[sdwr]

Being worried about a hardware backdoor in your network card is more about technology fetishism than realistic threat analysis.

It's like suburbanites being worried about home invasion. Sure, it's technically possible to happen, but the concern reflects personal neuroses rather than practical considerations.

There's a disconnected, individual grandiosity in both cases - "what I have is so valuable that other people want to take it!". Conveniently, the solution always seems to be more individual actions to disconnect further. Security systems, lockdown, heightened fear of a shadowy Other.

[nonrandomstring]

You are minimising [0,1].

(I also think you are wrong in your risk asessment)

[0] https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/minimizing.html

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimisation_(psychology)

[htek]

That is not minimizing. Minimizing from a psychological perspective is to present an event that has occurred as unimportant or insignificant. Had the OP said "suburbanites have nothing to worry about if they are targeted in a home invasion" would be an example of minimizing. The rising fear about crime in general, or home invasion in particular, is a disconnect from the actual risk of either happening to oneself. Violent crime overall is somewhere south of 25 incidents per 1,000. That's 2.5%. Which is 2-3x less than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Increased visibility in the media along with influence peddlers in social media whip up fear and neuroses for more clicks/income that make things appear worse than they ever have been. Which tends to lead people to believe the false narrative that "life was better when I was a (much more uninformed) child/young adult."

[nonrandomstring]

There are two things I want to respond to here.

First, I agree with everything you just said about rising fear and the total disconnect of actual risk from how it is presented.

See my response above to sdwr viz emerging protection rackets in computer security, and my later comment about Ross Anderson's important paper after which I (and Edward Snowden) have found the words "Insecurity Industry" rolls off the tongue - for example Amazon's Ring Doorbell ecosystem which cynically preys on distorted perceptions of suburban crimes.

Other people have commented on that here, and I think they are correct. But let's not allow that to distract us from the reality that cybersecurity is in an appalling state and that the risks are very, very real, and getting worse.

The "insecurity industry" exploits that - while offing no substantial solution, and indeed has no interest in fixing things (as a principal agent problem) - but that's separate from the threat reality.

A great way to understand this might come from reading some of Bruce Schneier's wonderfully clear writing on security theatre and security perception. They sell the problem and the solution. Fear and safety often come in the same packaging, like those Taco kits or fruit and yogurt combos.

Anyway - not wishing to end argumentatively but "minimising" is appropriate because sdwr makes aspersions to grandiosity. It is a really strong characteristic to gaslight or undermine the other as "over-dramatic" etc, not just downplaying the facts. respects.

[nonrandomstring]

> Conveniently, the solution always seems to be more individual actions to disconnect further. Security systems, lockdown, heightened fear of a shadowy Other.

BTW, I also think you are very right about this. The Insecurity Industry preys on fear. But it offers no substantial solutions. That doesn't mean the risks aren't real. They are. Modern software engineering is a calamity. Everything is full of holes. What is at issue is motives. The insecurity industry doen't want anything fixed. It wants, as you say, to lock down all your stuff, control it, and make you pay twice or thrice to use your own property. A protection racket is very different from offering actual "security". I try to expand on that here [0]

[0] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/love

[jbboehr]

> "what I have is so valuable that other people want to take it!"

While I do agree this may apply somewhat to the original topic, your dig at suburbanites seems like a mischaracterization. Perhaps the upper/upper-middle classes feel this way. I would expect most other folks are primarily worried about being murdered during the event.

[reaperducer]

While I do agree this may apply somewhat to the original topic, your dig at suburbanites seems like a mischaracterization. I would expect most other folks are primarily worried about being murdered during the event.

With the murder rate in America near historic lows, I think the person you're replying to is spot-on. It's a lot of hysteria fueled by social media, foreign actors, and the fact that security paranoia is a very lucrative business for a lot of companies.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...

Yes, there has been a recent uptick, but it's still 30% below what it was 30 years ago. Heck, it's almost 20% lower than it was 100 years ago.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088644/homicide-suicide...

To find a U.S. murder rate lower than 2014, you have to go back to 1906.

But security companies, alarm companies, conservative politicians and their media partners, police unions, and others with a financial interest foam at the mouth to make it seem like things have never been worse.

[nsxwolf]

These statistics do not help anyone create a reasonable personal risk assessment.

Murder is at an all time low! But my sister in law is a drug addict, and last year she got mad so her boyfriend shot and killed a family member right in their nice suburban foyer.

There's more to it than that.

[spencerflem]

I'm sorry to hear that, but that does match my understanding that there's very few murders done by a random stranger in their own home.

Most people worrying about home invasions arent thinking about it being their niece.

[nonrandomstring]

A fascinating finding is that the explosion of cybercrime (against the person, so scams, theft etc) inversely and almost perfectly tracks the fall in violent physical crimes like robbery, hijack, burglary [0].

This leads to the problematic idea that a high tolerance is given to cybercrime because it "shifts" it to a more acceptable form (given that all other factors, policing budgets, causes of crime etc remain constant).

That's one interesting conspiracy/explanation for why rampant digital crime is officially played down whereas almost non-existent street crime is "marketed" by Amazon Ring and other elements of the "Insecurity Industry"

[0] https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/measuring-the-...

[0x457]

I had such doorbell to know when packages and food is dropped off. Not worried about it being stolen or house being robbed.