Hacker News
points by weinzierl 1 day ago | 0 comments
At the beginning of the industrialization there were many accidents with steam boilers.

We've git that under control with regulation and the help of organizations, some of which still exist today.

This "era of constant exploits/patches" is not normal and can't go on. Currently it is an ongoing cat and mouse game, but it doesn't have to be.

[–] bombcar 1 day ago
What’s interesting with steam boilers and other types of OSHA related injuries is that it’s not enough that the person who’s doing the stupid thing dies: you have to enforce it even more and even higher. People won’t value their life.
[–] cowlevel 16 hours ago
Usually they have a choice between risking their life in a boiler explosion or risking their life in homelessness.
[–] alansaber 15 hours ago
This seems much more fundamental, less social, though.
[–] esseph 1 day ago
> This "era of constant exploits/patches" is not normal and can't go on. Currently it is an ongoing cat and mouse game, but it doesn't have to be.

Security is always reactive by its very nature. You can do proactive things, but you will always be reactive to novel attacks.

Expect everything to have various levels of rolling upgrades, and soon. That's a lot of work.

[–] weinzierl 1 day ago
We don't do rolling upgrades on steam boilers nor do we do it on our door locks. Nothing is perfect, we just need good enough and we are currently far away from good at all.

When it comes to software it hasn't always been the case. Before the Internet software was considered something stable and even now there are areas, like functional safety critical software, where this is true to some degree.

It's not that it can't be done.

It used to be expensive to a certain extent it will stay expensive, but modern languages, tooling and formal methods will hopefully mitigate that enough.

[–] cowlevel 16 hours ago
Most door locks are easy to pick btw. They're not protecting you with technical excellence, they're protecting you by making the thief spend a little time so the neighbours might see him.
[–] esseph 15 hours ago
> but modern languages, tooling and formal methods will hopefully mitigate that enough.

No, they won't :) This is the world now.