Comment by cratermoon
4 years ago
> We ask Western democratic governments (which include Israel) to properly regulate the cybersecurity industry.
That's a bit naive. Governments want surveillance technology, and will pay for it. The tools will exist, and like backdoors and keys in escrow, they will leak, or be leaked.
The reason why all those other industries are regulated as much as they are is because governments don't need those types weapons they way they need information. It's messy and somewhat distasteful to overthrow an enemy in war, but undermining a government, through surveillance, disinformation, propaganda, until it collapses and is replaced by a more compliant government is the bread-and-butter of world affairs.
They want nukes too, which also exist. It doesnt mean theyll get them.
Non proliferation treaties are effective against nuclear weapons theyd be effective against "cyber" weapons.
> They want nukes too
No, they want weapons that can project and multiply threat. Nukes are just one way of doing that.
The thing is, countries with vast intellectual property base have more to lose in the game, thus they should favor defense over offense. Like Schneier says, we must choose between security for everyone, or security for no-one.
Except that the big money IP owners consider piracy and loss of revenue far more important than merely securing their assets. The kinds of software they buy, DRM, copy protection, automatic DMCA takedown of automatically-detected infringing works, doesn't have any applicability to cybersecurity.