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When computers go wrong

Posted on 10 Dec 2010 at 15:18

This created an overwrite problem that sent a second node into a lather, and it closed itself down in a huff. When switch number two came back online, it also sent out contradictory messages, propagating the cycle across the entire network. For some nine hours AT&T was unable to process around 50% of its calls, a snag that cost a reported $60m in lost earnings.

Crash-test dummies

Volvo takes its safety record seriously and has been at the vanguard of new technologies geared to reducing accidents. But accidents will happen, and often at the most embarrassing moments.

Twice in 2010 alone Volvo has gathered the world’s media to show off new safety features. Twice they’ve gone spectacularly wrong.

The company was showing off the crash-avoidance system in its S60 when engineers fired the car out of a testing tunnel towards the back of a stationary lorry. The car was supposed to foresee the impending collision, but a problem between the control system and the battery meant the shiny new vehicle ploughed into the back of the juggernaut.

Although the system, which uses radar sensors and a camera to spot pedestrians and instigate an emergency stop, did halt the vehicle for nine out of 12 dummies, three others were sent flying

Undeterred, the company followed the S60 test with a display of a pedestrian avoidance system, which predictably ended with the simulated deaths of the walking public.

Although the system, which uses radar sensors and a camera to spot pedestrians and instigate an emergency stop, did halt the vehicle for nine out of 12 dummies, three others were sent flying.

Where will it end? Well if you ask security experts, the trend for smarter cars with ever more onboard computing power means it won’t be Volvos you need to worry about, but anyone bearing a grudge.

Researchers at the University of Washington recently hacked into several car systems using a variety of attack vectors and said they could “adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input, including disabling the brakes or selectively braking individual wheels on demand”.

We’ll stick this one in the keep net for our next computer disasters feature.

Plane lost in translation

In a pan-European project to build the world’s biggest passenger plane you might expect the odd linguistic barrier between management and engineers, but you’d hope the computers would speak the same language.
In the spring of 2005, however, just as the Airbus A380 was taking shape in hangars outside Toulouse, engineers came across a jumbo software issue that reportedly cost the company $6 bilion by delaying the first flight by two years.

The French production facility had been using the latest version of the industry standard design software, CATIA 5, for its CAD designs. The Germans, on the other hand, had worked in CATIA 4, which handles 3D objects differently.

When they matched up their halves of the plane, it was like trying to weld the front of a Ford Mondeo to the back of a Vauxhall Zafira. The biggest problem was that the wiring plans were completely incompatible. Subtle differences in the software meant mismatched connections needed rerouting to connect the two disparate halves of the plane.

Even when developers wrote code to translate between the two versions complications remained, with engineers suggesting there was insufficient space to carry power cables far enough away from signal wires to prevent interference.

If you’re wiring a plug, a couple of late changes to the wiring diagram isn’t an issue, but the A380 contained 530km of cabling, more than 100,000 individual wires and 40,000 connectors.

Author: Stewart Mitchell