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RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Sunday 29 October 1989 Volume 9 : Issue 37

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

Contents: Low-tech wins the day in airliner mishap (Glenn Story) Hi-tech loses in cars (Alayne McGregor) Re: Hardware failure mimics hackers (Sukumar Rathnam) Re: Black Friday in Boston and manual systems (D. W. James) Re: Human chess supremacy at risk? (Andrew Klossner)

The RISKS Forum is moderated. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good taste, objective, coherent, concise, and nonrepetitious. Diversity is welcome. CONTRIBUTIONS to RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM, with relevant, substantive "Subject:" line (otherwise they may be ignored). REQUESTS to RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM. TO FTP VOL i ISSUE j: ftp CRVAX.sri.com<CR>login anonymous<CR>AnyNonNullPW<CR> cd sys:[risks]<CR>get risks-i.j . Vol summaries now in risks-i.0 (j=0)

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Date: 27 Oct 89 11:50:00 -0700 From: STORY_GLENN#TSII@comm.tandem.com Subject: Low-tech wins the day in airliner mishap

The following is copied from our internal "humor" distribution list, condensed from Flight International:

A DC9 with 104 people aboard made an emergency landing in Colorado last week. The aircraft, Northwest flight 109 from Minneapolis to Phoenix diverted to Monte Vista municipal airport after losing both generators and the auxilary power unit in mid-air.

The aircraft landed safely on the 1,830m runway, with no injuries, although it overan the runway by about 300m. The airline says the captain was forced to use an axe to open the forward cabin door, after the cabin began to fill with smoke. After evacuating the passengers, the captain then had to walk to the terminal and use a payphone to summon help.

Glenn Story, Tandem Computers

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Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 00:45:40 EDT From: alayne@gandalf.UUCP (Alayne McGregor) Subject: Hi-tech loses in cars Car gadgets overwhelm, expert says (by Mary Gooderham) (Toronto Globe and Mail, Sept. 14, 1989)

Car drivers are being overwhelmed with technology that could endanger lives, a conference was told yesterday. Car telephones, facsimile machines, computers and navigation systems that can even allow drivers to check the menus of restaurants are providing more information than people can handle, Alison Smiley, an expert in the field of human factors, told the Vehicle Navigation and Information Systems conference in Toronto. "High technology hasn't added anything to safety and efficiency, it's detracted from it," said Ms. Smiley, head of Human Factors North Inc., a Toronto consulting firm. "The potential for providing people with information in the car is limitless," she said, adding that the capability exists to give drivers tips on the closest Chinese restaurant and its menu. "You don't want people to do some things while they're driving."

Since the early 1980s, the automobile and the computer have become increasingly integrated. Today, cars are being equipped with "head-up displays" (HUD) that project speed readouts before a driver's eyes while he looks through the windshield and video screens that display maps that tell drivers where they are and help them get where they are going.

The navigation systems, which would eventually be linked to "smart" systems to give drivers information about current road conditions, are already being produced by a California company, Etak Inc. Etak manufactures a device for keeping track of car movements: a map is displayed on a video screen and updated frequently as the car moves, showing the driver where he is and giving him the ability to get information about approaching features.

Ms. Smiley said three areas of limitations must be considered when designing such products: physical problems, a driver's perception of the instruments, and cognitive problems relating to how the information is processed. She said the main problem with communication and information in the car and HUD readout is that it distracts the driver.

One delegate told the conference that navigation displays require more, not fewer skills than a traditional printed city map, especially if the driver is unfamiliar with the area.

Acceptance of the systems may also be limited by its cost -- $1,500 to $3,000 (U.S.)

[This reminds me of a) a recent accident report in which a woman was killed: she didn't see a turn because she was putting on mascara, and b) the fact that my father would not even have a radio in the family car because he felt it stole a driver's attention away from *driving*. Alayne McGregor ]

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Date: Sun, 29 Oct 89 11:35:54 -0600 From: sukumar@emx.utexas.edu (Sukumar Rathnam) Subject: Re: Hardware failure mimics hackers (RISKS-9.35)

Continuing with the problems of the FPA on a VAX 11/750.... I once used a machine which had a FPA attached. Unfortunately the building the machine was in had an air-conditioner that was subject to FREQUENT breakdowns.

What used to happen was that if the temperature fell below a critical value the FPA would shut itself off. The rest of the machine did not know that the FPA was off. As a result any program that used the FPA would behave weirdly (in my case a graphics program IGL/PLOT10) but programs which did not worked just fine.

This was discovered when programs known to be correct would arbitrarily crash when the temperature was high but work fine when the ac was ok.

The last thing you expect is a temperature sensitive behavior for programs. Have people encountered similar problems or has the bug been fixed?

Sukumar Rathnam, MSIS Dept., CBA 5.202, The University Of Texas, Austin TX 78712

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Date: 25 Oct 89 20:36:58 GMT From: vnend@phoenix.princeton.edu (D. W. James) Subject: Re: Black Friday in Boston and manual systems (RISKS-9.34)

In RISKS Vol 9 Issue 34 kaiser%cheese.DEC@src.dec.com reported that the Boston Stock Exchange had little problem during the 10/13 stock crash, since the exchange had the capability to return to (faster) manual transaction handling. For me, this is believable.

I worked for several years in hotel work, auditing and front desk work mainly. At a couple of sites I worked with computerized desks and experienced the advantages and disadvantages of them. The biggest single disadvantage was at checkin, where being forced to rely on the computer to find rooms slowed check-in down to as little as one fifth the capacity I could handle manually. Eventually the manual system was reinstalled as a backup, and fast check-in speeds were again available... At the cost of more work, as the check-in infomation still had to be typed into the computer.

So, while I can easily believe that the BSE could handle manually more transactions than they could by computer, I'm also sure that there was also some overtime that evening/night as the computers were brought up to date...

Vnend

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Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 12:51:16 PDT From: Andrew Klossner <andrew@frip.wv.tek.com> Subject: Re: Human chess supremacy at risk?

There's an excellent article on the Deep Thought - Kasparov chess match in the 24.Oct.89 issue of the Wall Street Journal (page A16). It analyzes the development of the two games and the strategies involved. Apparently Kasparov studied Deep Thought's games and developed strategies to blow the computer out of the water, such as diverging early from established play patterns to get out of the computer's "book". -=- Andrew Klossner

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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 9.37 ************************