There was an interesting discussion regarding the larger societal problems associated with the use of insecure online services over at Wade Woolwine's blog . This is a follow-on to the discussion by Jeremiah Grossman - regarding the alignment of interests in web security . This discussion centered around the topic of how to align interests related to protecting online information. I have separated this problem into what I think are three important parts, Definition of common goals, Evaluation of online services against these definitions, and Education of consumers/clients/users of the product standards and evaluations. As a security professional, I often use the metaphor of information security controls as they mirror the emergency brakes used car, in the fact that they are used as risk mitigation. The faster you want to get from A to B, the more robust brakes you need. In addition for the purposes of this discussion, for vehicles in Canada there is also a minimum standard o