What about government agencies who fail to protect PII. The IRS and OPM hacks were more egregious in my opinion than Ashley Madison.

Not sure yet how I feel about this. Failing a minimum standard for “protecting consumer data” would seem to be an obvious bar to prompt the FTC into action. I’m unfamiliar with that bar, where it’s set, or if it even exists all.

Let’s see...
Hackers break into data files and expose information: Hackers win. Company and clients lose.
Government sues companies for lax security: Hackers win again. Government wins. Company loses again. Client information still out in the public. Hundreds, if not thousands of lives are still disrupted.
At what point…

I’m torn, because on the one hand, this feels like a proper role of government (OPM and IRS hacks notwithstanding). But on the other hand, when companies get hit by nation-state actors, I’m not sure punishing them for consumer collateral damage makes any kind of sense.

Of course, the attribution problem makes this…

with an uncanny sense of timing, an appeals court says the Federal Trade Commission has the power to regulate companies’ cyber security

All well and good, but does FTC already have a standard for what level of security is “good enough” vs. “not enough” for purposes of regulation? Otherwise, I can see it turning into a hot mess.

Show off! With your fancy colors and 16K of RAM. I started on a TRS-80 Model III.

Packard Bell #nailedit

I remember being amused that Microsoft was finally releasing a real, consumer-focused OS instead of just another shell to sit on top of DOS.

I remember agonizing over whether to upgrade to Windows 95, or go the OS/2 route. This was before I really knew my way around a computer, and it took me weeks of reading articles (like PC Magazine, etc) to finally go with 95.

Bob. From back when every software developer felt the need to explain every minute detail of how to use a computer and were convinced that if the software didn’t reflect something in the real world people would be too confused to function.

“Briefcase” that no one used.

Europe and the US are two very different places with very different populations and very different problems. Acting like gun ownership or the lackthereof is the entire difference between one country’s problems and another’s is incredibly myopic.

I commute between US and West Europe on a fairly frequent basis. I see the difference. Nobody of the tens of Europeans I know have a gun or would ever like to have for “self-defense” purposes. And yet our number of gun-related crimes or accidents is exponential compared to Europe. Because also, similarly, the crime…