Whether something is connected to the internet or not wouldn't be my objection to the parents personal notion of "pride". I believe they're saying it would be

Whether something is connected to the internet or not wouldn't be my objection to the parents personal notion of "pride". I believe they're saying it would be irresponsible - in the current climate - to leave a system without upgrades and attention for so long. We can agree on that. That really only reflects the "current climate"; which is one of colossal dereliction and reckless engineering amounting to a total abandonment of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is presently such a circus because of endemic poor software engineering, a worship of expedience, convenience, efficiency and plain old greed. These are all the reasons that good engineering and big business do not intersect in modern times. A couple of weeks ago Jen Easterly called out current industry practices as enabling cybercrime and harming society [0]. So not all unattended code is equal. I think there is a great deal of pride to be taken in building and using stable and reliable systems. That shows up in smaller groups, non-profits, and volunteer networks that are strongly focused on a smaller set of goals and who eschew giddy neophyte values in favour of a more sedate and responsible stance. But those are rather different flavours of "pride". I would characterise what the parent said as more an "absence of shame" for leaving what are evidently cheap-ass vulnerable systems that are "pwned out of the box" in a hostile environment. [0] https://www.cisa.gov/about/leadership/jen-easterly https://www.cisa.gov/about/leadership/jen-easterly