And damned if we don't expect the FBI to bail us out. What we do as an industry will have an impact on retirement accounts, day traders, college educations, municipal bonds, government services, international trade, home ownership, and the reengineering of society. That's why this industry must take these attacks very seriously, indeed. This week, EBay CEO Meg Whitman called Yahoo co-founder David Filo to discuss common security concerns. Also key was the victim companies' willingness to work closely with Federal law enforcement officials.
Libertarians are, of course, worried.
Even as someone who tends to view much of the cyberlibertarian movement as paranoid and elitist, I agree that this is a concern. But working with law enforcement needn't mean abandoning privacy rights. For years, this industry has banged the gong of self-regulation without much effect. Now's the time to change that. What's clearly needed is a public-private security partnership, led by the digital industry itself, and backed by strong law enforcement.