Harish Palaniappan's

Was reading through somebody's compilation of popular IT embarrasements. It read "Peter Coffee's Dirty Dozen IT Embarrassments"

... basically list 12 popular software misuse or failures. Though the list is compiled from a USA perspective, it does convey the message that when IT fails... it fails royally. And when I say IT it doesnt include the word-processor software on your PC.. or small things like that.. We are refering to enterprise level software misuse / failures here.

In 1982, the US seems to have used a software virus (or more technically they used a Trojan Horse) to induce errors into a pipeline management system which the russians were actually allowed to steal and install on their trans-siberian oil pipeline.. Russians were earning close to 8billion $ per year on the pipeline and they installed the system with the pirated software alongwith the trojan horse the US bugged it with. The virus propogated through the system, increased pipeline pressure levels beyond control and blasted the pipeline at a core junction destroying things around for a few 100 metres.

The trans-siberian pipeline blast happens to be one of the very few non-nuclear explosions that could be seen and recorded by satellites from space. Such was the magnitude of the explosions it seems.

Though there were no casualities, the damage costed the russians enough and they couldnt complain because if they did, everyone would know that they had been stealing US technolgoy under cover for a while.
After the pipeline blast, the russians feared using all software and technology stolen from the US and its said this was the starting point of things that ended the cold war between the Russian and the US.. with the US emerging victorious under covers.

While the above incident is one of the popular embarrasing IT errors that happened (error for the russians, success for the americans), there are many occassions reported where software errors have crumpled huge data networks, created big data errors and loss to an organization over a long-term, and so on.

There are proven instances such as,

>Similary, patients who use computers to recieve or report treatment information to/from doctors have misunderstood information and taken the wrong treatment and sufferred problems.
... and you could make a list of a million big errors that have happened.

All such grave errors, are wrapped up under covers and hidden from the people who would be bothered to know that it was caused by a technical mistake.

A recent example was how a long-term study uncovered a bug in a IT system program in a large bank which over a certain combination of operations seemed to ignore a certain value of money which accumulated to make a few million dollars in losses after a long-term for the bank.

And when we discuss banking errors, if you are wondering where these errors go.. they actually eat up on the bank's direct/indirect customer's/investor's money.

Even if your bank's systems had such bugs you wouldn't know or neither will you be informed, because the banks only try to wrap it up to avoid paying up and meeting more losses and losing people realiability. And to add up these bugs dont show up on the next day's statement.. but on some earlier transaction you did months or years back which you dont remember and cannot verify.. and because of which your current balance is lesser than it should be.

The world of IT errors.. and we will live and prosper within it.

The next time you hear that an US coalition force fighter aircraft fired missiles into an iraqi marriage party based on mislead information that militants were there, you know what to guess.... and then move on.