>Furthermore I think that the reason people are being so careless online is because of the lack of consequences and thus no opportunity for learning.
If that were really true, then people would have "learned" in the Windows era. I don't think consumers actually directly suffer any consequences from having a hacked device, the problems are always third order. An open PC becomes a botnet to DDoS someone else. An unsuspecting employee uses a personal device to jump a corporate firewall. Credit Card fraud is routed through thousands of residential IPs.
>Yet the world hasn't ended and we've accepted that the convenience of having access to these goods is worth the risk of stupid people dying/hurting themselves.
The vast majority of us live in a country where toys inside chocolate is banned. I don't think you have a strong argument here.
> I don't think consumers actually directly suffer any consequences from having a hacked device
You surely must be joking.
Why do you think there is such a large market for anti-virus and malware applications. Or why do you think Apple and Microsoft invest so much time and effort in security their platforms.
Because it directly impacts consumers. Scammers run apps on user's devices which mine Bitcoin. They steal data. They hold people to ransom. It just goes on and on.
And yet the majority of these only result in a minor annoyance. Bitcoin mining doesn't impact the consumer from a financial point of view. DoS/proxy bots affects someone else but not the consumer. Stealing data is possible but most malware out there limits itself to either card numbers (for which the bank will compensate you) or social media accounts for spam purposes (which again don't impact you financially), there is rarely someone at the other end manually looking through your data to see how they can leverage it for more impact (because this requires manual work and doesn't scale). Ransomware could but with the prevalence of cloud storage today its impact is heavily mitigated.
While there are odd cases where a targeted attack results in devastating outcomes, in the majority of cases malware just sticks to simple, automated (and thus easy to scale) attacks like harvesting card numbers or accounts, for which the bank will compensate you. In most cases getting malware (aka a burglar in your PC) doesn't have the same financial impact as a burglar in your house (when you typically get thousands worth of goods stolen that aren't likely to get replaced) so there is no opportunity for learning or being worried.
> An open PC becomes a botnet to DDoS someone else
Make the originator of the traffic liable for any damages, all the way up to the ISP? There would be a lot more worry about malware if it could cause a lawsuit/police investigation that lasts for months, even if you eventually end up off the hook, and ISPs would be incentivized to kick off customers that can't be bothered to secure their devices.
> Credit Card fraud is routed through thousands of residential IPs.
If the original credit card owner was liable for the stolen money this would incentivize them to better protect it and prevent it from being compromised in the first place. Plus with the liability for malicious traffic there wouldn't be as many residential IPs to proxy it through.
> where toys inside chocolate is banned
Well the is true but how about chemicals, power tools, flammable gas canisters, etc? I agree that the ban on toys inside chocolate eggs is stupid but we're allowing much more dangerous things to be around and the world hasn't ended.
If that were really true, then people would have "learned" in the Windows era. I don't think consumers actually directly suffer any consequences from having a hacked device, the problems are always third order. An open PC becomes a botnet to DDoS someone else. An unsuspecting employee uses a personal device to jump a corporate firewall. Credit Card fraud is routed through thousands of residential IPs.
>Yet the world hasn't ended and we've accepted that the convenience of having access to these goods is worth the risk of stupid people dying/hurting themselves.
The vast majority of us live in a country where toys inside chocolate is banned. I don't think you have a strong argument here.