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As someone that lived through the blue screen of death era, this makes me very nervous. It’s funny how Windows 98, etc. made me question the reliability of sof

As someone that lived through the blue screen of death era, this makes me very nervous. It’s funny how Windows 98, etc. made me question the reliability of software for the rest of my life. I don’t even think that’s a bad thing.

rightbyte 3y ago
Ye it is a bad idea. I mean, I've worked in the auto industry as a ECU programmer and multiple times during uncommitted code development I made self acceleration bugs. It is really easy to mess up. And steering going full left kills you in ways the brakes and gas can't. After I left I heard that they removed the key as kill switch too for some stupid reason.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  It makes for an easy horror movie plot: car gets hacked or a sensor gets confused, and kills the occupants who can't override the Airbus-like automation lacking "direct law" or anything resembling a manual backup.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Ye. Like trying to do a hard reboot on a MacBook Air, but at 70 mph and going faster ... Or a hacker setting steeringWheelGain_S16 to 0 and turn full left.
FFP999 3y ago
Here's a little something to give you nightmares then: https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/ https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-i... "[The expert witness concluded that] Toyota’s electronic throttle control system (ETCS) source code is of unreasonable quality. Toyota’s source code is defective and contains bugs, including bugs that can cause unintended acceleration (UA)." There are details in the article. It's horrifying stuff. My personal favorite aspect: "The Camry ETCS code was found to have 11,000 global variables."
jabl 3y ago
Some level of scepticism is certainly warranted. OTOH it is possible to create reliable safety critical software, it's just very time consuming and expensive. For instance, many (most?) modern passenger aircraft are fly by wire, with no mechanical nor hydraulical connection between the cockpit controls and the flight control surfaces.

rightbyte 3y ago

Ye it is a bad idea. I mean, I've worked in the auto industry as a ECU programmer and multiple times during uncommitted code development I made self acceleration bugs. It is really easy to mess up. And steering going full left kills you in ways the brakes and gas can't. After I left I heard that they removed the key as kill switch too for some stupid reason.

1letterunixname 3y ago
It makes for an easy horror movie plot: car gets hacked or a sensor gets confused, and kills the occupants who can't override the Airbus-like automation lacking "direct law" or anything resembling a manual backup.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Ye. Like trying to do a hard reboot on a MacBook Air, but at 70 mph and going faster ... Or a hacker setting steeringWheelGain_S16 to 0 and turn full left.

FFP999 3y ago

Here's a little something to give you nightmares then: https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/ https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-i... "[The expert witness concluded that] Toyota’s electronic throttle control system (ETCS) source code is of unreasonable quality. Toyota’s source code is defective and contains bugs, including bugs that can cause unintended acceleration (UA)." There are details in the article. It's horrifying stuff. My personal favorite aspect: "The Camry ETCS code was found to have 11,000 global variables."

jabl 3y ago

Some level of scepticism is certainly warranted. OTOH it is possible to create reliable safety critical software, it's just very time consuming and expensive. For instance, many (most?) modern passenger aircraft are fly by wire, with no mechanical nor hydraulical connection between the cockpit controls and the flight control surfaces.