Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software

Chapter 1. The Foundation of Civilization

	“The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it—what it costs us.”
	--Frederick Nietzsche

For the city of London, 1854 was a dreadful year. An outbreak of cholera, the third in 20 years, claimed over ten thousand lives. Six previous city Commissions failed to adequately address London’s growing sewage problem, leaving the entire metropolitan area—more than one million people—subject to the vagaries of overflowing cesspools, ill-constructed sewers, contaminated groundwater, and a dangerously polluted Thames River. Considering London was one of the most populated cities at the time and depended heavily on the Thames River, inaction had unfortunate consequences. ...