Just because 100 - 24 = 76 does not mean that all the other recalls were hardware failures. Sometimes, a device functions well, but it's use is difficult or confusing.
Suppose the device is too heavy for the average nurse to carry, and it can't be used safely. There's no material defect.
Good point (though I might consider "portal device is too heavy" to be a hardware failure).
There are so many links in this chain which can require a field action. Hardware, software, wetware. Typo on a label, instructions doctors aren't able to follow, etc.
If there's an alarm, you add a microphone and light sensors to determine that if you're in the alarm state, there is an alarm sound playing and the lights are flashing.
How do you add serial complexity to the system without increases the risk of failure? Now you've got to account for failure of the sound-detection process as well as the sound-producing process.
Why not, for example, add a second alarm? With 2 alarms, the system fails only if BOTH alarms fail to sound. With the detection loop, you get an error condition if EITHER the alarm or the microphone fails.
In my experience there is way way more software failures. The vendor just sends software updates every couple months. Oh yeah the previous version had a problem where if you did things in the wrong order it would change the patient that the radiation machine was programmed for. Sorry about that but here is the fix. Or worse notices saying their is a problem so telling users to double check all the time until they release a new version... sometime.
What you describe are not software failures. If there's something wrong in the code, it's likely a bug. That the wrong software made it through testing and QC and was released may be a failure of process. But a software failure is an event, not a condition.
If the software would do the wrong thing is certain conditions occur, but the software is fixed before those conditions are actually encountered, then there was no software failure.
In my experience there are way way more failures of the development process than software failures. Why would this be so, given that one process failure can lead to multiple software failures? Maybe we (and out consumers) are just lucky.
As a developer working for a medical device company, I am very interested in this story.
However, I am not able to find in the linked report either that "24%" figure or the direct quote from TFA.
The Agency is also acquiring expertise in areas like "detecting malware inside device designs...(and) reverse engineering certain types of malware to best identify the specific protective practices which manufacturers should be employing," the report reads.
The word "malware" appears twice in the quoted passage, but not at all in the report. And 24 only appears as a page number or date.
One issue is, there's no way this info stays with the welfare folks. It's going to go to the tax revenue folks as well. And the drug folks to see if anyone is selling paraphernalia. And half a dozen other agencies.
The way modern governments and law have developed, you're pretty much guaranteed to be breaking some law.
But directly to DP's point, if there's evidence or reasonable suspicion someone is breaking the law, and the government goes after that person, that's not necessarily an invasion of privacy.
But this kind of fishing expedition is pretty much by definition an invasion of privacy.
Hearing aids are Class 1 Medical devices.... that's the same category as a toothbrush. You don't need to vising a licensed dentist with trade lobbyists to get a toothbrush.
If I have a new app to deploy that's going to need 5 servers I could ask IT to find me U10 of rack space, call the usual suppliers to give us some bloated quote for server hardware, have the IT guys rack it all up, plug it in, try and fail to get all the required software installed and configured properly, etc.
Or...I could click "deploy" and watch all that and much, much more happen in about a minute.
Which is great for prototyping and development.
But for mission critical apps, I hope your analysis goes deeper than "easier and faster."
As a release manager for a software development team, I'm strongly looking forward to never having to deal with painfully slow, fat fingered, over compensated IT departments ever again. It can't come soon enough. The question isn't to cloud or not to cloud, the question is which cloud.
Seriously? You'll still have to deal with the same IT folks, only now it'll be through the cloud suppliers help desk. Gone will be the days when a server hiccuped and you could walk over to the server team and stand over the tech's shoulder until the problem got fixed.
Growing up, I remember that I took a certain pride that the mass market did not appreciate it. It was a private club. If you enjoyed it, you were weird. The fact that you enjoyed it said something about you. You were unusual, and did not follow the crowd. A story that Gene Roddenberry told was how his father apologized to the neighbors the night Star Trek premiered. That's cool.
This guy comes off like a hipster d-bag. It's nice when you can discover something cool that doesn't get a lot of mainstream attention, especially as a kid. And it's nice that that movies that may only appear to a niche market still get made.
But to say it's cool that somebody's father felt he needed to apologize for the work the kid had done? How is that cool?
If Gene Roddenberry's father had been proud of his son's work, then Star Trek wouldn't have been as good? What is this guy saying here?
Not to mention that hacked solutions tend to be a fucking NIGHTMARE to maintain over the long-term. Think about the day your "hacker" leaves and his replacement has to come in and try to figure out his predecessor's jerry-rigged mess.
QFT. While hacker != cracker, the submission is incorrect to say a hacker is a great programmer.
A hacker may or may not be a great programmer. What a hacker is, is clever. A hacker can get systems to do things they weren't designed to do. A hacker can repurpose tools to achieve novel results.
