News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Uber will not re-apply for self-driving car permit in California. Parent comment

Re:Uber will not re-apply for self-driving car permit in Cal... by bsder on Tuesday March 27, 2018 @09:45PM (#16694500)
> You don't throw people in jail because they wrote buggy software.

That depends upon the application.

Too many programmers think "Meh. Bugs are no big deal." because their code doesn't interact with the real world.

The problem is that the useful code that doesn't interact with the world has basically all been written, code is now starting to interact with he world by default.

Hang on, programmers, this ride is about to get bumpy.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber will not re-apply for self-driving car permit in Cal... by ajross on Tuesday March 27, 2018 @09:56PM (#16694574)
Do you have an example from anywhere ever of a programmer being prosecuted for a bug?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber will not re-apply for self-driving car permit in Cal... by Piskvorrr on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @06:20AM (#16696664)
Behold, The Great Worm of yore! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris#Criminal_...

(I thought of the first computer-aided fatality, but the sources don't seem to mention any prosecution w/r/t Therac-25)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Uber will not re-apply for self-driving car permit in Cal... by ajross on Wednesday March 28, 2018 @08:05AM (#16697032)
No, the Morris worm was criminal even if it didn't kill systems. The fact that it was accidentally killing systems surely changed the prosecutorial decisionmaking, but it wasn't relevant to the case itself. Morris was prosecuted for penetrating and abusing systems he didn't own, not for a bug in software that would have been non-criminal if it worked properly.
[ Parent | on HN ]