About time
We spend a fortune on network snooping, its pretty much all the NSA does. Given this you'd think that they'd have not only been actively developing exploits for offense but also actively researching defensive measures. They haven't, and as a result everyone's been left to more or less fend for themselves for decades. Its business for some, certainly, but the threat to national security and the losses through crime are intolerable, a huge burden on the economy.
It always annoys me to read of someone losing money through a scam with the banks in particular throwing up their hands and saying "What can we do?", especially when we know that government monitors transactions for illegal activity all the time in the name of 'sanctions'. I think government has a warped set of priorities -- its so busy fighting Cold War 2 that they can't be bothered to deal with real threats. We see things through a very narrow geopolitical lens, its all about twarting "the Russians" or "the Chinese" that it never occurs to us that there are criminals all over the place -- sure, governments may well be in there someplace but where there's money to be made there's plenty of others trying their luck.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
