The RISKS Digest
Volume 4 Issue 76

Wednesday, 22nd April 1987

Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems

ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

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Contents

Risks of Warranties
Jim Horning
Re: Checklist stops risks?
Jerome H. Saltzer
Newer highly maneuverable planes on board and checklists
Eugene Miya
Aircraft risks
Peter Ladkin
Neutron beam detection
Scott Dorsey
Info on RISKS (comp.risks)

Risks of Warranties

Jim Horning <horning@src.DEC.COM>
Tue, 21 Apr 87 15:04:03 PDT
ABACUS, vol. 4, no. 3, Spring 1987 contains the results of ABACUS
Competition #3, which invited readers to submit actual examples or
parodies of software disclaimers of warranty.

The winner is included as a format example in the user manual of the
Horstmann Software Design product, ChiWriter:

  Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the functions
  contained in the program will meet your requirements or that the
  operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free.

  However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on
  which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape
  under normal use for a period of nineyt (90) days from the date of
  purchase.

  NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS
  DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES,
  INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER
  INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

The runner-up is from the Haven Tree Software Limited program Interactive
EasyFlow:

  We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything--if you think
  it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow
  doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow
  messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like
  this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum
  provided by law, up to and including nothing.

  This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software
  packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.

  We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers
  insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack
  shark at which point we relented.

These remind me of the software order form I received some years ago
requiring me to sign a statement acknowledging that the only warranty made
by DJ AI Systems was that they owned the copyright on the software being
ordered.
                              Jim H.


Re: Checklist stops risks?

Jerome H. Saltzer <Saltzer@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Wed, 22 Apr 87 12:32:30 EST
Joseph Beckman suggests that his VCR and auto radio problems might be
reduced by checklists.  Probably so.  There is a more subtle technology RISK
hiding here, one that I notice almost every time I find that a computer has
appeared in the control path for an auto radio, a VCR, an automatic washer,
or a toaster oven: the device acquires a whole host of new features,
options, and state memory that it didn't use to have.  As a result you can't
run it without a checklist.

Lots of things don't need a checklist.  My old toaster certainly didn't need
one.  But judging from the frequency of mistakes, my new one seems to.  A
real RISK arises when someone hi-tech's a traditional design, pushing its
functional spec over the threshold at which the average user needs a
checklist to run it, and then sells this improvement to an unsuspecting and
unprepared user community.
                        Jerry Saltzer

   [Jerry, Many thanks.  This raises the desire for CONSISTENCY of code with
   specifications where the system must do NO MORE AND NO LESS than
   specified.  Of course, it is likely to do all sorts of things that are
   not specified, and therein lie all sorts of risks.  Trying to specify the
   action required for EVERY STATE in the state space is an important but
   very difficult task.  (How many of you have fallen on the EMACS bug that
   results in your being totally HUNG, where even ^G does not work?  
   <Don't answer.>)  PGN]


Newer highly maneuverable planes on board and checklists

Eugene Miya <eugene@ames-nas.arpa>
Tue, 21 Apr 87 10:04:09 PDT
Two added notes to existing topics.

There is a recent Aviation Week which mentions a program to make
even more maneuverable planes (but not higher G), but I still
wonder if it's not more a matter of screening pilots to withstand
force.  Not unlike recent DARPA comments that maybe 1 in 3
programmers can program new parallel architectures.

Regarding checklists: we have some automated checklist work here.
Originally they thought they wanted to put more control into the
checklist but decided to separate the control from the check (safer).
We should make things easier to use up to a point.

I refrain from comment on slow neutrons.  I would worry more about film
than food (but that's not my area).  SAIC is a scientific body shop
with offices all around the country.  I was approached by them to work
as a contractor at a spook Agency.

--eugene miya,   NASA Ames


Aircraft risks

Peter Ladkin <ladkin@kestrel.ARPA>
Tue, 21 Apr 87 13:57:54 pst
Tom Perrine thinks I am suggesting that pilots are willing to risk
GLC episodes in the new planes. I am not suggesting this.

I am suggesting that they are more willing to risk a black-out,
since the danger of accelerated stalls is moderated.
Consequently they risk GLC episodes when they are tired, hard-worked,
or simply (according to the air force) away from it over the weekend.
A computer is in the loop. My argument is that it makes the scenario
more likely.

One possible source of confusion - a blackout is not a loss of
consciousness. Blackouts are loss of vision, caused by the
collapse of the retinal arteries, and are easily reversed by
unloading the Gs.
                               peter ladkin


Neutron beam detection [RISKS 4.75]

Scott Dorsey <kludge%gitpyr%gatech.gatech.edu@RELAY.CS.NET>
Tue, 21 Apr 87 11:50:35 edt
    I can't imagine anything worse that one could do to luggage than bombard
it with slow neutrons.  The last time I flew commercial, I was carrying
about $200 worth of motion picture film in my luggage, and I would be very
upset if it had been fogged.  Lots of vacationers carrying their vacation
pictures will be very upset.  Next time I'm taking the lead sheathing...
    In addition, what happens to digital electronics when they are hit with 
slow neutrons?  I assume the levels of radiation are low enough not to
permanently damage watches, calculators, etc., but it may well be enough to
change the state of logic.  Logic, like the digital timer used to set off the
explosive device that was hidden in the luggage, which goes off in the airport.
    A machine which detects nitrogen chains may also detect things like
ammonia if it cannot discriminate between long and short chains.  Some
explosives (like ammonium nitrate) are reasonably safe when not in the
presence of an activator, and have reasonable industrial uses.  Pity the
fertilizer salesman whose sample case is confiscated.
    Worst of all, this could lead to a false sense of security; there are
lots of nitrogenless explosives out there.  Two-part explosives aren't
all that hard to come by.
    I don't like the idea of pumping hard radiation into luggage.  It's just 
a bad idea in general.  Might be good for disinfecting your clothes, though. 

Scott Dorsey   Kaptain_Kludge
ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die),  Rich 110,
    Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
    ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge

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