Text File

RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Monday 25 April 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 69

FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

Contents: Social INsecurity (Kenneth R. Jongsma) Risks in momentum (Robert Adams) BIX Ad (Risks of US Mail) (Henry Mensch) At the tone, leave your message at your own risk (Mark Mandel) A shortie on color blindness (Eugene Miya) Suicidal bandwagon (Geraint Jones) YAVR (Yet Another Virus Report) -- "Scores" (Fred Baube) Requests for advice to the U.S. Congress on viruses (Herb Lin) National Policy on Controlled Access Protection (Chris McDonald) Re: Accountability (Henry Spencer, Jon Jacky) Searching for interesting benchmark stories (Eugene Miya)

The RISKS Forum is moderated. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good taste, objective, coherent, concise, nonrepetitious. Diversity is welcome. Contributions to RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM, Requests to RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM. For Vol i issue j, ftp kl.sri.com, get stripe:<risks>risks-i.j ... . Volume summaries in (i, max j) = (1,46),(2,57),(3,92),(4,97),(5,85).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu Apr 21 17:29:16 1988 From: portal!cup.portal!Kenneth_R_Jongsma@Sun.COM Subject: Social INsecurity

The following is excerpted from the April 11 issue of Business Week article entitled "Social Security's Big Surplus Was Just a Mirage".

Only a few weeks ago, Social Security experts were afraid Congress might use the mounting surplus of the retirement system's trust fund to cut payroll taxes or raise benifits... [Some discussion on how new projections say there won't be a surplus.] In addition, Social Security Actuaries have found that a flawed computer program overstated projected receipts. [Followed by discussion on what needs to be done.]

No additional detail was provided on what the nature of the computer flaw was.

------------------------------

Date: Fri Apr 22 11:52:52 1988 From: demo%somewhere%littlei.UUCP%reed.UUCP%reed%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Risks in momentum Organization: Intel Corp., ISO Systems Development, Hillsboro, OR

In RISKS 6.65 , Rob Horn <BBN!ulowell!infinet!rhorn@husc6.harvard.edu> writes: > Much more important, but much harder, is understanding the human decision > and organizational structures that lead to this momentum. How do you > destroy this overwhelming force to completion without destroying the will to > succeed?

I have several times considered writing one of those single topic books entitled "Momentum Mangement". Within any business organization, one must both manage the momentum of the group (reactive) and direct the group by creating and directing its momentum (proactive).

"Momentum management" would not only be useful in business. We didn't get Michael Jackson T-shirts, coffee mugs, and TV trays just because he was a good performer. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon and the momentum increased. This happens in everything: art, music, UNIX\(tm, X Window System\(tm, space shuttle, <your project here>.

What is the risk in all this? As has been said many times before in RISKS, there are dynamics to the whole system that must be managed as closely as the operation of the parts. The archives of this digest are full of examples of systems that failed due to some overall dynamic even though all of the components of the system operated correctly.

-- Robert Adams ...!uunet!littlei!adams

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 02:45:23 EDT From: henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) To: fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV Subject: BIX Ad (Risks of US Mail)

If I'm correct there is no risk here, since any unsolicited merchandise which you receive via the US Mail can be considered a gift. Of course, this won't stop them from trying to collect :(

Henry Mensch E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA {ames,cca,decvax,rochester,harvard,mit-eddie}!garp!henry

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 09:02 EDT From: Mark Mandel <Mandel@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA> Subject: At the tone, leave your message at your own risk

Last week I called someone with an important message, to call a third person. He wasn't at his desk and a secretary took it, along with my name and number. A few moments later she called me back and said, "I'm sorry, but I was typing your message in, and when I hit ENTER it erased the name and number of the man he was supposed to call. Would you give them to me again, please?" Obviously she was using a computer-based message system, or at least a word processor. What would she have done if she'd lost MY name and phone number as well? [Have you ever not had a call returned? PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 13:38:17 PDT From: Eugene Miya <eugene@ames-nas.arpa> Subject: A shortie on color blindness

On color blindness, first I am not color blind, but an interesting prank was fulled years ago at Caltech. There is an infamous signal for a pedestrian only crossing for California. Why wait? The undergrads reverse the red and green filters. Held traffic up a long time. People crossed all the time. Note: this would not have worked with color blind drivers (mostly male) who use light position.

