Praetor Meles wrote:Remiel Pollard wrote:If more people knew what they were doing, computer systems around the world would be more secure, more stable.
However, I'd point out that's akin to saying "if more people locked their homes properly, there would be less theft." Which is just a short hop away from "if she wasn't dressed like that, she would be less likely to be raped".
Not really. I get the parallel, but the problem is the perspective. See, everything we do in life has risk. Everything. If I decide to go camping in the woods, and those woods have man-eating bears for example, and I don't do anything to mitigate the risk of being eaten by those bears because I don't know they're there, then it's still the bear that eats me, absolutely. However, could it have been a different result if I'd know those bears were there. Do I not go camping? No, but I might consider taking a shotgun and learning something about the habits of those bears.
Just as if you don't lock up your home, you fail to mitigate the risk against burglars. Does that mean we bar up our homes and pad ourselves in cotton wool? Does that mean it's your fault you got robbed if you don't lock your home? No, of course not, and nothing in life comes without risk. The unfortunate situation of the world is, there are unscrupulous people who will take advantage of that failure to mitigate the risks we take, and until we address the underlying problems that cause those people to exist, we have to be prepared, and armed with knowledge more than anything, for the attack to come, even if it never does.
It's like owning a pool. You put up a fence to mitigate the risk of children getting in there and drowning. If you own a gun, you mitigate the risk of accidental misfire by putting the safety on. Driving a car, you mitigate the risk of serious injury or death by wearing a seatbelt.
I'm not blaming the victims. I only stated a fact - if more people knew more about the machines they operated, they would know more about mitigating the risk they take when using it. Attacks would still occur, they would still be attempted. And they would still be entirely the attacker's fault, but whether or not the attack succeeds or fails is, in part, up to the victim of that attack. The more knowledge you have about the risks you're taking, the better prepared you are for them to actually occur. This is why education is so important. Knowledge is power, knowledge can save your life.