Bad Security Driving Out the Good

Bruce Schneier has up at Wired a typically thoughtful piece on how, in the security market as in others, the lemons are winning out over the good products. Schneier harks back to "The Market For Lemons," the 1970s work of economist George Akerlof, to explain why the market's invisible hand pushes most of the best products into the abyss: "With so many mediocre security products on the market, and the difficulty of coming up with a strong quality signal, vendors don't have strong incentives to invest in developing good products. And the vendors that do tend to die a quiet and lonely death."

The way of the world

Marketing and persuasion always wins out in the end. How many tech guys have tried to convince a boss that whatever solution they are going with is not in the interest of the company. Even if you make an objective flow-chart/business impact plan.. their mind is made up. Dick from marketing has personality-brainwashed him. He took him to lunch, he couldn't possibly be like the other salesmen.. nice chap.

Re:The way of the world

You are right; it is not security/xyz that sells, but the perception of securty/xyz. That is where the marketers come in.

Re:The way of the world

In New Jersey, their governors don't have any speed limit...

The best Marketing = Religion

Tech Companies should learn this and never forget it.

Endless promotion, Endless recruitment, Constant attack on competition.

Persuasive spokespersons, Constant reminders of what you WONT get if you dont buy, and buy NOW.

An answer to every question or challenge about your product, and when that wont work, promote FAITH in the organization, and patience in the reciept of what you are really wanted.

Unashamed, unabashed belief in your product as THE ONLY real solution.

This is Evangelism, and it works better than anything else, regardless of whether you really have the goods or not.

Re:The way of the world

It's funny, though, TFA has little to say about marketing -- except for asymmetrical information theory. Marketing ties into this because it is how companies take advantage of buyers, who have less accurate info than sellers.

The problem is not just marketing. The problem is that since buyers aren't well-informed, they choose mediocre products, which prices out the best products. This starts a nasty cycle, since with the best products out of the market, buyers then choose even poorer solutions to save a buck, which ends up pricing out the best remaining products, and so on.

Marketing takes advantage of asymmetrical information -- but the root cause is the buyer's lack of information. Given that most decision-makers do not have the resources to adequately research every purchase they make, how can this be fixed? How much should a company spend on researching products, in relation to the cost of those products? Many people can't justify spending a lot of time researching the options for a $2000/yr solution. When the proposals come in, and several[1] of the vendors offer a seemingly-equivalent solution for $1500, how can I justify spending $2000? Purchasing is about choosing products that meet your requirements at the lowest cost. It's not feasible for every purchase to undergo a full TCO analysis that includes factored risk of loss -- how many businesses employ actuaries?

Multiply this scenario by thousands, and the best solutions are driven out of business.

[1] It's important that there are multiple options at that price point, since it makes each of the products at that level seem acceptable.

Re:The way of the world

It gets better. Take an honest look at advertising, look at what they are selling and how they are selling it. Chances are better than 90% of the products you either don't need, can live without, or just plain can't use. Any product that is worth its weight simply doesn't need to be advertised.

While you are looking at marketing campaigns, see who spends the most money. I believe that the value of a product is inversely related to advertising dollars spent. With the exception of products that are new. VoIP is one of those (even though I can't for the life of me figure out what the Vonage marketers were thinking) exceptions where the product is so new that advertising is as much about education as it is selling. Sleeping aids and medicines for ailments your parents never heard of is no better than little blue pill junk mail. There are times that I think that such advertisements should be blockable and covered under the can-spam act.

Anyway, advertising sells. Without it consumers won't even know there is a product. Despite the buzz about desktop linux there actually are people in North America that do NOT know what Linux is, never mind if they want to use it. Security products and practices are the same. I haven't counted, but I know I don't have enough fingers for counting the number of times I've heard a VP spouting verbatim from some magazine article as if he learned it in college or something.

This effect is what keeps MS products so prominent, people don't actually know or understand that there are other competing products. People know about Mcafee and Norton. They don't know about ClamAV, and are not sure what Symantec does.

The open market, in this respect, is just a popularity contest.

I had hopes that sites like Consumer reports et al would change that, but no, consumers really are mostly sheep.

marketing

It really boils down to marketing, IMHO. And laziness. The average person doesn't want to have to learn about something and investigate its merits. By and large they're much happier being told that Item A does XYZ, while Item B does XYZ *and* W, all while being easier to use than Item A. Despite W being a useless feature, and the "easier to use" claim being baseless, Item B will win out due to how it's been marketed.

