Geekonomics The Real Cost of Insecure

The Real Cost of Insecure Software

• In 1996, software defects in a Boeing 757 caused a crash that killed 70 people…

• In 2003, a software vulnerability helped cause the largest U.S. power outage in decades…

• In 2004, known software weaknesses let a hacker invade T-Mobile, capturing everything from passwords to Paris Hilton’s photos…

• In 2005, 23,900 Toyota Priuses were recalled for software errors that could cause the cars to shut down at highway speeds…

• In 2006 dubbed “The Year of Cybercrime,” 7,000 software vulnerabilities were discovered that hackers could use to access private information…

• In 2007, operatives in two nations brazenly exploited software vulnerabilities to cripple the infrastructure and steal trade secrets from other sovereign nations…

Software has become crucial to the very survival of civilization. But badly written, insecure software is hurting people–and costing businesses and individuals billions of dollars every year. This must change. In Geekonomics, David Rice shows how we can change it.

Rice reveals why the software industry is rewarded for carelessness, and how we can revamp the industry’s incentives to get the reliability and security we desperately need and deserve. You’ll discover why the software industry still has shockingly little accountability–and what we must do to fix that.

Brilliantly written, utterly compelling, and thoroughly realistic, Geekonomics is a long-overdue call to arms. Whether you’re software user, decision maker, employee, or business owner this book will change your life…or even save it.

Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xix
About the Author	p. xx
The Foundation of Civilization	p. 1
Software and Cement	p. 4
In the Shadow of Utility	p. 10
Fragile Analogies	p. 15
Six Billion Crash Test Dummies: Irrational Innovation and Perverse Incentives	p. 19
The Story of Crash Test Dummies	p. 24
Five Stars and Rising	p. 26
You Can Learn a Lot From a Dummy	p. 29
Private Benefits, Social Costs	p. 38
Market Failure Martini, Straight Up	p. 42
The Need for Speed	p. 48
The Perversity of Patching	p. 53
Irrationally New	p. 59
Market Failure Martini, with a Twist of Lemon	p. 64
Wrap Up: The Martini Hangover	p. 68
The Power of Weaknesses: Broken Windows and National Security	p. 73
Only the Stupid Are Caught	p. 75
An Underground Market	p. 83
Numbers Don't Always Measure	p. 87
Fraud and Terror	p. 91
Information's War	p. 94
The Theory of Broken Windows	p. 101
Broken Upon Receipt	p. 108
Blind Risk	p. 112
Enter the Dragons	p. 117
Evil Inside	p. 120
Fixing Broken Windows	p. 127
Myopic Oversight: Blinded by Speed, Baffled by Churn	p. 131
The Law of Churn, the Decree of Speed	p. 133
Free Hands Have Consequences	p. 137
X-Rays Show More Than You Think	p. 141
Don't Slow Us Down, We Have lives to Save	p. 144
Discovered Only After the Damage Is Done	p. 146
Knobs of Unknown Origin	p. 148
We'll Be Compliant, Later	p. 152
Speed Blind	p. 156
You Can Learn a Lot From an Interstate Highway System	p. 161
A Matter of Trust	p. 167
One of Skill in the Art	p. 172
Absolute Immunity: You Couldn't Sue Us Even If You Wanted To	p. 179
The Forces of Failure	p. 185
Absolution for Dereliction	p. 188
Victims of a Border War	p. 194
Duty, Breach, Cause, Damage	p. 202
Teleporting Tigers	p. 208
The Least-Cost Avoider	p. 212
Negligence Versus Strict Liability	p. 215
Stripping Immunity	p. 217
Strict Liability and Aeronautical Charts	p. 221
The Tort of Negligent Enablement of Cyber Crime	p. 232
The Verdict	p. 236
Open Source Software: Free, But at What Cost?	p. 243
Open and Shut	p. 244
The History of Free and Open	p. 251
An Incentive to Itch	p. 258
The Question of Sustainable Security	p. 264
Distributed Immunity: No Body to Kick, No Soul to Condemn	p. 268
Doffing the Wizard Hats	p. 269
Moving Forward: Rational Incentives for a Different Future	p. 273
Hands-off	p. 275
An Inconvenient Tort	p. 288
One Ring to Rule Them All	p. 291
The Great Screw	p. 301
A Market for Weakness	p. 307
Closure	p. 318
Epilogue	p. 321
Notes	p. 325
Index	p. 341
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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