Feb 28 2005
Somebody else’s fault syndrome
Florida man sues bank over $90K wire fraud | The Register
Customer vs. Bank of America: Is the little guy to blame?
If your computer catches a trojan, your passwords are comprimised and money is taken out of your bank account as a result, who’s fault is it? Joe Lopez and his lawyer say it’s the bank’s fault for not warning him. I say it’s his own fault, and Donald Smith at SearchSecurity.com agrees.
I’m not going to analyze the case again, since the SearchSecurity article already does a pretty good job of it. But I’m tired of the ’somebody else’s fault’ syndrome so rampant in today’s society. I believe this is the root cause of so many of the problems with our culture; why take responsibility when you can pin it on someone else? It’s not the parent’s fault their child is unruly, it’s the teachers fault. It’s not the business’s fault all those financial records were exposed to the Internet, it’s those nasty hackers. The list goes on of people and corporations trying to place the blame everywhere but where it really belongs.
Deep breath. This is one of my hot buttons. I realize there’s little or nothing I can do to change society as a whole, so I’m doing what I can. I hope my children will grow knowing how to take responsibility for their own actions. And if they don’t, I can always blame the school and their peers.
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One Response to “Somebody else’s fault syndrome”
I agree with you. However, especially in risk management, transferring risk is a viable way of minimizing it.
As to the article: I would argue that both are to blame. The bank because their authentication mechanism is too easy to pass by (two-factor authentication for each and every transaction is a MUST) and the user because they did a) did catch a trojan and b) had no provision to check the contents of their computer’s hard disk.