Computer attacks have focused on the wrong issues

By Jean Camp, 2/17/2000

he recent electronic attacks that shut down Amazon.com, Yahoo.com, and other Web sites are being treated as rabid criminal activity. The focus has been entirely on the vulnerability of e-commerce to random destruction by criminal or malicious hackers.

Yet there is a more important element that these attacks reveal - the vulnerability of everyday consumers. Home users of the Internet take major risks every time they use their computers for home banking, use Quicken to make automatic transfers, or use debit cards that function as credit cards. These are risks that the software companies and lawmakers have largely ignored.

It is widely assumed, for example, that the hackers embedded sofware in many consumer and home machines to launch their attacks. But who is protecting the consumer? The answer is no one. The technologically naive at-risk home user is forgotten, remembered only when his home computer can be harnessed to cause damage to the large corporate user.

In these early years of the Internet revolution, I see an unfortunate parallel to the last century's industrial revolution. Consumer safety is getting as much attention as worker safety did then - which is to say none.

The companies that could make the virtual world secure for all are instead turning their backs on the consumers who buy their products. Instead of advocating for safe computing terms for home users, these companies are actively promoting legislation that would make it illegal for home users to protect themselves.

For example, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington state are considering a law that would make it legal and reasonable for corporations to embed software into the home users' computer that could increase the prospects of having a hacker use these units to launch attacks on e-commerce by ensuring that the software producer always has access to consumer machines. This intrusion into the consumer's computer would be at the behest of corporations and could not be legally prevented by the individual user, according to this law.

The corporate giants feel that it is most important to protect those companies that sell software, which is the equivalent of digital snake oil.

There are terrible problems with network security and reliability for both the home user and the corporate giant. Yet lawmakers have chosen to ignore the rights of the home user in order to please the corporate giants and their lobbyists.

The hackers who denied service to millions of Amazon and Yahoo users may not have intended to perform an act of civil disobedience for the betterment of consumers. Yet their attacks may help to remind legislators that the consumer matters also.

If consumers are to enjoy the benefits of e-commerce fully and all the services that the Internet companies promise, the corporate world needs to develop and advocate safe guards for all. They are leaders in the new digital revolution. Let's hope that they act as reliable guides and not the digital equivalent of wandering snake oil salesmen.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/048/oped/Computer_attacks_have_focused_on_the_wrong_issues+.shtml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 17, 2000