Re:marketing

I completely disagree.

My parents both wish to learn more but they just don't understand what thinks mean. They think "memory" (RAM) is used to hold data (Hard drive space), so getting more RAM must mean they can store more files. Logically this works, memory = storage in the classic sense and this is why marketing works. Saying "More 255 QUQUTALUU memory!" and "wow a massive 20 gig hard drive" makes it seem like these things are big and impressive, where as people who know see it's complete crap.

Maybe if we stopped calling people lazy and taught them just the basics (what RAM does, what a hard drive does etc.) they would understand marketing for the bullshit it is and see through it. But instead we sit here going "lol idiots, too lazy! idiots!" and end up having to slave over their mistakes.

Re:marketing

You are correct--there are some people who honestly are interested in learning about these things so that they can make these decisions themselves. However, they are the exception, not the rule. If someone is truly interested in learning, I'm more than happy to help them out. But when offers of assistance are met with "I don't want to know about that" or "That doesn't matter to me" then all bets are off and you're on your own, as far as I'm concerned.

Money.

As TFA states, it's easy for someone to create a security product which they themselves cannot break. Hiring external testers can be a huge expense if done right, and when companies rely more on hype than on technical brilliance, they end up getting screwed. SecuStick is rare only in that its crappy security made headlines.

Re:Money.

Secustick is rare in that they admitted that their device was insecure when the flaw was discovered (highly commendable). This is something I see happening at work quite often, you simply don't talk about your mistakes or anyone elses, because people are so damn neurotic about it. You have to very carefully say what you're trying to say, or people will get defensive and supervisors get offensive. Quality takes a back seat because people don't have an f*ing clue what the difference is between accountability and guilt/incompetence. Secustick is holding themselves accountable, but I'm sure many see them as a joke.

The best understatement of the year so far?

Written by no other than Bruce Schneier:

... but even I couldn't tell you if Kingston's offering is better than Secustick. ... And if I can't tell the difference, most consumers won't be able to either.

Vista

Well... that explains why Vista is selling.

(Yeah I know... flamebait. But it had to be said.)

Re:Vista

Is it flamebait? If I had mod points I'd probably flag as insightful. As I've stated before I'm the linux guy in a Microsoft shop and the majority of Vista upgrades (that are voluntary - so about 3% of our vista users) have done it because Vista offers better security and a slick interface, from a team of Microsoft oriented tech's, this has produced outrage. Despite the best intentions of the IT team Vista is coming regardless of what we want. I personally blame the marketing, and would cite the comment made to me not 3 days ago. "Vista has to be more secure. All the ad[vertisement]s say that it is". I can't compete with Microsofts marketing tactics (nor any other company) I simply don't have the resources. Only the respect of the IT team and the proven skill/competency in what we do has kept the CEO's from asking for the upgrades.

On Topic: Is this really a "bad security winning out" scenario, or are we merely looking at the triangle of cost, security and usability... cost and usability are of course the big factors for most corporations, so the sacrifice of security is, perhaps, merely a progression of cost cutting and the aim to supress those "annoying messages" that indicate a potential PEBKAC when inputting data.

My $0.02 AU

no different...

then any other IT sector: marketing trumps all. You can have a mediocre product that has a good marketing campaign and you will move product. Moving Product begets market penetration.**

-tp

** I set someone up GOOD for a comment....

The winners are never the best.

If you look at technology the winners are never the best. Becuase the Best costs to much and people (including us, (the more technically informed) rairly get enough information to make informed decisions. There are only very limited indrustires that are regulated enough to give people informaton to make the best purchasing decisions. Like Fine Juleriy, they are required to state what quality the product is. Diomonds had the 4 Cs (Karot (it sounds like a C), Cut, Color, Clarity) and they are very regulated when they tell you what the quality is. The same is with Gold, I know my Wedding Ring is 14 Karot gold. Now this is not saying we can't be ripped of but it at leasts has a reconized source that tells us what the quality is and we can make informed decisions. Technology is different there is no clear way that we can know if the Sun Enterprise server is better quality then the Dell Server, All we know is that the dell server is cheaper.

Re:The winners are never the best.

Check your spelling [tfd.com] before you send your messages, you're hurting my eyes!

This story 2400 years old.

Socrates in the 400s BC was already complaining about how sophistry is winning over logic and reason. The world will never change.