%T The Legends of Caltech %A Available on request, my copy is at home. %I %D

--eugene miya

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 21:20:16 BST From: Geraint Jones <geraint%prg.oxford.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK> Subject: Suicidal bandwagon

PGN (RISKS 6.67) has picked up on another couple of deaths in Britain. So now you know that we are mortal. Does anyone happen to know how many people in Britain do (slightly defence- related) work with computers, and how likely someone between twenty and fifty and in that sort of job is to die a violent death? I do not know the figures, but I cannot help feeling that the only thing that is obviously significant about these deaths is that there has been a spate of press reports about them. There is a `programmed trading' effect in newspaper stories too, or hasn't anyone else noticed that that which is `news' tends to be that which is like what was news yesterday. gj

[ btw, for the benefit of the San Fransisco Chronicle, the only thing that is `ultrasecret' about AERE Harwell is which buses one must catch to find it. ]

[Someone else commented to the effect that the number 10 was probably about average... What made the first 8 strange was that almost all involved people related to one set of projects and one company, within a short period of time, and were described in the press as potentially simulated suicides. Given the supposed secrecy of the projects, it could be difficult to get much in the way of real details. Sure, someone is indeed trying to sell newspapers, and this story is certainly grist for the would-be conspiracy theorists. I thought it might be worth noting here as a follow-up. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1988 20:16 EDT From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Requests for advice to the U.S. Congress on viruses

A part of the Defense Authorization Bill for FY 1989 is likely to direct the Defense Department to report to the Congress on what it has done and plans to do in order to cope with viruses in computer systems belonging to or used by the DoD.

I am the Congressional staff person assigned to work this issue for the House Armed Services Committee. What should I insist that the report cover?

Herb Lin e-mail LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU phone (202) 225-7740

House Armed Services Committee, 2120 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515

All replies will be kept in confidence.

[Herb, I hope the identities of the replies will be kept in confidence, but not the replies themselves! And I hope that it will cover Trojan horses and flawed operating systems, not just viruses. Actually, the National Computer Security Center's Orange Book does provide some help.

RISKS readers, please respond to Herb. I would expect that he might wish to anonymize the replies and get some feedback from you all. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 16:26:40 -0500 Subject: YAVR (Yet Another Virus Report) -- "Scores" From: Fred Baube <fbaube@note.nsf.gov>

"New `Virus' Infects NASA Macintoshes" Washington Post, Mon 18 Apr 88, excerpted without permission

This reports a new virus at NASA offices in DC and other locations around the country. Apple Conputer and the federales are trying "to track down the virus' creator".

This one is called "Scores" and has not erased any data, but can cause "malfunctions in printing and accessing files", "difficulty in running Macintoshes' drawing program", and frequent crashes.

"The Scores virus can be detected by the altered symbols [in] Scrapbook and Note Pad. Instead of the Macintosh logo, the user would see a symbol that looks like a dog-eared piece of paper. Two days after the virus is transmitted, it is activated and begins to randomly infect applications .."

EDS saw the same virus a few weeks ago but isolated and eradicated it. "Like most major corporations, EDS is reticent about discussing its ways of fighting these viruses for fear that the creators will only modify the program to avoid detection." [Sorry this is a week old. It slipped through the crack. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 8:41:20 MST From: Chris McDonald STEWS-SD 678-2814 <cmcdonal@wsmr10.ARPA> Subject: National Policy on Controlled Access Protection

I just received a copy of NTISSP No. 200, issued 15 July 1987--our pony express takes a long time to get to New Mexico. The policy applies to executive branch agencies and departments of the Federal Government and their contractors who process classified or sensitive unclassified information in automated information systems.

Essentially the policy states: "All automated information systems which are accessed by more than one user, when those users do not have the same authorization to use all of the classified or sensitive unclassified information processed or maintained by the automated information system, shall provide automated Controlled Access Protection for all classified and sensitive unclassified information. This minimum level of protection shall be provided within five years of the promulgation of this policy." The policy then defines "Controlled Access Protection" as equivalent to the C2 level of protection defined in the "Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria" or Orange Book.

Since I received the NTISSP after the passage of the Computer Security Act of 1988 (HR-145), I was wondering if the application of the NTISSP to "unclassified systems" has been deferred or whether we in DoD are to implement the policy as stated.

Thanks, Chris White Sands Missile Range

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Apr 88 10:45:56 EDT From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.UU.NET Subject: Re: Accountability

> ... more indicative of a social failure than a true RISK ... because it's > about the failure of a chain of command to control the situation.