What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.
Heck, where I work we're required to use machine-generated random mixed-case alphanumeric 8 character passwords. We don't get to generate our own passwords; rather, we pick passwords from a list generated by the computer. We can also hit "regenerate" as many times as necessary until we see a password we "like". I know many people visually filter this list for more "memorable" passwords. As long as an attacker has a good model of the likely filters humans employ on this otherwise random noise, the actual search space for our passwords is much, much smaller than implied by 66^8. (I know at least one former coworker in the "single capital letter" column, for example.) At least our passwords expire every 90 days / 3 months. (Windows and *nix have slightly different expiry periods, and are required to have distinct passwords. Wheee.)
I've seen other posts in this thread referring to randomly generated passwords, and I immediately think of the XKCD on passwords. You've come up with something that caters to the machine, not the person.
I have 20+ different user name/passwords combos I need to maintain for work. This means 1) where ever possible I reuse the same password, and 1a) my password tend towards to the lowest common denominator. E.G. one system does not allow special characters in passwords, so none of my passwords have special characters.
If the expectation was I'd keep track of 20+ different random strings, I'd be sending out resumes ASAP.
Allow users to use a 30 character pass phrase, and it's easier to remember and more secure than 8 random characters.
The "IBM Pollyanna principle" is an axiom that states "machines should work; people should think". This can be understood as a statement of extreme optimism, that machines should do all the hard work, freeing people to think (hence the reference to Pollyanna), or as a cynical statement, suggesting that most of the world's major problems result from machines that fail to work, and people who fail to think.
This is key and cannot be stressed enough, as it is the thin line between utopia and distopia--a Star Trek world with an ever-present computer ready to do our bidding or a Skynet world that sees us as malware.
A Watson-like system where a doctor inputs patient information and test results and the output is a possible diagnosis or recommendations on further tests--AKA a tool the doctor uses--is a great idea.
A medical system where the computer is the doctor--think of a prescription vending machine where you answer a series of questions--is a step towards Skynet at worst and Idiocracy at best.
Is it: here is a string, length = 6, comprised of 5 lower case letter and 1 upper case letter?
Or is it: here is a string, length between 4 and 8 characters, comprised of lower and upper case characters?
If someone trying to crack my password knows it has exactly one upper case character, I'd assume they know because they have already cracked my password.
I was thinking more of an oxidizer in the presence of acid. "Bleach" is really a generic term that can refer to many different compounds.
That one of the reasons it's a good jumping off point for a chemistry lesson. 'Here's some grease in the kitchen. This "bathroom cleaner" doesn't do a very good job, but this "kitchen cleaner" does. So what is "grease" chemically? What is in kitchen cleaner that makes grease easier to clean up?'
The main idea is starting with the chemistry you can see.
On the same note, combine chemistry and home ec. I'm guessing it's harder to be bored when you can eat the results of your experiment.
Some cooking is biology (e.g. yeast and fermenting) but most is chemistry. What are baking soda and baking power used for? What gives foods different flavors (sweet, sour, salty, etc.)? Smell as a whole is why too advanced for that age, but you may want to look at specific odors, such as almond or banana. What is it that makes a banana smell the way it does vs. what you get in banana extract of flavoring used for cooking.
Another thing on the practical side, but not as much fun, is cleaning. Why do we use acid (bleach) for some cleaning tasks but base (ammonia) for others? Definitely cover why you don't mix the two (bleach and ammonia).
There's tons of home experiments, even with the post-9/11 issues with getting certain chemicals. Take a cup of every liquid in the fridge, put a small piece of meat in each. What's happens over the next week?
When you get the electrons and valence and that stuff, go to fireworks. Read & observe--this is not a field for home hands on experimenting. What is added to fireworks to get different colors? Why do different things have different colors when they burn?
What's with everyone getting their panties in a wad over this? Some careers pay better than others, and some degree programs are harder than others. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with being a teacher -- they fill an important role in our society. But should elementary school teachers be paid more than engineers and software devs? If you say yes, then it should be clear why Americans aren't going the STEM route.
Why should software devs and engineers get paid more than elementary school teachers? You haven't supported your position any more than I've supported the converse.
Because software dev and engineering is hard? Puh-lease.
Besides, what a position pays should based on utility, not the effort of the person doing the job. It'd be pretty hard for me to dig out a pool in my backyard with a salad fork. Doesn't mean anyone should pay me to do it.
It seems the panty wads are on the folks balking at the salaries paid to teachers. What's the problem? Shouldn't someone be able to make a living acting as the steward for other people's children full time?
