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Blackout Cause: Buggy Code

Posted by michael on from the civilization-meets-the-woodpecker dept.

blanca writes "The big northeast blackout from last summer was caused in part by a software bug in an energy managment system sold by General Electic, according to a story on SecurityFocus. The bug meant that a computerized alarm that should have been triggered never went off, hindering FirstEnergy's response to the train of events that lead to the cascading blackout. Investigators found the bug in a intensive code audit following the outage, and a patch is now available."

3 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. GE Outsourcing To India by freediver211 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Might I add GE outsources much of its software to India. GE railroads is a BIG outsourcing of software to India. I hope we don't have a railroad accident because of poor quality.

  2. Re:Blame Canada by Julien+Brub · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I am half-Canadian (read: french Quebecer).

    Of course they did blame Canada! It is the American way! You break something, you accuse your neighbor! You get sick, you accuse China. You crap you pants, you accuse Canadian beef. Your powergrid fail, you accuse Canada!

    Did anyone think it's strange that, 2 or 3 hours after the begining of the blackout, the Canada was accused to had caused it, but it took six months to find the real problem, wich was on your side of the border? LMAO

    The fact is, security is so much more of a concern in Canada. And we wouldn't accuse some country and/or business and/or virus without proofs.

    Being fair, that's the Canadian way!

    Enough patriotism for today, let's get back to writing code that won't get eigth American states in the dark... or maybe I should... mouhahaha!!!

    --
    "I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance." Isaac Asimov
  3. Just a few questions by The+Bungi · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    I was wondering where are all the retarded zealots that came out of the woodwork to make "insightful" arguments about how the blackout was somehow Microsoft's fault - most especially Slashdot's very own Robin "roblimo" Miller who if I remember correctly was the one to "explore" the possibility that a worm targeting Windows systems was the culprit in an "interesting" NewsForge article a few months back. Just an innocent suggestion mind you, nothing concrete.

    Also, where are all the +5 posts that unequivocally claimed "this is the type of thing open source would have prevented" what with all those eyes looking at all those bugs.

    Nope, all I can hear is the sound of crickets in the background.

    Oh but wait, we don't want to talk about these things here, $deity forbid that the "community" be somehow characterized as hysterical FUD-spreading blob of mindless sheep. Kinda like that FUD-spreading mindless corporation they accuse of everything and anything. Nah, that would be just too painful.

    We also don't want to compare roblimo's article with the BBC's editorial that gently placed the MyDoom blame on open source developers. Wait, I don't remember anyone complaining about the utter stupidity of the NewsForge article so I guess we can't compare them. Although one might certainly make the case that they're basically the same thing, if one wanted.

    And I'll post this at +2, just so I can bleed off more moderator points. But reality sucks, doesn't it?