Sean and I have been talking about this recently. I know that I feel like I’m a better person because I record this show. Because it gets me in a frame of mind that allows me to question the status quo in my life, and to really do some soul-searching about who I am and who I want to be. In that respect, it’s very therapeutic.

Let’s partake in a beverage and discuss this further.

The issues run deep, but I really believe that prevention of attacks like these is only partly a technical security issue.

Like being in a bad part of a city after dark, your first line of defense is not being a target.

Coincidence is not causation, but it’s suspicious that the two credit cards I’ve used with PSN were both used by criminals in a short timespan after the major incident came to light. It’s a joke that Sony has yet to provide customers with credit/ID theft protection. (It’s already too late for me although both of my card companies quickly realized I was not ordering thousands of dollars worth of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics overseas.) I was also left with a bad feeling that the Blu-ray drive in the PS3 was not worth the inability of my PS3 gift recipient to use Netflix while PSN was down. I can only hope that Sony will learn from this monumental series of debacles to reduce the likelihood of security failures in the future.

There are places in Alberta where residents are waiting to get telephone lines (that’s right – old fashioned telephone lines). Why? Because that technology was privatized and there’s not much profit in providing service to rural customers.

So – if you’re a kid in rural or remote Canada, or from a poor family, will your chances of success be equal to those of a child whose parents can afford to download everything from National Geographic documentaries to ADHD counseling from the best doctors in the world? And if in fact these things are the advantage that we believe they are, does it not behoove a civilized country to ensure it cuts long-term social costs by making them available to all (again to your health care analogy).

It’s an interesting debate, but having been a fiscally challenged parent of a child with ADHD who got exactly zero help from the ‘system’, I think we’d be missing a huge opportunity for social equality if we start deciding that there are classes of people who may benefit and classes who may not. For now, this isn’t about ordinary users, but if you look at the UBB system in New Zealand, where internet access is so expensive hotels don’t offer it, you can see where this is headed.

A

Additionally the power of the telco’s lies in owning the lines, I’d like to see not only third party investments, but public infrastructure being built for everyone to use.