“I could keep writing about this, there’s a career’s worth of pieces to write about how bad software…”
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I could keep writing about this, there’s a career’s worth of pieces to write about how bad software is, and how insecure it makes us, and I have written many of those pieces. But like writing about hackers compromising terrible systems, I don’t want to write the same thing telling you that software is the problem, not the Chinese or the Russians or the boogeyman de jour.
You, the person reading this, whether you work in the media or tech or unloading container ships or selling falafels, need to learn how computers work, and start demanding they work better for you. Not everything, not how to write code, but the basics of digital and internet literacy.
Stop asking what the Russians could do to our voting machines, and start asking why our voting machines are so terrible, and often no one can legally review their code.
Stop asking who is behind viruses and ransomware, and ask why corporations and large organizations don’t patch their software.
Don’t ask who took the site down, ask why the site was ever up with a laundry list of known vulnerabilities.
Start asking lawmakers why you have to give up otherwise inalienable consumer rights the second you touch a Turing machine.
Don’t ask who stole troves of personal data or what they can do with it, ask why it was kept in the first place. This all goes double for the journalists who write about these things — you’re not helping people with your digital credulity, you’re just helping intel services and consultants and global defense budgets and Hollywood producers make the world worse.
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– Software is a Long Con – emptywheel
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