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The New York Times posted a downright thought-provoking technology-related article yesterday. John Schwartz’s Who needs hackers? touches a topic succinctly encapsulated by ex-Bell Labs network-head Peter G. Neumann, now principal scientist at SRI International: “We don’t need hackers to break the systems because they’re falling apart by themselves.”

This thing is full of memorable insights, including this post’s titular sentiment (from the mouth of Andreas M. Antonopoulos), who also notes that, “on the scale we [attempt to anticipate failure in increasingly complex computer systems], it’s more like forecasting weather.”

Former NASA software engineer, John B. Garman notes, in reference to the famous 1981 NASA shuttle-launch bug, “it is complexity of design and process that got us (and Murphy’s Law!). Complexity in the sense that we, the ‘software industry,’ are still naïve and forge into large systems such as this with too little computer, budget, schedule and definition of the software code.”

The best answer, Dr. Neumann says, is to build computers that are secure and stable from the start. A system with fewer flaws also deters hackers, he said. “If you design the thing right in the first place, you can make it reliable, secure, fault tolerant and human safe,” he said. “The technology is there to do this right if anybody wanted to take the effort.”

My personal belief is that this sentiment - in a perfect world - applies not only to, say, global telephony and ICBM guidance systems, but also to your next web application or five-Class desktop app. If nothing else, this article is full of “nine out of ten dentists agree” expert ammunition for the next time you get into a scheduling fight with your management or your client.