Re:This story 2400 years old.

The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book,
and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching."
--Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BCE (allegedly)

Matter of desire

Fundamentally people claim they want security, but are often not willing to pay for it. The business that spends the market driven required amount of time on security (even if it's not enough) wins out.

If on the other hand you spend the proper amount of time on security, and position yourself outside the market by the delay in time and additional cost, you lose.

Which is pretty much why OSS rules in terms of security. In the OSS world, we can afford to spend an extra month or two per release to make sure everyone is in order and decent procedures are followed. Which isn't to say it's always the case [most GAIM plugins are horribly written] but usually more often than not it is with things like GPG, OpenSSL, OpenSSH, etc...

Tom

Marketers are terrible.

I find the people in Marketing are terrible not only when you're buying a product, but also when you're the company making the product. Sometimes people in marketing make stuff up just to get a sale. I think it's in their blood. It hurts both sides because the customer is expecting to get something that doesn't exist, and the development team has to now build this thing that never existed. So often it gets cobbled together really fast, just so the customer thinks it works, but it reality it's only a half working solution.

Duh

I think this is pretty obvious, why do you think Apple was always "dying" until they started making their machines as cheaply and unreliably built as the rest of the industry?

The "best" car might be

A Porsche 911 but... Well... You know the rest.

 

Secustick

I'm a $600/hr security consultant - you'd know my name, I used to work at - well I probably shouldn't say. I've FORGOTTEN more than Bruce Schneier knows about crypto, and I think the Secustick is a VERY secure product.

Need a smarter, tougher market

Part of the problem here is the market allows itself to be conned. We want to believe that the Securestick works, we don't want to spend the time or pay an extra added expense to have the claims of the marketers actually tested. If users made choices based on objective facts and called for warranties or 3rd party confirmation of marketing claims as part of the base product the lemons would start working their way out of the system. Costs would go up though and so the market is willing to absorb bad products and the risk associated with them for lower immediate prices.

Same in every market.

Most people will focus in on cheap, worthless crap because they don't want to spend the money or expensive over-hyped crap because they believe the four color glossies. This is true for almost every item on shelf, not just security items.
With security products, things become harder because there's no easy way to tell if it is working. If there's never an attempt to steal the data or hack the server, or if the attempt goes unnoticed, then it appears everything is working great.

Additional factor makes it worse for individuals.

When you buy a car, it's an expensive personal purchase. When it fails, it's immediately obvious and you mean have legal avenues to investigate to mitigate the issue.

When you make a security decision, it's usually a low-cost personal purchase. When it fails (say your identity gets stolen), the losses you might incur can greatly outweigh the initial investment in the technology, and you will little legal recourse against the vendor to make things right.

This is why I don't trust any commercial security product that isn't merely selling support or management tools. Because they've nothing to lose except my business.

Tech companies just dont understand Marketing

Its the same thing in all technical markets. Creators of fine technologies like to think that the sheer genius of their creation will be all they need to get people excited, and that their marketing efforts need go no further than a press release, and a product information page on their web site.

If you build it, THEY WONT COME, unless you practically shove it down their throat, with associated information, pricing, positioning, comparisons and timing. Got that, Commodore?

Microsoft sells technology like Procter and Gamble sells soap, and that is no accident.

Companies with better technology sit and fume, with never a thought to learning about how to market their products in a competitive marketplace, especially when presented with the fact that marketing AINT CHEAP, even if it sucks.

It will never change, because technologists are too in love with their products to ever consider that somebody else wont be without persuasion.

case in point

norton/symantec , bought out sygate :(
I keep worrying they'll pounce on nod32 next.

Design and Evolution

As Microsoft Windows and the design of the optic nerve shows, it's not the best that succeeds, but the thing that's good enough.

Good vs Good Enough

There is an invisible line between being good (as in above average) and good enough (as in gets the job done).

All things equal, people will choose good over good enough, however all things are not equal. Better products tend to cost more, better service costs more. Cheap products that do mostly marginal job wins the price war and hence wins the market.

There are always going to be niche markets that serve people who KNOW quality and service, most people don't care enough. They'll just choose whatever is cheapest at the moment from brands that they know (even if cheap), as long (and this is key) the quality is "good enough".

Which is why if I were making a product line, I'd make two different and distinct products, one "good enough" and one with better higher quality/service. I'd even go so far as to make sure by brand distinction that people would knwo "cheap, but good enough" from "good" by using strong branding.