I would diagnose it differently, unless you mean this in the broadest possible sense. The problem is not that the people on top are not properly in charge; the problem is that the people on top do not *WANT* to be held responsible for results (or lack thereof). The more complex the organization, the easier it is to point fingers at someone (anyone) else, until responsibility is so diffused that nobody is ever really to blame when something goes wrong.

Particularly in that sort of setup, it is important to supply incentives for doing it right that affect the whole organization rather than specific individuals. (Note that I am addressing pragmatic tactics here, not right versus wrong. I believe very strongly in individual responsibility, but when dealing with, say, Morton Thiokol, it's not an easy notion to enforce.) Major reductions in cash flow tend to get everyone's attention.

> -That cash is the only effective incentive for producing results is the > ultimate disaster of our times...

While I agree that it's an undesirable situation, I feel compelled to point out that it's not a problem of "our times"; historically, life has always been cheap. Society has, on the whole, become considerably *more* humane in recent times.

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Apr 88 13:29:51 PDT From: jon@june.cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) Subject: re: Accountability

Several observers have suggested that something about computers - maybe the way they are employed in organizations, maybe something intrinsic in the way the interact with people's thoughts and feelings - tends to diffuse accountability and makes people feel less responsible for the consequences of their actions. This view is expressed most eloquently by Joseph Weizenbaum in his book COMPUTER POWER AND HUMAN REASON, WH Freeman, 1976. In an interview with Marion Long in the LA TIMES' WEST magazine supplement, (Jan 19, 1986, p. 4) Weizenbaum said,

"The dependence on computers is merely the most recent - and most extreme - example of how man relies on technology in order to escape the burden of acting as an independent agent; it helps him avoid the task of giving meaning to his life, of deciding and pursuing what is truly valuable."

- Jon Jacky, University of Washington

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 11:54:58 PDT From: Eugene Miya <eugene@ames-nas.arpa> Subject: Searching for interesting benchmark stories (RISKS of benchmarking)

I just saw Tom Lane's posting on benchmarking [RISKS-6.66], and it caught me by surprise.

When hardware is delivered, we (users) expect it to run, and we also expect it to run well. The problem is when something runs badly there is a lot of finger pointing and a tendency to "kill the bearer of bad news." I present two examples.

We had a supercomputer here for a while (now at another site) that is one of those "vector architectures": supposed to run fast on vectors. I was running some simple tests, and I swore that it was running in the slower scalar mode. I approached the system folks, and sure enough for some reason, the system libraries had been compiled into significantly slower scalar code. They quickly recompiled the stuff and "we were back in business." The machine is now at another site, but running a different OS.

In another case several years ago, I was running on one of the new generation mini-supercomputers. I noticed a strange behavior of a program. Pass 1 took time X, pass 2 took time 2X (twice as long), pass 3 took 3X. Apparently others had noticed this problem, I thought it was a compiler problem, and it turned out to be a cache (hardware) problem. (rectified)

Benchmarking at this "level of the stratosphere" can literally make or break companies. The NBS (and a few others) collect benchmarks, but they don't collect benchmark results for fear of liability. Linpack, the LLNL loops, and the Dhrystone are exceptions. The problem is (unlike Boisjoly) that these are not all or nothing situations. Sure, the program runs, it produces correct (and sometimes incorrect) results.

Oh, a third example came to mind. Years ago, I was working to understand what made network protocols run. As young-un, I had oldsters tell me: it's the bandwidth of the wire for high speed (Mb/S) networks. I believed them. They didn't know what they were talking about: turns out to be memory (the operating system specifically).

We tend to assume a lot about our machines without rigourous testing. I also notice that functional testers usually don't include performance measurements.

On other forms of performance evaluation: I have to admit that I am not a fan of queueing theory when it comes to measuring the predicted performance of computer systems. I also realize I'm not alone. My approach is empirical, similar to how cardiologists look at cardiograms. (Show me [something useful].)

I am willing to collect interesting benchmark stories like Tom Lane's. "it's not enough that it run, it has to run in the right ways" stories. I'm uncertain the best way to do this. A single posting won't be enough. So the audience is welcome to send me interesting stories, and I will collect them. In cases where I can, I will try to verify them. I wish to avoid "popular" stories like the DO-loop.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA soon to be aurora.arc.nasa.gov {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene

------------------------------

End of RISKS-FORUM Digest ************************