong on both. I don't think there's anything wrong with such companies existing, but it seems clear they should never be in a position to break everything. I do think there is something wrong "fixing" security by just outsourcing your problems to some other company to monitor. Real security is about one's own operating practices and standards. Companies like cloudstrike don't necessarily increase security, they increase fragility because they act as a central point of failure. > The fix could be the market, regulatory, and/or technical. There are tradeoffs, so we probably need to work through the arguments of different approaches and different combinations of approaches. The author suggests that the problems are more systematic. I would say the fix is cultural: we have a flawed culture of outsourcing security to the market, regulators, or technology.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> a lot of strong words The words are mild and sometimes even a little playful. The ideas are strong. Please offer some strong ideas in response, instead of calling other people crazy, which makes you look weak. > nothing remotely actionable... The fix could be the market, regulatory, and/or technical. The premise of the piece is that markets have wholly failed to provide computer security for people, that technical complexity has escaped us as engineers, and that regulation is undesirable, difficult and often makes things worse. The time is now for this stuff to get very _political_. As I wake up this morning to UK news that we'd like to ban Twitter I'm already seeing some good evidence this is happening. If you don't believe that politics is relevant action in our society you wouldn't be alone. But you'd still be in a disaffected minority. Please understand that the rest of the billions of people are going to move to increasingly effective political means to unseat derelict and corrosive US big-tech in order to build a better technological society.

by jmull 2y ago

quohort 2y ago

> One, it makes me worry about the mental health of the author. They are clearly really not having a good time living in our reality, and I hope they can find a way to relieve the suffering. > Two, I hope no one else gets caught up in it. There are a lot of strong words and claims but nothing remotely actionable. It's pushing pure panic/fear/angst. This made me laugh, it comes off as so condescending. Don't worry about my "mental health". The purpose of life is not to just be content all the time, it's to overcome suffering and achieve some level of self-actualization. If we are on the verge of the apocalypse, It should feel apocalyptic. The question is of how urgent the apocalypse really is (taken with a grain of salt to make room for the unknown) and what can be usefully done. > cloudstrike is just a company that is strong on sales/marketing but weak on tech, who found a market that requires you to be strong on both. I don't think there's anything wrong with such companies existing, but it seems clear they should never be in a position to break everything. I do think there is something wrong "fixing" security by just outsourcing your problems to some other company to monitor. Real security is about one's own operating practices and standards. Companies like cloudstrike don't necessarily increase security, they increase fragility because they act as a central point of failure. > The fix could be the market, regulatory, and/or technical. There are tradeoffs, so we probably need to work through the arguments of different approaches and different combinations of approaches. The author suggests that the problems are more systematic. I would say the fix is cultural: we have a flawed culture of outsourcing security to the market, regulators, or technology.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> a lot of strong words The words are mild and sometimes even a little playful. The ideas are strong. Please offer some strong ideas in response, instead of calling other people crazy, which makes you look weak. > nothing remotely actionable... The fix could be the market, regulatory, and/or technical. The premise of the piece is that markets have wholly failed to provide computer security for people, that technical complexity has escaped us as engineers, and that regulation is undesirable, difficult and often makes things worse. The time is now for this stuff to get very _political_. As I wake up this morning to UK news that we'd like to ban Twitter I'm already seeing some good evidence this is happening. If you don't believe that politics is relevant action in our society you wouldn't be alone. But you'd still be in a disaffected minority. Please understand that the rest of the billions of people are going to move to increasingly effective political means to unseat derelict and corrosive US big-tech in order to build a better technological society.