Schneier on Security

quincunx • February 9, 2007 3:19 PM

Not too bad. It's gotta a lot of sources - and I'm satisfied with the fact that there is some discussion of government bumbling.

The only thing it lacks is discussion of macroeconomic factors - such as the dot com boom (which it mentions with no discussion) - which is a result of government failure!

Too much data in IT economics relies upon this gross distortion of the market, that ocurred b/w 1995 and mid-2000. Yet it was just a matter of timing and nothing else.

a) The internet is commercially liberated in 1992 (in the US).
b) To ease the housing bubble from popping in 1995, the FED inffused the economy with the largest credit increase in US history. It meagerly propped up the housing sector, but most of the money went in to the new liberated sector - precisely because money flows in the path of least resistance (government intervention).

In fact too much [Insert Sector] Economics, like IT economics deals exclusively with it's own field as if it were encased in a hermetic sphere - so every time there is a macro distortion the sector-specific economics typically ignores it, because there is no use of their great expertise.

Ah, but there is another bust on the horizon...i.e. when foreign central banks refuse to accept our depreciated fiat dollars.

Oh boy - I'm anxious to see what interventions are introduced into the IT field once that bubble bursts - for surely it will be that market once again that is at fault.