This writer easily reveals his sensationalist bias by saying ...
"and [XXX] is the solution."
However, this
does confirm that "the public," and "government," is being compelled to finally look at the situation and to do something about it ... which means, "law and regulation." (Which, actually, is not a bad thing.)
What we should all be prepared for, is the (IMHO™) necessary observation that
most, if not all, of these "unstoppable capers" are going to turn out to be
inside jobs. (In some cases, untrustworthy
corporations who are running "conveniently-inexpensive 'outsourcing' operations." The long-standing American insanity of the "H-1B
non-immigrant visa program"
(which basically creates an unconstitutional system of 'indentured servants' in this country, courtesy of the INS), and, perhaps nearest to our hearts, the "one-man coffee-shop 'company'" which has
carte blanche access to everything.
All of these things are going to
go away change ... and, change
soon.
To be a computer programmer
at all, you must either have a federally-issued license, or work under the auspices of a licensed software contractor. While this might sound strange and even obscene to you, "plumbers do it all the time." So do electricians, framers, and low-voltage lighting people. Basically, everyone who works on "tangible things," such as houses and buildings.
The threat that "a lowly computer-programmer" can pose, if s/he is willing to abuse the position, is infinitely greater than a falling building. We can say that our systems are secure, but "they aren't, if
we are not."
The present phenomenon of "big data" will also
go away be radically reduced, as people begin to comprehend their own insane vulnerability ... and, they start mounting (and, winning) massive lawsuits.
We might see banking and other nation-critical applications switch to
closed-source software, issued by the "United States Department of Data," and monitored by its minions.
Basically, "you can 'get away with' a lot of things for quite some time. (Although, really, it's only been about ten years going on fifteen ...) You can 'make a lot of money,' and we all know that 'a lot of money' ...
... "carries an undue amount of weight in 'certain towns,' such as the one 'town' in America that is in no State at all." But, eventually, enough people start to realize that they are
threatened, and to identify the source or probable-cause of that threat, and that's when regulation happens.
Sensationalistic articles like this one, packed with easy answers, "will come first." But, they'll be followed. (In fact, they already are, in magazines such as
The Atlantic. Quite regularly now, in fact ...
It's coming, folks. And it's gonna change everything.