Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software

An interesting new book by David Rice. From the book's website:

Geekonomics is about the astonishing lack of consumer protection in the software market and how this impacts economic and national security. Software buyers are literally crash test dummies for an industry that is remarkably insulated against liability, accountability, and responsibility for any harm, damages or loss that should occur because of manufacturing defects or weaknesses that allow cyber attackers to break into and hijack our computer systems. As a matter of good public policy, this is unacceptable and must change.

Geekonomics is also about us and why we behave the way we do when it comes to protecting ourselves in cyber space. As such, Geekonomics is about incentives. Specifically, Geekonomics is about incentives that affect three groups of people: consumers, software manufacturers, and hackers. Each group has incentives for making, buying, and breaking into computer systems that are rife with defects, errors, and weaknesses. This book explains these incentives and how new and different incentives are necessary to address the problem of “bad” software.

Finally, Geekonomics is a book for everyone, not just for geeks or technophiles, because frankly, in modern civilization, how and when software touches us is less our choice every day.