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My naive explanation is it must be really really really scary to modify a banking routine that affects an entire country's currency or even most of the world in

by nickjj 7y ago

My naive explanation is it must be really really really scary to modify a banking routine that affects an entire country's currency or even most of the world in some way or another. If your iMessage doesn't get sync'd 1 out of 10,000,000 times because of some software bug then there's really no harm but if your balance isn't correct because of a bug in the software, that's a whole different category level of concern that has cascading negative effects.

braythwayt 7y ago
Risk is always an interesting thing to consider in software, especially with complex systems. Let's say there are two bugs in our banking code. Bug A means that every once in a while, it fails and a user can't log in. Bug B means that the system always works, but every once in a while, it shows an incorrect balance on an account. Hmmm... Which one is worse? Well, that depends. Obviously B is very bad in some very obvious ways. But A could be catastrophic if one of the system's uses is doing something like making payroll for hundreds or thousands of people. Hmmm...
- vinniejames 7y ago
  Sure it's something to consider. But what's worse...a system that may have minor bugs while upgrading; or one that lets low level criminals easily swindle the system for millions on an everyday basis?
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    You’re right, we can’t let low-level criminals swindle the system, we need that money for the really elite criminals running our multi-year system modernization IT projects. /ducks!
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Well, there's always been a huge difference between predictable small losses, and unpredictable ones with no limit. Variance matters a lot. Millions are negligible if you're processing trillions and the losses are shared by everyone.
lostgame 7y ago
I work as a senior iOS dev at a major bank here in Canada, and I can say this is by far the most likely scenario. First off, killing cheques would have to be a Universal - global - and immediate, thing. For as long as the technology is still in use (everywhere) - even for obscure purposes - it will remain supported and thusly these issues will remain. Nobody in the bank industry is stupid enough to self-sabatoge by not accepting or pressing cheques, because when your landlord wants a stack of post-dated cheques (still) - you’re going to be flying to the next bank. Updating a new system, yes, we’re careful, as all hell, but we push iOS updates consistently. Destroying an old one that is still in place by unfortunate necessity? We can’t do that yet. Doesn’t matter how insecure it is. We just focus on making the apps and web and the new technology that we have a lot more control over as secure as possible.
- namibj 7y ago
  My bank makes it prohibitively expensive to cash/write checks. I think even SWIFT wires are cheaper, and those are _expensive_. SEPA wires are free though.

by nickjj 7y ago

braythwayt 7y ago

Risk is always an interesting thing to consider in software, especially with complex systems. Let's say there are two bugs in our banking code. Bug A means that every once in a while, it fails and a user can't log in. Bug B means that the system always works, but every once in a while, it shows an incorrect balance on an account. Hmmm... Which one is worse? Well, that depends. Obviously B is very bad in some very obvious ways. But A could be catastrophic if one of the system's uses is doing something like making payroll for hundreds or thousands of people. Hmmm...

vinniejames 7y ago
Sure it's something to consider. But what's worse...a system that may have minor bugs while upgrading; or one that lets low level criminals easily swindle the system for millions on an everyday basis?
- braythwayt 7y ago
  You’re right, we can’t let low-level criminals swindle the system, we need that money for the really elite criminals running our multi-year system modernization IT projects. /ducks!
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Well, there's always been a huge difference between predictable small losses, and unpredictable ones with no limit. Variance matters a lot. Millions are negligible if you're processing trillions and the losses are shared by everyone.

lostgame 7y ago

I work as a senior iOS dev at a major bank here in Canada, and I can say this is by far the most likely scenario. First off, killing cheques would have to be a Universal - global - and immediate, thing. For as long as the technology is still in use (everywhere) - even for obscure purposes - it will remain supported and thusly these issues will remain. Nobody in the bank industry is stupid enough to self-sabatoge by not accepting or pressing cheques, because when your landlord wants a stack of post-dated cheques (still) - you’re going to be flying to the next bank. Updating a new system, yes, we’re careful, as all hell, but we push iOS updates consistently. Destroying an old one that is still in place by unfortunate necessity? We can’t do that yet. Doesn’t matter how insecure it is. We just focus on making the apps and web and the new technology that we have a lot more control over as secure as possible.

namibj 7y ago
My bank makes it prohibitively expensive to cash/write checks. I think even SWIFT wires are cheaper, and those are _expensive_. SEPA wires are free though.