[LINK] Clouded Vision

[Stilgherrian]

On 16/05/2009, at 1:56 PM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> In this case a mistake of your analogy, money that is reasonably
> consistent in its value and is replaceable through a contracted
> protection [bank, federally issued, etc.] is somehow equal to data
> that may exist in only one place and not be replaceable and with no
> contracted protection, and probably contract that says specifically
> there is no contracted protection, use at your own risk. You don't
> need numbers to deal with that, nor science, just logic.


Disagree.

The fact that your bank balance is currently $X is a piece of data  
held by the bank. The transactions that increment or decrement that  
value are also just pieces of data, flowing in and out of the bank.  
They can therefore be lost, just like any other data.

Contracts don't say that there IS protection, just that there's MEANT  
TO BE protection.

That banks are supposed to have mechanisms to prevent data loss is  
perhaps true, but we're still relying on an assumption that all that  
works.

I contend that trusting "the bank" (which is just another company)  
with data and rusting, say, Google with data is the same kind of  
thing, and that any perceived difference in risk is a matter of degree  
not of category.

Stil


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