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Author Topic: Why we must take great care when designing software  (Read 5236 times)

f0dder

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Why we must take great care when designing software
« on: November 14, 2005, 03:04 AM »
A friend directed me to History's Worst Software Bugs, a rather short but interesting summary of a few really bad bugs, whereof some have caused people to lose their lives.

The interesting thing is that a lot of really severe bugs can be caused by very small oversights. So, remember to check your buffer sizes, avoid off-by-one errors, be paranoid about user input and data files, and trust no-one - not even yourself ;)
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mouser

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Re: Why we must take great care when designing software
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2005, 03:25 AM »
nice article.

Carol Haynes

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Re: Why we must take great care when designing software
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2005, 04:59 AM »
Interesting webpage - I couldn't view it at all in Firefox - had to go into Internet Explorer ...

I particularly like the article on iTunes (is Sony taking up Apple's batton on consumer realtions ;))

f0dder

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Re: Why we must take great care when designing software
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2005, 05:23 AM »
Didn't think about checking the related stories, doh - that iTunes bug is frightening. There must be some really bad code floating around if the lack of a couple of quotes can cause such datanuke.

On the topic of bad software, there's a thread on the winasm forum about Sony's DRM rootkit - you might find this interesting too.
- carpe noctem

Carol Haynes

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Re: Why we must take great care when designing software
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2005, 06:38 AM »
Thanks for pointing out that thread ... particularly interesting news at http://news.bbc.co.u...chnology/4427606.stm

I wonder is Sony are criminally liable having caused the problem?