In reply to The Ice Doctor:
A few quick musings: First, it's useful to compare the situation now with the situation prior to widespread adoption of digital technologies. How much control did you actually have in the face of the previously dominant hierarchical bureaucratic systems?
To take one case, you mention banking system failures. At one time it was only possible to get to a bank within very limited hours. You couldn't see anyone helpful without prior appointment, and you couldn't even get a balance without physically going into a branch. If your working conditions were fairly strict, as most were, this was virtually impossible. I can remember working out of town and having a half-hour lunch break. I could not get to my bank without taking a half-day's leave. Not much control there. Now I have control over a range of banking information and transactions that I never had before.
What we seem to have done is to have made a set of trade-offs between convenience and end-user power and the risk of large-scale catastrophe. At the moment the risks seem relatively small. That may change as malicious acts become more common and systems complexity leads to more breakdown.
As to acceptability, it's clearly not acceptable, but we don't live in a risk-free world. We haven't been living with these systems long though, and some risks are only just becoming apparent. I'm sure that there will be useful responses but the human element in terms of social, economic and political factors will be key.
Post edited at 11:15