, a tool used to encrypt anything from social-media passwords to e-commerce purchases, had a fatal flaw that made the information it was supposed to protect visible to potential hackers. The discovery was unsurprising to anyone who knew about the team behind Open. The software, used by almost 20% of websites—including tech companies making billions of dollars in annual profits—was largely run by two men named Steve, who worked on it in their spare time.
In part it is a quirk of history, says Mar Hicks, a historian of technology at the University of Virginia. The internet has been decentralised since its founding: businesses share control with academics and hobbyists.
If the tech companies won’t build better infrastructure themselves, there is still a way to improve internet security: to pay organisations, like Open, enough to employ others to do it. But for that to work, tech companies would need to band together—compelled by governments, if necessary—to provide consistent funding, rather than splurging when something goes wrong and forgetting about the problem when attention subsides.
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