The Insecurity Industry
&quot;For example, if you want to see Microsoft have a heart attack, talk about the idea of defining legal liability for bad code in a commercial product.&quot;<p>That sort of discussion is quickly dismissed on HN.  And probably elsewhere on the web&#x2F;over the internet.<p>Instead we frequently see discussion blaming users of the software, i.e., Microsoft&#x27;s customers, or even suggestions to make the customer liable, or comments from &quot;security experts&quot; on how Microsoft has made such amazing strides in securing Windows (a tangent).  In the real world, outside the Redmond&#x2F;Silicon Valley monopoly space, how many mistakes does someone have to make before we start to suspect there might be problems with relying on that person&#x27;s work.  Even more, how many times do we hire someone knowing they have made 500+ mistakes in prior work leading up to their application.<p>If Microsoft products are so infallible when used as instructed by Microsoft, then why would Microsoft have a heart attack as Snowden suggests.  What a remarkable state of affairs we have today where employers such as Microsoft can call their employees &quot;engineers&quot;, and yet both the employer and employees are absconded from any liability for the so-called engineer&#x27;s work.   The number of &quot;second chances&quot; Microsoft gets is nothing short of astounding.  A bit like the number of pardons we allow to Google or Facebook for privacy infractions.  Infinite.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nspe.org&#x2F;resources&#x2F;professional-liability&#x2F;liability-employed-engineers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nspe.org&#x2F;resources&#x2F;professional-liability&#x2F;liabil...</a>