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Re: [Full-Disclosure] Windoze almost managed to 200x repeat 9/11

Frank Knobbe wrote:

On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 09:15, Barry Fitzgerald wrote:


The article doesn't make the situation entirely clear. Did the app intentionally restart the system and foul it? Did the restart occur because the app crashed?


No, no, the problem was "human error" because a tech didn't reboot the
system. It's clearly operator error, not a problem with any systems at
all.



I disagree - if the system were engineered properly, a reboot would not be necessary to keep the system from falling on it's face.

The article implied (though didn't outright state it) that the Unix systems did not include regular reboots. I don't know enough about the engineering of the system to state whether this was caused by the app, the OS, or some dependancy issue.

But, in a critical system of this nature, relying on scheduled reboots for operation sends a signal to me that there's a problem in the system.

Unfortunately, there is some truth in this. We (and not just the media)
are starting to put blame on humans far too quickly. Is this justified?
On one hand, they are only tools for us to do our job. On the other
hand, they are products that we should be able to rely on. Who do we
blame? Operators or products?




That depends on the situation. If a system can be engineered to operate properly on it's own, then it should be. All else is operator error. I think it most depends on the rationality of the automated requirement.

If the backup fails because said user forgets to change the backup tapes, then the problem is human error.
If the backup fails because said product doesn't properly flush its buffers and sends all data to /dev/null, then the issue is software error, even if it's a known condition that has had procedure put in place to work around it. The argument for automation is rational and supposed to be in the system, and thus it's an error in the engineering.

The second scenario is similar to what we had here. All a reboot does is ensure that the memory has been cleared. If their developers don't know how to do this in code, or if they choose OS' that can't reliably do this, then either fire the developers and/or the decision makers, because they didn't do their jobs and people could have died because of that.

-Barry

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