Sorry your browser is not supported!

after 30 attempts to create an account (if you fail it gives you the whole damn form to fill in again) I finaly got an account, only to notice that in my rising irritation over repeated "that name is already in use" messages (and filling in the whole form over and over ),I noticed I mispelt the user name it finaly accepted, AND YOU CAN`T ALTER IT

so now I want to post a critizism of that BBC computer science correspondent who claims we should be legaly liable for errors or bugs in our code, but it`s gonna look realy stupid with a mispelt user name...a name that I only finaly got the bloody thing to accept after it decided 30 others where already in use , so I will just post it here instead

before I do though, here is the original article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4294388.stm



by his rights, if someone breaks into the school library and pasted in "sulphuric acid" rather than "citric acid" into my school cookery textbook then I am liable?, if someone else supplies the school with books inciting the reader to murder and commit suicide but with MY books covers on them, then I am liable?, if I write a book on interesting local walks and a child molester uses it to intercept children following the directions then I am liable?, or does he mean if my school textbook tells you how to bake a cake and it doesnt turn out right then I am liable?, if I mispell colour due to my nationality then I am liable?.

he claims to have been a software author, but his understanding of programming seems minimal, nobody writes badly written code deliberatly, the market (the customers) decide if a program is acceptable in it`s stability and security, maybe he is unaware of the mathamatical proof that shows it is impossible to verify that the software you have writen is totaly bug free, thats just for one program, when, as in a modern system, you can have hundreds of programs interacting, some of them probably malicious, the possibility of errors creeping in or security lapses becomes exponential, and you cannot test for them all, demanding the impossible is stupid, if you read the wickipedia entry on software testing in full you can see what I mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing

see also the article on debugging, it annoys me when people make impossible demands and abuse their position as a respected public spokeperson, he should at least have researched the subject before speaking out, or was this written in anger after MS Word just swallowed his intended article?, yes we could make systems totaly secure, do you realy want a system that demands password verification for every transaction, no uneeded overheads that could add vulnerablity, just a text interface that displays no images or video, plays no sounds, each password being unique and replaced with a new one after use, all connections asked for verification when on a network, every file transferred being shown as a hex dump for visual confirmation before sending, requiring you to be trained to interpret those dumps, all financial transactions requiring you to walk down to the bank and confirm you intended that debit to take place?.

or would you rather select a recipient, type a mail and click send?, buy your E-bay bargain with a couple of clicks?, watch the latest sport in streaming video?, because if that is the case then you have to accept some liability for your own security, nobody demands ATM`s be scrapped because they got mugged once when drawing some cash, or because someone swiped their debit card, nobody demands that manufacturers be liable if their products are stolen from your house, that would be idiotic.

people should be aware and take care of their own protection, they have no excuse, all of their problems are self inflicted imo, how many people run their antivirus in background scan mode?, how many run a full scan once a week?, update the antivirus database every day?, run an incremental backup task in the background?, know what their firewall is allowing to connect?, scan every file they get off the net?, if everyone here says "I do" then you are going to have to forgive me if I express doubt, in my experience many people don`t have a clue what security they have or even if it is working.

and yet they should not be ignorant, they have the whole internet to refer to, all that they have to do is to search the subject, if they don`t know what that program rct.exe is doing in the firewall allowed list then they can search for it, if they don`t know how to best configure their AV then typing "best AV configuration" into a search engine will not kill them or cause lasting harm, people blame the software and then type in their account details without even checking for the padlock icon in the browser window, just doing a search for good internet practice would help them avoid problems.

so my reply to this "expert" is, the licences are there to protect us the coders from the consequences of actions by people who have no interest in security and no knowledge of it, people who`s sole intent is to download those two pron files before the boss gets back, people who don`t check their firewall settings and download and run software from dubious sources, people who won`t part with "accounts 98" when it was well known it had several security holes and was replaced by accounts2000, accounts2001, accounts2003, accounts2005 and the newly released accounts-secure+

an analogy of the type of user this would be in the real world is someone who goes shopping, leaves their car unlocked (well?..it never got stolen before), leaves their keys in the ignition, and when asked by the guy with shabby jeans and tshirt stood by the shop door what their bank account details are they tell him, once inside the shop they get their goods, mention loudly to each other that they left the house unlocked and wouldn`t be back until nightfall (mentioning the addrese every time), ask a total stranger to look after their wallets while they find the toilets, and then complain bitterly that the store should be prosecuted for allowing someone to steal their car, take their money and empty their house.

I think not.

Well said!

I, myself had something to say, so I sent off an email to the people's there, which went something like:

*RUCCUS bows*

First,

Doubt away but I do all those things. I run my virus scanner in background scan mode, I run a full scan every day, every two days it downloads the newest updates, I use my firewall, and do a backup of my documents and code directories once a week. But then again I'm a geek who would know this stuff.


