Welcome to Orcmid's Lair, the playground for family connections, pastimes, and scholarly vocation -- the collected professional and recreational work of Dennis E. Hamilton

Recent Items
 
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The fearful state of on-line students
 
The Final Page
 
Oh, the tragedy, the humanity: Donate Now (amazon link)
 
The Asia Disaster: Aiding the International Relief Effort
 
Tsunami - Earthquake - Supporting International Relief
 
The Heart of Trust
 
Accountability: Lessons from Engineering and Medicine
 
Sandy's CyberHome Travels
 
Justifying Pre-Emptive War

Addressing Customer Demands?

ACM News Service: Companies Seek to Hold Software Makers Liable for Flaws.  This blurb summarizes the tension around product liability for software, especially for security vulnerabilities.  The creation of liability principles might be the death-knell for smaller software firms and yet it seems that something must happen.  The Oracle chief security officer warns that government regulation may be the only possibility unless "software makers demonstrate that they are responsibly addressing customer demands for improved security."

The Wall Street Journal's David Bank article is available after registration at ContraCostaTimes.com.  My favorite additional quotation on the lack of accountability of software makers is this:

"We ought to have some way of holding them accountable," says Daniel Wolf, director of information assurance for the National Security Agency, who oversees a system for certifying the security of software for government use. He says Congress would be quick to intervene "if something bad happens and it's because of bad software."

It also seems that there is a great rush to close the kimono to avoid liability, in that full disclosure may invite action.  It would be interesting to know whether that feared-risk is anywhere as dangerous as the liability that occurs when information is willfully withheld.

And mostly I wonder, "why not transparency for its own sake and out of willful determination to serve our customers, the industry, and society?"

posted by orcmid at 3/11/2005 11:51:00 PM