[AnaniasAnanas]

Shouldn't the one responsible personally have to pay for it rather than the city and its taxpayers?

[travolter]

Do you have to pay the damages for every mistake you make at your job?

[pjc50]

How on earth do you attribute responsibility here? Usually these things are an underfunded disaster waiting to happen, because the city can't find the money to upgrade from XP or whatever.

[tremon]

You mean the one who wrote the attacking code? Or the one who wrote the vulnerable code? Why do we even assume there is a "one" here?

[AnaniasAnanas]

Whoever made the decision not to take backups for example. The ones who will have to pay for their mistakes will be the taxpayers otherwise.

[albertgoeswoof]

This is a public service, aren't the voters responsible? They could have voted in competent leaders.

[magduf]

This is it exactly. The voters are the ones who are ultimately responsible, and they'll be the ones to ultimately pay, just as it should be. They should be voting for competent leaders, and for sufficient taxes to pay decent salaries to attract good IT talent, but they don't, so this is what they get.

Every nation gets the government it deserves. - Joseph de Maistre

[AnaniasAnanas]

The voters are not one person. Sadly democracy ends up being the fascism of the many.