When you buy a car, you expect to use it without any problems. If you need many repairs after the first month or so, you start to think that you might have bought a lemon. When car makers find a defect, they issue a recall. Why is the recall principle not applied to computer security? We have techies who have made and are making billions of dollars by selling us products that will not meet the smell test that we use when evaluating other products. It might have made sense when the technology was new, but not now after 45 years.

Why can’t you buy a computer with software that cannot be hacked by some guy in his garage? Are we really getting ripped off by the computer and software companies? These companies make billions of dollars selling us computer hardware and software that is not secure. What good comes to you when your personal information is stolen? Why can’t and don’t the companies selling these products guarantee that they will stay secure? Is it because they do not know how or is it something else? What this practice says to me is that there has not been enough improvement in internet security in 45 years to keep us safe. Why must the user purchase security software to protect his personal information when it should be supplied by the computer and/or software manufacturers?

When search engines track all of your computer usage, aren’t they spying? Do they sell the results of their spying to other companies? What gives them the right to collect or sell your information? Don’t the banks have restrictions on what they can do with your personal information? Why don’t these restrictions apply to the computer and software suppliers? Has the legal profession been complicit in writing disclaimer licenses that must be signed to use the product without protecting the security? Isn’t this a legal endorsement of potentially defective products?   Has “is it legal” become more important in the pursuit of money and power than “is it the right thing to do”? It sure looks like too many American companies choose legal over right or wrong. How long can a society continue to choose legal over right or wrong and survive?