Now, I'm going to agree with the writer of that article. Companies whould be liable (to an extent) for damage done by their faulty programs. It's the same with any other industry so why should we be any different? Say we have a doll and the doll has some moving part that can injure the child. What does the manufacturer do? They take it off the market and if they don't then retailers or officials force them to. If Adobe releases a version of Photoshop that inadvertantly deletes the user's hard drive what happens? They point to the EULA saying they're not responsible. Now, Adobe is a large company and I'm guessing everyone has at least one Adobe product on their computer and if everyone gets this software title they lose their hard drives. Millions in damage is done around the country and they're making millions off this software.

The issue isn't really about bugs it's how the company deals with the bugs. In this example Adobe can still leave their product on the market even after the bug's been found but any other industry can't. In the automotive industry if a problem occurs the car's taken off the market and/or the buyer's are reimbursed or the car is fixed. Likewise, if that degree of a bug exists in their product Adobe should immediately take it off the market until they fix it. That's how other industries works.

Of course there will be some counter arguments to this such as what happens if it's Visual Studio's fault that the hard drive gets erased? In that case, it's not Adobe's fault if they can prove it's not their doing. If your car crashes and it's the brakes' fault the brake manufacturer gets blamed not the dealer. Also, what if someone discovers that renaming Photoshop as explorer.exe when the computer boots kils the hard drive? If it's not being used for its intended purpose they're not liable because you can't sue a toy manufacturer because you got injured using a doll as a hammer.

@Me! - You didn't seem to have much patience when you were filling out the form, but how could you suddenly do when you made the thread?

@GothOtaku: firstly, I said I was doubting the people reading that article on slashdot do, many not being technicaly inclined, I know from some of the help posts we get in general chat (sorry "geek culture") and elsewhere that many people here are not fully updated, don`t keep track of driver updates, don`t run an AV and stick with the default firewall etc (if they have one at all), on other sites (like PC advisors forum) it`s much worse, here we have a higher level of technicaly savvy people as well (or should if they want to program), as you said, you know this stuff, but then so should some people on this forum who don`t bother, yet should know better.

secondly, this harmfull doll is removed from the market due to the limitations of dealing with a material object, your hypothetical file deleting bug is more easily fixed, effectivley with one update Adobe have sent an engineer round to your house and fixed the doll without the trauma of you having to part with it, the point being if a doll harms one or two people the company can pay compensation where it is PROVEN they are negligent, in the case of a rogue program the user is at least partialy negligent, where are his daily backups?, likewise are the programs authors liable? it is impossible to allow for all possible conditions, a doll works as a doll, it doesnt act differently according to the size of the house, the location, the number and age of the occupants and the amount and type of other toys present (although it could make a good film...hmmmm!).

yes Adobe is a large company, but they wouldn`t BE a company after every tricky litigation minded lawyer had finished with them, they NEED that protection to continue to exist, any idiot could claim that this or that software had erased their lifes work and traumatised them, how they could no longer sleep..blah...blah, all I say to them is "where are your backup disks?", why people think that strings of binary digits on a hardrive is some sort of inviolate and immutable record is beyond me, does anyone seriously claim that Maxtor are liable for financial loss to me due to loss of data if my hard drive head crashes?, are they liable if the house burns down with my PC with the uber game of the decade plus my backups inside it?, NO!.

there is this modern attitude that everything is someone elses fault, mostly provoked by all these slick (and wealthy) lawyers with their no win no fee adverts, but you make unreasonable requests, software is not a physical product, it has rules that place it outside the expectations you would have of your washing machine, your example of brakes failing on cars and causeing accidents is a case in point, there is no direct PC analogy, the instant the brakes are known to have an issue you get them repaired at home, free, no recall, and if , like the car manufacturer, the defect was NOT due to negligence then they are not liable

software is not a book, it can change, other (normaly malicious) software can alter it, and twain hooks your scanner into your paint program, same for your camera, it maybe even included your webcam in the list, the one you didn`t think about with the dodgy drivers, or your faxmodem, programs interact and swap files, some allow you to surf the net from within themselves, etc, etc, permutations and combinations are immense, the writers can not possibley run every combination of software with every possible combination of user input, the nearest you can get is to use the MS certified software list and just install approved software, and even then you NEED backups.

so yes, Adobe leaves the "car" on the market, with the dodgey brakes, so you drive it slow and apply them in plenty of time, you are not deprived of the Adobe "car", you can still drive if you exercise sense, and as soon as possible a chap will come around to your house and mend the thing in under 5 minutes, THAT doesn`t happen in the real world, I don`t think anyone who is a software author has a case to answer for, bad software just never gets going.

@Green Bunny: YOU try thinking up innumerable (actualy somewhere around 30) user names, passwords, typing in your full e mail twice and getting an "unable to register...user name already taken" message and you too might start to get a bit annoyed, at least when I am typing my gibberish it stays there, it doesnt come up with "somebody once wrote something like this" and leave me with a blank input box, slashdot has a diabolical registration form, it should just erase the invalid data and leave the rest, it`s bad design that had me muttering "what bloody halfwit wrote this c**p" after the tenth try, by the last try I was getting realy annoyed and rattling the keys around like a good un , I know it was just the author of the registration page being lazy, he just cleared the input feilds and looped round to redraw the page, rather than just clearing the invalid field and then redrawing the page .