There are many incidents where software has failed catastrophically. From the NASA Mariner 1 spacecraft in 1962 to the UK Post Office Horizon software scandal that is still ongoing today. Not to mention the Mt. Gox Bitcoin hack in 2011 that bankrupted the company, and the less disruptive but very expensive Y2K Millennium bug in 2000. There are many examples of software errors that have resulted in unexpected or devastating consequences on people, governments, buildings, systems and more. Most are human error, most are due to complex and badly implemented software, and a lack of testing before going live. In 2004 the UK Child Support Agency launched new software that had problems from day one, an internal memo noted the system – “was badly designed, badly tested and badly implemented” and had “over 1000 reported problems, of which 400 had no know work around”.
There are many incidents where software has failed catastrophically. From the NASA Mariner 1 spacecraft in 1962 to the UK Post Office Horizon software scandal that is still ongoing today. Not to mention the Mt. Gox Bitcoin hack in 2011 that bankrupted the company, and the less disruptive but very expensive Y2K Millennium bug in 2000. There are many examples of software errors that have resulted in unexpected or devastating consequences on people, governments, buildings, systems and more. Most are human error, most are due to complex and badly implemented software, and a lack of testing before going live. In 2004 the UK Child Support Agency launched new software that had problems from day one, an internal memo noted the system – “was badly designed, badly tested and badly implemented” and had “over 1000 reported problems, of which 400 had no know work around”.
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