Take McDonalds vs any higher quality hamburger shop (Red Robin, White Castle etc), which one is "good enough" vs good. Why don't more people choose the better burger?? It is because McDonalds is "good enough". And in spite of everyone complaining about McDonalds employee quality of service, it is "good enough" to keep going back.

Uh-oh "market failure"...

We have a Market Failure [wikipedia.org] here. Ergo, we need computer security controlled by the government — let's expand the Department of Homeland Security's duties one more time... Or, because we, the critics of the free market, hate the DHS (mostly because it was not us introducing it), let's create an entirely different entity instead.

Pre-emptive flamebaiting...

Yes, there is a government agency [wikipedia.org] looking into computer security, but their role, so far, has been advisory. An alleged "market failure" is usually interpreted into need for more regulation by short-minded illiberals...

Re:Uh-oh "market failure"...

The standard thinking is that, because of the existence of market failures such as externalities, natural monopolies, and imbalance of information (the issue at hand), the free market paradoxically needs some regulation in order to remain free.

Libertarians are the group most vehemently against this concept, but I have never heard a single one of them coherently explain how exactly the free market will remain free without regulation. Their arguments seem to boil down to "LALALALA I can't hear you! There's no such thing as market failure, the market is infallible!"

If you have a better argument as to why market failures aren't a problem, or a better solution than regulation if you think they are, I'd love to hear it.

Re:Uh-oh "market failure"...

Nobody argues the free market is infallible. If they do, don't listen.

What people argue is that the free market is "good enough," and is a system that is so complex and quick to react, that any attempt to regulate it for its own good should be looked at long and hard -- simply because it's so difficult to do better without detrimental ramifications, even with the best of intentions.

Natural monopolies are a problem and environmental costs are a problem, and are good targets for regulation.

"Imperfect information" -- I don't understand where this idea got started, but it's completely wrong when applied to free markets. It has to do with zero-sum games like the bond market where there are definitely winners and losers -- here, the guy with the best information wins.

In a free market, when a transaction takes place, the idea is that both parties are better off than they were before. I make a piece of furniture to sell you, you buy it because you can't make as good a piece of furniture for as low a price. I make a profit, and you profit by using your time more efficiently. We both win, despite the fact that I'm a furniture expert and you don't know every detail about the construction of the chair I sold you.

In fact, it's precisely this reason, that you don't need to have perfect information to participate to your advantage, that the free market works.

No, it's not perfect, but it's the best we've got in a free society.

Re:Uh-oh "market failure"...

"What people argue is that the free market is "good enough," and is a system that is so complex and quick to react, that any attempt to regulate it for its own good should be looked at long and hard -- simply because it's so difficult to do better without detrimental ramifications, even with the best of intentions."

In other words: "La la la la. I'm not hearing you". We've already saw how the free market behaves, and didn't like it. The deployed solution was regulation, and that made the situation better, but created a lot of problems itself. Can you put any other alternative on the table?

And imperfect information IS a problem. You enter a deal if you THINK you'll be better after than before it. What you think will happen doesn't have to resemble what will really happen, they just are the same thing if you have perfect information.

good security isn't fun

The problem is that in order to have good security your product has to make a user or system do less, or have more of a management overhead. People don't like that, they'd rather have less trouble. Successful products MAKE you think they are providing security while bothering you as little as possible.

Kingston just wet themselves with excitement

I don't know if they planned it that way, someone at Kingston Technology is happy. By sending their encrypted usb memory stick to Bruce, who then links to it from both his blog and the Wired article, when then gets linked from Slashdot, they have somehow achieved the best exposure for their product ever!

Computer Security - The Problem for Joe Blow

I feel there is a basic problem when we consider computer security for the average user (not people who have professional or legal obligations to protect their data). There are now two types of average users, those who are so dumb they don't have any security at all (no firewall, no anti-virus, open Wi-Fi etc). These people need to be educated. On the other hand, there is an increasing population of average users who have been turned into paranoid security freaks.

Most people have no need of a USB key that self-destructs. They don't need to encrypt their hard drives, on which they probably store nothing more sensitive than their really bad first novel draft. They don't need a 26 character Hex password on their operating system. I suspect that a much higher percentage of these normal people lose their data because they can't remember the password to access the data than lose it due to not having tight enough encryption protection. They are out there having to reformat their drive because they can't remember their login password, or having their laptop explode because they installed the new "Explodo-Crypt" device and then accidently had the caps lock key on when they tried to access it.

