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Where is the innovation in any other industry over the past decades exactly? You know, since they brought these in.
How expensive is it to build a bridge now, versus a hundred years ago, adjusted for inflation? "capable of operating", what a joke.
As Kulak is fond of saying, the reason we don't have flying cars isn't that they haven't been invented, it's that they've been made illegal. They were commonly flown (and shot down) by teenagers in the 1910s.
This is the tired same equivocation that motivates all such regulatory barriers. I complain about having to fill forms, you retort about the justifications for the form existing as if I didn't also have such a concern.
There are other answers to the problems of humanity than increasing the size of the bureaucracy. Just no other that fits into managerialism.
Let's go with a simple one - the shale fracking revolution in the oil/gas industry. But nobody is actually going to go counting these things, because no one really has any sort of consistent argument for which sorts of regulations stifle innovation. Again, I totally realize that they do sometimes, in some ways. But what sort of massive innovation is going to be stifled by requiring devices to not have default passwords? Like, surely we can agree on that one. We could at least leave open arguments for other requirements, and I would welcome a wide-ranging debate on them. But if we're stuck with just theoretical arguments, totally disconnected from any specifics, in a way that can't capture basic truths like, "Being forced to not have default passwords is not a significant barrier to innovation," then we're not going to get anywhere.
Ok, so you also have a concern about default passwords. What are you going to do about your concern?
That is a fair one, but It's also a very good example of just what I'm saying. I was part of the few people on the quite unpopular side of the oil industry here in Europe in the 10s when it was banned, for the same reason I'm on this side of this issue now.
If the UK wants to make such regulations it will reap the same sort of benefits: no toxic chemical pollution or chinese crap botnets, but also no innovation in these respective sectors.
It's a choice.
You can not like that enforcing common sense rules to an industry through state mandates is a barrier to innovation all you want. It's not going to stop being true. The debate is only on the magnitude of the effect.
I don't buy chinese crap that spies on you, I tell people not to buy chinese crap that spies on you and I shame people who do so in my social circles.
Hell, I've spent years of my life writing symbolic execution software used specifically to make edge devices secure, some of which you may be using right now. What have you done?
So, will you then make a prediction along the lines of what I asked for in the OP? Are you predicting that tech companies will pull out of the UK rather than either upgrayyyeding their security practices for the world market or going with a dual product (one version that doesn't make absurdly basic mistakes for the UK market and one that does make those mistakes for the world market)?
And I claimed that being forced to not have default passwords will have an incredibly low magnitude effect on innovation. Do you actually disagree with this, or do we agree?
I do the same, but clearly that is not changing much about the world. Have you succeeded in changing the world through your evangelism?
Then I'm sure you will be pleased that this work won't be going to waste by someone shaving a few cents off of the cost of your product by putting a default password on it. Honestly, hearing this, I'm really not sure what your concern is. Is it that your company's "We're Actually Secure" marketing is going to be slightly less effective, now that the floor has been raised? Did you really think that such marketing was really of all that much value in the first place? @The_Nybbler thinks that it's completely a waste and that no one would spend one red cent more for your secure product. Do you think he's wrong?
I can easily commit to saying that no major IoT startup success is likely to be based in the UK any time soon. But that's saying nothing given they're pretty much all American already for many other reasons.
Maybe some guy at Arm will have to add one more form to some pile or something.
Europe at large is a dying crab bucket that everybody who can make things is leaving because if you try you reap only taxes and lawsuits.
That's my concern. John Galt is my concern.
Yes and no. No chinesium lightbulb maker is ever going to bother with formally proving their code is correct because they don't care. But some connected things actually need to be secure so that you don't explode, catch on fire or get robbed.
I find the actually useful non gimmicky applications of IoT are in this latter category, and that for those the customer and the manufacturer usually know better than to cheap out.
Bruce Schnier noted that California had already implemented at least the number one item. Do you think that this is enough to also say that no major IoT startup success is likely to be based in California any time soon?
I don't believe anything in this requirement is aimed at formal code verification methods. I don't think that's a requirement that is on the table anywhere, except for perhaps some niche customers (e.g., military/space). Probably not even at most "critical infrastructure" places that could blow up or whatever.
I mean, honestly, if that's about all you have to say for what results from this, that no chinesium lightbulb maker is going to meet a standard that hasn't been proposed and that some critical application spaces are going to pay for good stuff anyway, that's kind of a nothingburger? Like, abstract senses about Europe (not even the UK) and wild references to John Galt aren't really "concerns" that can be addressed in context of the very specific document that we have in front of us. It really seems like you just don't have any meaningful concern that we can investigate.
Nah, California has inertia and the funding apparatus there is still stronger than anywhere in the world, which is more meaningful. Not to mention the regulatory framework for innovation in general is looser in the US.
But it's telling that the companies that exist right now that fit the bill are also in Texas and Massachusetts these days, that used to be more rare. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some exodus. But it's probably down to the taxes than line items from small regulation.
You're forgetting automotive and think that energy grid infra is a lot looser than it actually is, but other than that it's broadly correct.
I think we're talking past each other. This regulation in and of itself is a nothingburger. It's the tendency I'm speaking to, which is what was alluded to in the OP.
Regulation is a dynamic process, it never stops at one law and very few of its slopes are not slippery.
In this house we discuss the Bailey, not the Motte.
That's like, emphatically not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Route_128#%22America's_Technology_Highway%22
Silicon Valley may be flashier and, at times in the last few decades, may have been 'bigger' or 'denser' when it comes to its tech startup scene, but the Boston Tech Corridor is old and still producing (and more diversified -- biotech and other startup intensive fields have more of a presence in Boston than in the Bay Area). This kind of thing follows prestigious universities. Even Texas used to be a big spot for this kind of thing in the meat of the 20th century for that reason, although I think it dropped out of the startup mushroom scene for a while.
You are right of course. And I did notice all these companies pop up next to the respective universities, back when I was a student myself.
Though I will say it's a question of timeframe. California has been a powerful magnet of talent in recent history. And that's for the entire world, not just America. My observation is only that this tendency seems to not be as strong anymore.
Whether or not that's due to poor Californian policy, mere return to the mean or just noise I won't claim to know for sure.
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