Fatal computer errors
Most electronic device users have encountered a software error that may have even led to the loss of important data.
However, there are cases where computer systems have not functioned as they should and have even led to loss of human life. After all, software is written by humans, so the factor of error cannot be ruled out.
See cases where a software error led or could have led to disastrous consequences..
The near-nuclear disaster
A software glitch in the Soviet Union's satellite warning system could have led to nuclear disaster!
On September 26, 1983, soldier Stanislav Petrov was in a secret bunker near Moscow, responsible for monitoring the satellite attack warning system. Shortly after midnight, the system displayed a warning of the launch of 5 American intercontinental ballistic missiles! The predicted reaction would be a counterattack by the Soviet Union with the launch of missiles as well!
Petrov had to make a decision quickly. However, something seemed to be wrong: It was strange that America attacked with only 5 missiles… Furthermore, ground-based radars detected nothing (which could be explained by the fact that they do not “see” anything beyond the horizon, due to the curvature of the Earth), while the satellite system had shown errors when it was initially put into operation.
Petrov, weighing the data, decided to dismiss the alarm as false, which of course turned out to be true, as it later became known that the system "saw" the reflections of the sun above the clouds and interpreted them as a missile launch. However, it is also true that although Petrov did not have the ability to launch nuclear weapons, if he had chosen to alert his superiors and they perceived the threat as real, we would have been led to nuclear disaster!
Therac-25
The Therac-25 was a medical device for radiation therapy, often used on cancer patients. It worked in two ways: either by sending a beam of electrons in small doses to the patient for a short time, or the electron beam first passed through a metal "target" that converted the beam into X-rays that then reached the patient.
In previous Therac models, for the second mode there were manual safety valves that checked whether the metal "target" was actually where it should be, as otherwise, high-energy beams would fall directly on the patient.
In the Therac-25, these valves were controlled by software. However, an error sometimes occurred during the automatic checks. This resulted in the system crashing, the metal "target" not moving into place and the patient being "bombarded" with beams of power 100 times greater than what they should normally receive. This happened in 6 cases from 1985 to 1987, with 4 people dying!
The failure of the Patriot
During the American operation "Desert Storm" in Iraq in 1991, the US military had deployed a Patriot system as a defense against enemy aircraft and missiles.
The anti-aircraft system's detection system relies on the target's speed and time to predict where the target will be at any given moment.
Unfortunately, the detection system had a bug that caused the internal "clock" to gradually drift. As the system was running, the "clock" would become out of sync and deviate from the "real" time. The bug was already known and could simply be "corrected" by restarting the system.
But those who were controlling the system on February 25th did not appear to be aware of the error, as they had left the system "running" for 100 hours.
When an Iraqi missile was launched at the Dhahran military airfield in Saudi Arabia, it was detected by the Patriot system. However, the internal “clock” was already off by 0.34 of a minute. When the missile’s next position was calculated, the detection system was “looking” at an area of the sky about half a kilometer further from where the missile was. This resulted in it “assuming” that there was no threat and so the interception was canceled. The missile hit its target, killing 28 soldiers and wounding 98 others.
Division by zero paralyzed a US Navy ship
One of the most well-known errors in the programming universe is dividing any number by zero, which is impossible with simple mathematics and most software is designed to take such a scenario into account.
This well-known error, however, seems not to have been taken into account by the software designers on the USS Yorktown. On September 21, 1997, the Yorktown was left uncontrollable for almost 3 hours when a crew member typed a zero into the database control system, which was then used in a division that resulted in the ship's propulsion system collapsing.
The software was installed as part of a program to reduce human error in ship control. Fortunately, when the incident occurred, the USS Yorktown was maneuvering and not in combat, where such an incident could have been fatal.
The blackout that left 55 million people in the dark
One of the largest blackouts in history occurred on August 14, 2003, in the northeastern United States and Ontario, Canada, leaving 55 million people in the dark.
It all started when a power plant on the southern shores of Lake Erie, Ohio, went offline due to increased demand. This put the rest of the electricity grid to the test. However, when power transmission cables carry a greater load, they heat up and the materials they are made of expand. As a result, several lines came into contact with trees and were damaged, further straining the power system. The result was that the grid was ultimately distributing only 20% of its usual power.
The root cause of the blackout was a software problem in the alarm system in the control room of First Energy Corporation in Ohio. Two parts of the system were found to be "competing" for the same resources and were unable to resolve the dispute, which led to the alarm system freezing and stopping giving alerts.
However, the system collapsed without anyone noticing, as there was no audible or visual alert in the control room. As a result, no one was informed of the need to redistribute the transport system.
So what could have been a manageable local outage affected the entire grid, leaving several areas without power for days and causing problems for industries, utilities, telecommunications and transportation. In fact, the blackout is believed to have contributed to the loss of 10 lives.
The Millennium Virus
Y2K, or the "Millennium Virus," became more widely known as the media spread horror stories with dramatic scenarios that could take place.
This particular bug had to do with the fact that in many computer systems, two digits were used for the date. For example, "99" instead of "1999". This would mean that 2000 would appear as "00", which would likely "confuse" computers into thinking it was 1900. This would result in disaster for any calculations that included a range of years beyond 2000. For example, someone born in 1920 and died in 2001 would appear as -19 years old!
To address the problem, software companies rushed to upgrade their products, which already controlled everything from banking systems to hospital computers. In addition, in February 1999, the International Y2K Cooperation Center was established to help coordinate the work of governments and organizations before the millennium.
Ultimately, the year 2000 arrived without any notable incidents. However, we still do not know for sure whether this was due to the preparatory work that had been done or whether the scenarios that had been circulated in the press were simply exaggerated…
Source: newsbeast.gr
