Re: pro regulation viewpoint on cyber vulnerabiltiy

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Vadim Antonov <avg () kotovnik com>
Date: March 31, 2009 5:39:53 AM EDT
To: Michael Kende <Michael.Kende () analysysmason com>
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Re:   pro regulation viewpoint on cyber vulnerabiltiy


David - for IP, if you wish.

I guess I should've stated it more clearly - there is no market  
failure in
the real life, but it is being used to justify intervention into market
(as the author of the original article does). The use of a hypothetical
calamity to justify application of quite real coercion to other people  
is
quite dishonest.

Of course, any econ textbook mentions market failure, but it does not  
make
it any more real. (As a side note - prices do not send the proper  
signals
about markets only when markets are manipulated - with price controls,
artificially low interest rates, bailouts, etc, etc.  The inability to
generate prices without unrestricted voluntary exchange is at the core
of Mises' proof of impossibility of pure socialist economy.)

> real-life examples (pollution).

Would you provide any _specific_ real-life example, rather than a vague
reference?

Pollution is, actually, a form of trespass. Poisoning people is a crime,
and so is dumping garbage on somebody else's property.  It was  
recognized
as serious crime (and dealt with accordingly) long before environmental
regulations.

In fact, the early history of environmental regulation in US in 1860s is
quite instructive: the biggest proponents were steel mills in Chicago -
who then used the legality of staying within the set limits as a shield
against the private litigation which threatened to shut down the mills
completely for gross pollution and demonstrable harm to persons and
property. See Catlin v. Valentine (1842) for a landmark example of such
private anti-pollution litigation. The courts routinely took the
anti-polluter stance back then.

Then came regulation, in effect permitting specific amounts of pollution
without much regard to damage it was doing to private citizens.  And,
needless to say, US government essentially exempted itself from the  
limits
- and went on to become the biggest polluter on the planet.

It would be seriously stretching truth to call industrial and  
agricultural
pollution "market failure" when the worst of it came because of
dereliction of duty (or outright corruption) of the government at
different levels and as byproduct of government projects.

--vadim

On Mon, 30 Mar 2009, Michael Kende wrote:

> This makes absolutely no sense - the first statement is that there  
> is no
> single case of market failure which couldn't be traced back to
> non-market intervention by a government, which is then followed by a
> statement in the third paragraph that using market failure as a
> justification for any policy is, at best, intellectually dishonest.
>
> In other words, it is a government failure if government does not
> intervene to prevent a market failure from arising, but if that market
> failure does arise anyway, it is intellectually dishonest for the
> government then to address it?
>
> In economic, every micro textbook has a definition of market failure
> (e.g. prices do not send proper signals about markets) and real-life
> examples (pollution).
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 4:51 PM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Re: pro regulation viewpoint on cyber vulnerabiltiy
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Vadim Antonov <avg () kotovnik com>
> Date: March 30, 2009 3:27:27 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] pro regulation viewpoint on cyber vulnerabiltiy
>
>
> David - for IP, if you wish.
>
> On Mon, 30 Mar 2009, David Farber wrote:
>
> > A paper that speaks to market failure is at:
> > http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id, 
> > 5370/t
> > ype,1/
>
> The sad truth is that there is no single documented case of "market
> failure" which couldn't be easily traced back to previous non-market
> intervention (by government or crime) - and these should be properly
> called "government failures", i.e. governments either doing what they
> shouldn't do (granting monopolies to politically connected parties,
> engaging in social engineering, etc), or failing in their duty to
> protect citizens.
>
> Just ask an economist to offer not a plausible theoretical scenario in
> which a market failure could occur - but a clear-cut real-life case of
> market failure, and then watch him squirming uncomfortably.
>
> Market failure is one of those elusive concepts which everybody  
> seems to
> believe in, but which start to shift meaning, twist, and finally
> evaporate if a closer scrunity is applied.  Using it as a  
> justification
> for any policy is, at best, intellectually dishonest.
>
> When applied to "cybersecurity", the very first assertion that "market
> has failed to secure cyberspace" is a plain lie.  Any real security
> expect knows that there's no such thing as absolute and perfect
> security.
> Better security comes with price - and this price increases
> exponentially if stronger (and rarer) treats are considered.
>
> Thus, securing any real installation requires finding a proper balance
> between security and cost - and in many cases that balance is on a  
> side
> which any security-conscious person would find quite insecure (just
> think how long your front door would hold if someone wants to break  
> in,
> or how your windows are totally penetrable with an aid of a brick).
> However, laminated cardboard doors and easily breakable glass windows
> are sufficient to deter majority of opportunistic criminals - and
> defending against determined thieves would be way too costly given  
> that
> the chances that one would pay a visit are rather small.
>
> "Cybersecurity" is no different. Even with broken-by-design security
> model of Windows/Explorer use of a cheap consumer security product
> (Norton,
> etc)
> would be quite sufficient to achieve good-enough security.  Nearly all
> people who suffered from attacks by hackers simply didn't consider
> security of their computers to be important enough to devote 15-20
> minutes and few dozen dollars needed to find a product, buy, and  
> install
> it.
>
> Well, there are people who don't bother to lock their doors and leave
> keys in the ignition locks of their cars - but for some reason there's
> no experts calling for federal programs to fix these "market falures".
> I think that is because, without the smoke screen of fancy jargon, any
> reasonable person would see inanity of any such proposal.
>
> --vadim
>
>
>
>
>
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