Re:The use of the word ‘robust' to describe software in UK law
by StillBored on Saturday December 21, 2019 @09:59PM
(#21854870)
(US based) I'm a human snail mail spam filter... It is possible for me to have physically received the mail, but promptly tossed it because the volume of ads and spam dwarfs actual mail. I've also found unopened mail in my trash by accident because it was tucked inside of supermarket flyers/etc that were tossed.
So, its quite likely that both cases are true, if you consider that there is a difference between physical reception of the mail and actual knowledge of what was sent.
I'm not really sure what the solution is, except maybe to pass more laws that keep the spammers from trying to make their mail look like official business (which is common because it increases the number of people that open the mail).
Re:The use of the word ‘robust' to describe software in UK law
by meowface on Sunday December 22, 2019 @05:07PM
(#21859975)
Same here. 98% of my mail is spam. I receive far, far more physical mail spam than email spam. (I'm sure the total volume of email spam sent to me is way higher than the physical mail spam's, but the email spam filters catch almost all of it.)
I've definitely accidentally thrown out some real mail which was wedged inside of some kind of spam ad.
The idea is that it is common for someone to deny receiving a mailed notification but that it is uncommon for mail to actually be lost. So, it makes sense to presume that the mail was successfully delivered unless there is evidence to the contrary (i.e. other mail to nearby addresses was also undelivered due to a weather condition).
My take on the UK law is that software is presumed to work unless an actual bug can be demonstrated.