Readers Write: Sept. 27

Lax rules fail to aid public in hack

In the Equifax breach and other data breaches, there seems to be much concern about disclosure after the horse is out of the barn. Although disclosure of breaches is of value to those whose data has been revealed, preventing these breaches might be of even more benefit. I suspect that this breach, like others, resulted from management policy flowing down and is best articulated as “security doesn’t generate revenue; assign it to some low-status young pup; tell him/her it’s a secondary assigned duty; and when he/she begins talking about software upgrades, tell him/her you’ve got more important things for them to do.” If, as I understand it, failure to install a software upgrade contributed to this breach, one or more might need to fall on their swords and it shouldn’t be the young pup.

We can all see why promoting compliance with security standards is an appropriate governmental function. Adoption of industry standards in a way that establishes corporate liability for non-compliance might raise the priority of data security and bring the importance of best practices to the attention of top management. Incorporation into government requirements will not be simple or easy, but it needs to be addressed.

JOHN HAEGER, LILBURN

Time to stop this dangerous experiment

We are now engaging in the most dangerous experiment in history. It is an experiment to see how much greenhouse gases we can put out into our environment and how much we can raise the earth’s temperature before we do irreparable, catastrophic damage to our earth. It is an experiment to see if the one to three percent of climate experts who say that climate change is not real are correct, rather than the 97 to 99 percent who say that it is real. Do we want this experiment to continue as the evidence mounts that rising seas, and increasing storm, fire, and drought are indeed damaging our earth?