Given the importance of the computing infrastructure in e USA and around the world and much like human virus protection, there is a cummulative effect of people being “innoculated” against computer virus’, should the federal government be more involved in tracking computer virus/worms etc. and providing free-of-charge virus protection software as a public good?
Why stop at virus protection. Why not Pentium PCs for all? Oh cause that’ll piss off the Mac crowd.
It’s the World Wide Web - Why not all the citizens on the planet?
Should the government subsidize Macafee, Norton, the end user with other people’s money?
Why not federalize all the anti-virus program companies and make them civil servants?
The US government has greatly benifited (at a very low cost) from the Internet as of now. Heck, we even can do our taxes online (the very source of the governments income). They are afraid to tax sales on ebay (and other web sales) for fear that it will have a negative effect on the economy. The question of web security and tax collection from sales are just a couple issues that need to be addressed in the 21st century. Viruses. If terrorist can effect our economy by attacking the “WEB” then it is our goverments obligation to react. If they do nothing, then we could have an even more devastaing attack than 9/11.