Technology leaders won a sympathetic hearing in Washington, D.C., nine months ago when they convinced the Bush administration to lay off of dictating baseline security standards.

Government would only muck it up, they argued, so let the experts figure it out. The free market works best when it's free of bureaucratic meddling.

The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace came into being, as the White House let the technology industry take the lead.

At the time, my suspicion was that this was a mistake. Now I'm convinced of it.

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