People need to get effective security solutions for their REALISTIC needs.

Security at all the places I worked.

It was usually a joke on at least either computer of physical grounds. Most of the time, the idea behind everything was "if it drives the user crazy, it must be good", sometimes to the point of making the bypass non-detectable and easier than the normal process. For example, the need to swipe badges 3 times to get into the building, but no name or photo on the badge, or FTP blocked for "safety reasons" while all the webmails were allowed.

Maybe if the people in charge of it weren't there as a punishment...

The problem is The Press

The problem is The Press. Particularly publications like InfoWord who just regurgitate press releases. Many reporters don't even install product or try to look under the hood, and even when they do find an issue, they let the product manager off the hook when they hear "it will be fixed in the final release".

When you combine a Culture of Fear that came with 9/11 and Bush administration with the technology void left after the Dot COM bust, we got a lot "security" Lemons. The security market was in the Zone before Web 2.0 took off.

Check out that personal firewall on your desktop. My Point is, the reporter was more interested in the wine at dinner than the security product he wasn't reviewing in the Labs. Sorry, we had to make the revenue target for quarter. Hope it didn't cause you any issues. ;)

Smoking Mirrors Dominate

A very good friend of mine has done some high end encryption coding for some major tech companies over the last few years, and has become somewhat in demand for his work. He was recently approached by a major computer manufacturer (lets call them Nell), and asked to create a security method to prevent counterfeit laptop batteries from being used in their laptops (perhaps due to recent bad press about batteries catching on fire). They also told him that it had to be very inexpensive, as they did not want to raise their cost for laptop batteries above the level it was now. He then asked them if they wanted it to be secure or cheap, and told them that truly secure was not going to be cheap. They then repeated what they had told him. This went back and forth for a while until he told them that what they really wanted was for my friend to sign off on his "secure" method, regardless of whether it was secure or not, so they could redirect blame to his organization when the cheap security method was easily defeated, and give the appearance that "Nell" cares about security. This lost him the bid. True it is...the saying that I saw on a bridge once, which read "Remember, this bridge was built by the lowest bidder." Sadly, chances are that the most popular security method is actually even less secure than none at all, since a false sense of security makes people do stupid things. I once told an associate to stop storing sensitive financial information on spreadsheets on his home PC. He said he was not concerned because he used Zone Alarm. He then had his finances compromised...through a Phishing scam.

4 problems with IT security

1.Most people don't care about IT security (or where they do care, its way down the list). People don't believe their data is not important enough to bother with keeping it secure. And more to the point, they just don't even KNOW their data is not secure. What I would like to see is for some group or experts or something to do a simulated break-in or hack attack or something and publish all the "stolen" data (i.e. basically something that shows just how insecure peoples data really is and why they need to care about making it secure only with fake systems and data). Show people what could happen to their data if they don't take care of security. Show a fake "clueless user" accessing a fake "phishing email" and giving their fake bank details to a fake "Russian hacker" who then proceeds to clean all the money out of the fake account. And then show that this is NOT fake, its real and is happening every day.

2.No-one has invested any money in making security easier to use. And it IS possible to make security easier to use. For example, why hasn't someone made an email encryption program where you press "encrypt" and it automatically checks public key databases, locates public keys for the recipient and automatically encrypts the email? And I mean a solution that does NOT require purchasing any kind of certificate in order for it to work. (something that uses PGP/GPG as the underlying encryption would be good)

3.Governments and government agencies (especially agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA and their equivalents all over the world) have a vested interest in NOT seeing IT security get better (at least for normal people) because that makes it harder to find drug barons, child pornographers, music/movie/software pirates, terrorists etc. Also, for many governments that are not democracies (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc) encryption makes it harder to engage in state censorship to make sure that the population only sees what the government wants them to see.

4.The laws are too heavily biased in favor of large corporations. Right now, its easier to claim that your product is secure without making it secure than it is to actually make it secure. Laws are needed that introduce stiffer penalties for companies that claim their product does xyz (e.g. "encrypts your files so you can't get at them without a password" "completely trashes all the data if the wrong password has been entered multiple times") when it does not in fact do xyz. If companies couldn't make those claims, either the companies would stop pretending insecure products were actually secure or they would make their products secure. Either way, products that are actually secure become easier to find.

