We also have a tendency to conflate the requirements on software systems with respect to security threats as being somewhat similar to the requirements on other kinds of engineering with respect to safety and environmental threats, and I think that does a disservice to the vastly different scope of responsibility involved.

When I see people arguing that software engineers need to treat security as seriously as, say civil engineers treat structural stability when designing a bridge, or mechanical engineers treat vehicle crash safety, I agree to an extent, but I also think it’s worth considering:

Most bridges are not designed to actually survive being deliberately attacked with the kinds of weapons nation states can bring to bear on them. When militaries get involved, bridges tend to fail.

Likewise, civilian car safety testing does not make cars that are able to survive attacks that nation state actors can carry out with things like tanks, mines, or drones.

We need to be realistic in our expectations for what level of military threat civilian systems can reasonably be expected to deal with unaided.