Blackout Cause: Buggy Code

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."

Comments

Re:Blame Canada

[Julien Brub]

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!!!