United Kingdom to introduce security labelling on connected devices
No matter how great security labeling may be, I fear the incentives are completely and utterly in the wrong place.<p>An <i>individual consumer</i> who purchases a poorly protected network device is unlikely to suffer any meaningful individual harm, like having their computer ransomwared.<p>Rather, it makes things like botnets possible that can be used for all sorts of things, e.g. DoS attacks against a third party.<p>So why should a consumer do anything but ignore the label? It's the rational choice if the less-secure product is cheaper.<p>If we want security standards, they need to be legislated democratically and applied to <i>all</i> devices -- not left up to consumer choice.<p>Now whether a legislature is capable of doing that effectively is certainly an open question. But I'm afraid labeling may be no more than an ineffective band-aid.