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more on good question DMCA used to shut down campus IDsecurity talk
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 09:55:40 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: Dave Wilson <dave () wilson net> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 07:34:37 -0500 (EST) To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] good question DMCA used to shut down campus IDsecurity talk In general, under the law software developers are not liable for any kind of product failure, including security. Last week, when he was here at Purdue University -- where I'm on a fellowship studying information security these days -- I had the opportunity to ask a couple of question of Howard A. Schmidt, Special Advisor to President Bush for Cyberspace Security and head of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. I asked Mr. Schmidt if the government should expose developers to liability as a spur to develop a better environment. Schmidt said that liability exposure ultimately drives up costs for users (as in a guy who defends himself against a suit claiming flawed software has to charge more for his products to pay off his legal bills). Mr. Schmidt argued that consumers would eventually choose systems that are more secure, and that the country needed to give the free market time to work its magic. The government, he said, is reluctant to interfere with that process. "We will indeed not regulate," he declared. A bit later, I pointed out to Mr. Schmidt that several courts - including the U.S. Supreme Court - have found that Microsoft Corp. has monopoly power in the market for desktop computers, and that this monopoly power allowed the company to force consumers to purchase products that are insecure. I asked Mr. Schmidt, who was Microsoft's former chief security officer, if he disagreed with the court's economic analysis. "I'm not a lawyer," he replied. -dave ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on good question DMCA used to shut down campus IDsecurity talk Dave Farber (Apr 15)