logoalt Hacker News

reverius42 • today at 5:01 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

For the commercial flight industry this is very easy to calculate: zero deaths are acceptable. This is not like car manufacturer recall calculations (famously, referenced in Fight Club: if the lawsuit costs the manufacturer less than the recall, they don't recall). The airline industry is built different thanks to heavy regulation.

You could ask: is it _worth_ making it that safe? But we don't ask that. We just make it that safe.

I think there is a good point to be made that this level of safety (it costs what it costs) is probably not worth it for cybersecurity, in general, even if it's largely considered worth it for commercial aviation.


Replies

disgruntledphd2 • today at 9:16 AM

As software intermediates more and more of the physical world, we're gonna end up at least as regulated as finance, and potentially as much as aviation.

The only real question is how much damage will be caused before that happens.