Comment by brookst

Comment by brookst 7 hours ago

5 replies

I think I agree, but people will have very different views on where liability should fall, and whether there is a malicious / negligent / no-fault model?

Section 230? Is it the platform or the originating user that's liable?

Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)?

Minors viewing porn? Is it the parents, the ISP, the distributor, or the creator that's liable?

I'm not here to argue specific answers, just saying that everyone will agree liability would fix this, and few will agree on who should be liable for what.

TheOtherHobbes 7 hours ago

It's not a solvable problem. Like most tech problems it's political, not technical. There is no way to balance the competing demands of privacy, security, legality, and corporate overreach.

It might be solvable with some kind of ID escrow, where an independent international agency managed ID as a not-for-profit service. Users would have a unique biometrically-tagged ID, ID confirmation would be handled by the agency, ID and user behaviour tracking would be disallowed by default and only allowed under strictly monitored conditions, and law enforcement requests would go through strict vetting.

It's not hard to see why that will never happen in today's world.

  • malfist 6 hours ago

    > It's not a solvable problem

    Lawnmower manufacturers said the same thing about making safe lawnmowers. Until government regulations forced them to

    • ToucanLoucan 5 hours ago
      • Aerroon 2 hours ago

        Well, something to consider is that part of why everything is so much expensive these days is that a lot of the solutions to those problems add costs. That cost needs to be absorbed by the price.

        One of the reasons it's so expensive to build a house is safety regulations. They exist for a reason, but they nevertheless add a substantial cost to building a house. If you had mandated such a cost to people living in 1870 then a lot fewer people could've afforded a house.

StanislavPetrov 6 hours ago

>Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)?

There absolutely should be, especially for personal data collected and stored without the express written consent of those being surveilled. They should have to get people to sign off on the risks of having their personal data collected and stored, be legally prevented from collecting and storing the personal data of people who haven't consented and/or be liable for any leaking or unlawful sharing/selling of this data.