Maytag Washers

My grandmother bought a Maytag washer in the 1950's. In 2003, the knob on the front broke. 50 years later, it still washed clothes fine, but there were vice grips clamped to the stem where the knob was. Maytag doesn't make that part any more, so she replaced it with a new top-of-the-line Maytag. It broke last year. My parents bought a Maytag in 1972. It's still working fine. From what I've read about the new ones, they're complete crap. What's more, there isn't a washing machine on the market that could last 30 years, let alone 50 years. They aren't made to last that long.

It's because there's no financial incentive for a company to make good washing machines any more. The ones out there are rushed to market, made of inferior quality parts and put together poorly. If I have to buy a new one in 5 years, even better for the company that makes it. They get to sell me another one.

In the free-market economy, if I decided to make a 50 year washing machine, I'd have to compete with companies that are established in the market. My washer would necessarily be more expensive than a GE or Whirlpool, and nobody's ever heard of my company. On the off-chance some people buy it, realize that it's great and it gets a good reputation, I'm still faced with the fact that once everyone in the world has a 50 year washer, I'm out of customers until 2057. Now what?

I used Washing Machines as an example here, but it's true of nearly every consumer device out there. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I don't see it getting better any time soon.

Standards for security

Most home door locks are terrible. The standard for them specifies that they should resist opening for 15 seconds with a screwdriver. Really.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development used to have good standards for doors and locks in their housing projects. [hudclips.org] Every unit had a steel-sheathed fire door with a steel frame and locks that could resist serious abuse. In a building with interior walls of reinforced concrete, this provided quite good security. Which was needed.

I once saw a news video where some cops were raiding an apartment in a housing project. They show up at the door with a two-person battering ram, and bang away for a while. After about thirty seconds of banging, the cops are exhausted, and they try yelling through the door at the occupant to open the door. From inside, a sleepy voice answers "I can't. You broke the lock". The door held until they sent out for power saws.

Now that's how security should work.

his dates are off

> In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were more than a hundred competing firewall products. No there wasn't. I owned a firewall consulting firm back then. In the early 90's there were less than half a dozen firewalls products to choose from. There was very little interest in them until Al Gore made his "Information Super Hi Way" speech around 94? > The few that "won" weren't the most secure firewalls; they were the ones that were easy to set up, easy to use and didn't annoy users too much. That may have been true for the consumer personal firewalls that started coming out in the late 90's, but it wasn't a factor for corporate server like firewalls. We were of the opinion that Gauntlet, the commercial product based off the firewall toolkit, a proxy based, open source firewall from Trusted Information Systems was the most secure firewall at the time. However Firewall One, a statefull packet filtering firewall from Checkpoint, was the clear winner in number of units sold. It had nothing to do with ease of use. Firewall One ran on a Sun. Most corporate accounts had at least some Suns. If you already had Sun's 7/24 support, they included it for your firewall at no extra charge. Any other firewall would have involved paying for 2nd 7/24 support contract. The closest they got to an ease of use issue was the resistance to bringing another flavor of Unix like BSD or Linux into their shop. My how things have changed :-)

Why I like Bruce

Bruce is a rare guy who is deeply knowledgeable in his field of expertise, and yet can see the rest of the world around him. His books and his articles constantly reiterate the point that computer security is no different from physical security in most cases, and security products are no different from any other products in most cases. In this article, he reminds us that the details of whether you're talking about a secure USB stick or a used car or a bathroom sink don't change the base economics of the matter, in general.

Fundamentally, it's cheaper and faster to sell shit to people than it is to sell quality. Making quality products is more expensive, more involved, and more time consuming--that means that I have to charge more to the customer, who generally won't know the difference. In the rare cases (maybe 10%?) where the consumer knows better, he will make a value decision on whether or not it's worth paying the premium, and will probably decide against it.

As a maker of quality products, I not only have higher costs and lower turnover, but my potential market share is probably only 5% of the market. That means I need to make a significant profit on each unit sold. My product which may be 10% better than the average will probably have to sell for twice as much.

Evil overlords fall into this trap

My security commentary on the Evil Overlord's Handbook [berylliumsphere.com] points out how evil overlords get duped by salespeople into buying shiny things that don't contribute to solid security.

The lemon problem is just another manifestation of my worst competitor, apathy. If customers cared about good security they'd demand independent testing labs.

Re:lemons

Yes actually, it's 28 degrees in the office here.