What Will It Take

The questionm of what it will take for policy makers to take cybersecurity seriously enough to enact substantive legislative changes that would address the problems is discussed. The author feels that policy makers need to know that there are engineering fixes - and that's something our community can provide. For the average nonexpert — and in this category the author includes every lawmaker — to push for change, they not only need to believe that the present situation is intolerable, they also need to believe that an alternative is possible. Real legislative change requires a belief that the never-ending stream of hacks and attacks is not inevitable, that we can do better. And that will require creating working examples of secure, dependable, resilient systems.