Things do break - especially when there are poorly built in the first place.
"We don't need hackers to break the systems because they.re falling apart by themselves," said Peter G. Neumann, an expert in computing risks and principal scientist at SRI International, a research institute in Menlo Park, Calif.
"Steven M. Bellovin, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, said: "Most of the problems we have day to day have nothing to do with malice. Things break. Complex systems break in complex ways."
While it is true that we are building increasingly complex systems, it's wrong to blame the complexity for their failures. How many times do we hear about a significant technology failure, only to find out that the root of it was, for example a Windows box? Or a password that was "password"? Or a data path that any experienced engineer would have installed a hot fail-over for? Or some other obvious lack due to saving money or time or so a vendor could offer some service or other that did not really exist?
The root of technological failure are nearly always completely human.
1) Most people working in technology are simply over their heads, way over their heads.
2) Business management does not actually care about the quality, service or safety of technical systems. These are a secondary consideration, even at technology companies.
3) Business lacks any means to evaluate the quality of technology solutions, large and small, created by its employees, even at technology companies.
Many "bad things" have happened because of this. But we will keep operating this way until something really, really, rally bad happens. An over-dose of radiation delivered to a cancer patient by a Windows computer, we just blow that off and accept it - oh those wacky computers! That's Windows for ya, ha ha ha! Yuck it up... Don't we all just love that office humor?
It'll take the loss of thousands of lives before people will wake up and think for moment. Then they will act, and do all the wrong things.
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