I agree with this, but not for your reasons. We've sacrificed competent engineering for the sake of cutting costs. Much of the problem with ransomware can be combatted by building resilient systems and maintaining them, but that means spending money on system administrators and similar roles.
The race to the bottom-line causes things like this. It's starting to show up in things like our electric grid and water/sewer systems now. Money that should be spent on maintaining and improving infrastructure, both physical and technological, has been reallocated to new and sexier projects.
Those things are as new as all that nor did they start so abruptly and simultaneously. Just a few points:
- Teenagers as a consumer class were invented in about the early 60s, arguably maybe the 50s.
- The Cold War was about obedience to the authorities lest one be blacklisted (or imprisoned or killed).
- The DMCA was in 1998, so there has not yet been 50 years of obedience to it.
- The word "nerd" dates from the 50s, at a time when science curricula were pushed.
this is the result of a 50 year policy of teaching blind consumerism of technology in schools, and rote obedience to the law of DMCA. its 50 years of policy that mercilessly sent hackers to prison for curiosity, and warned school kids that any interest in science was to be branded the scarlet letter of nerd.
You do not just turn the page on 50 years of anti-STEM with a mandatory code.org class in highschool or mandatory laptops.