Hacker News Reader

Comment by almost_usual | Hacker News Reader

Your car engine doesn’t store information about everywhere you go and what your interests are.

Your car engine probably doesn’t experience data leaks, social engineering, or 0 day bugs.

The argument is Google and Facebook don’t 100% know their data usage and risks and I’d agree that’s true.

Complex software systems are impossible to 100% guarantee expected behavior. This is why bug bounties and the security industry exists.

The safest way to protect information is to not store it, the second safest is strong encryption.

View on HN

The metaphor seems apt to me, if anything, we should have and do have a much greater interest in regulation of automotive products, which themselves are absurdly complex. How is a regulator to know about various emissions, chances of explosion/fire, engine longevity and warranties? Engines can kill you with fuel leaks, poor materials engineering, or unknown manufacturing bugs. I'd argue that your car engine is much more likely to harm you in a significant way. Car engines had, and continue to have, albeit at a much lower rate,issues related to these things, and we came up with various bodies to help manage it. The people writing the legislation need to better surround themselves with people to advise them on the topics related to Google and Facebook, that is their job as a representative of their constituents; instead they come to the meeting barely prepared and ask a series of poorly worded and unimaginative questions, showing they didn't ask their aides to do even basic research on their behalf, while Google and Facebook bring Harvard lawyers to their corner.

In reality if Congress wants an expert they need to have a team of engineers at the company performing audits and code reviews.

No different than a company that does due diligence before an acquisition.

For sure, the FDA employs pharmaceutical engineers to regulate the companies. The FAA employs pilots and aviation engineers. Do we have a corollary for software? Sort of, in specific domains, but not really.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com