Reflection on “Ransomware Doesn’t Scare Me; Listeria Does”:I think companies that make weapons and defense systems for governments should be extremely careful about not over-networking their systems. For example, if they keep the specific production instructions for nuclear weapons or missiles (or details about the weaknesses of each weapon and how to dismantle or abuse them) in online systems, they risk exposing dangerous information to malicious hackers who would have access to information that can potentially cost hundreds of lives. Thus, any kind of information that can be used to construct weapons or dismantle them should not be kept online, and other information such as logins for accessing security systems for weapons warehouses or production facilities etc. should be closely safeguarded in a physical location rather than stored online.
Reflection on “Who Invited Her?”: If she had stayed quiet, I don’t think anyone would have suggested anything along the lines of taking the information offline, since the other people in the room were all operating under the assumption that existing systems had been made with the right decisions, and they didn’t stop to question it. However, the female deputy must have had to question things and stand out in her career in order to get to such a position, so she was comfortable challenging the status quo. If the CEO had ignored her, it would have been unlikely that someone else would have stood up for her, since the impression from the case study is that the room was unsupportive of her. They would not have found a legitimate solution to the problem of over networking they were trying to address, and they would have had to spend a bunch more money maintaining their network instead of hiring a consultant to take them off the network. She challenged many assumptions by speaking up the way she did: the assumption that women don’t know much about technology and strategy, the assumption that women shouldn’t take up space in the conversation, and the assumption that deputies shouldn’t challenge other officers.