Most dev jobs require a CS degree, which is a lot harder to get than an education degree. As for things I don't really know much about, are you referring to teaching? Because I teach a 2 week class that all new hires have to pass, and it's not so hard if you know the material.
So you teach a 2 week class, to adults, who are paid to attend. And that somehow makes you an expert on teaching full time to adolescents?
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Just because 100 - 24 = 76 does not mean that all the other recalls were hardware failures. Sometimes, a device functions well, but it's use is difficult or confusing.
Suppose the device is too heavy for the average nurse to carry, and it can't be used safely. There's no material defect.
Good point (though I might consider "portal device is too heavy" to be a hardware failure).
There are so many links in this chain which can require a field action. Hardware, software, wetware. Typo on a label, instructions doctors aren't able to follow, etc.
If there's an alarm, you add a microphone and light sensors to determine that if you're in the alarm state, there is an alarm sound playing and the lights are flashing.
How do you add serial complexity to the system without increases the risk of failure? Now you've got to account for failure of the sound-detection process as well as the sound-producing process.
Why not, for example, add a second alarm? With 2 alarms, the system fails only if BOTH alarms fail to sound. With the detection loop, you get an error condition if EITHER the alarm or the microphone fails.
In my experience there is way way more software failures. The vendor just sends software updates every couple months. Oh yeah the previous version had a problem where if you did things in the wrong order it would change the patient that the radiation machine was programmed for. Sorry about that but here is the fix. Or worse notices saying their is a problem so telling users to double check all the time until they release a new version ... sometime.
What you describe are not software failures. If there's something wrong in the code, it's likely a bug. That the wrong software made it through testing and QC and was released may be a failure of process. But a software failure is an event, not a condition.
If the software would do the wrong thing is certain conditions occur, but the software is fixed before those conditions are actually encountered, then there was no software failure.
In my experience there are way way more failures of the development process than software failures. Why would this be so, given that one process failure can lead to multiple software failures? Maybe we (and out consumers) are just lucky.
As a developer working for a medical device company, I am very interested in this story.
However, I am not able to find in the linked report either that "24%" figure or the direct quote from TFA.
The Agency is also acquiring expertise in areas like "detecting malware inside device designs...(and) reverse engineering certain types of malware to best identify the specific protective practices which manufacturers should be employing," the report reads.
The word "malware" appears twice in the quoted passage, but not at all in the report. And 24 only appears as a page number or date.
Am I just not hitting CTRL-F right today?
A moose once bit my sister.
Evil because it's fucking with Google.
Why is fucking with Google evil?
And can someone please translate "dataveillance techniques from automated Litter Brothers" to English?
"Grimbleton" huh?
That's not the name on your birth certificate. What do you have to hide? Must be a criminal.
One issue is, there's no way this info stays with the welfare folks. It's going to go to the tax revenue folks as well. And the drug folks to see if anyone is selling paraphernalia. And half a dozen other agencies.
The way modern governments and law have developed, you're pretty much guaranteed to be breaking some law.
But directly to DP's point, if there's evidence or reasonable suspicion someone is breaking the law, and the government goes after that person, that's not necessarily an invasion of privacy.
But this kind of fishing expedition is pretty much by definition an invasion of privacy.
Hearing aids are Class 1 Medical devices.... that's the same category as a toothbrush. You don't need to vising a licensed dentist with trade lobbyists to get a toothbrush.
Depends on the toothbrush...I mean, hearing aid.
Bone-conducting aids are Class II.
Wouldn't it make sense for the reviewers to also submit their own work to the journal? And wouldn't that bring eyes?
Of course, if the "peer review" isn't done by folks with a reputation who are actively publishing their own work, then what good is their review?
If I have a new app to deploy that's going to need 5 servers I could ask IT to find me U10 of rack space, call the usual suppliers to give us some bloated quote for server hardware, have the IT guys rack it all up, plug it in, try and fail to get all the required software installed and configured properly, etc.
Or...I could click "deploy" and watch all that and much, much more happen in about a minute.
Which is great for prototyping and development.
But for mission critical apps, I hope your analysis goes deeper than "easier and faster."
As a release manager for a software development team, I'm strongly looking forward to never having to deal with painfully slow, fat fingered, over compensated IT departments ever again. It can't come soon enough. The question isn't to cloud or not to cloud, the question is which cloud.
Seriously? You'll still have to deal with the same IT folks, only now it'll be through the cloud suppliers help desk. Gone will be the days when a server hiccuped and you could walk over to the server team and stand over the tech's shoulder until the problem got fixed.
Growing up, I remember that I took a certain pride that the mass market did not appreciate it. It was a private club. If you enjoyed it, you were weird. The fact that you enjoyed it said something about you. You were unusual, and did not follow the crowd. A story that Gene Roddenberry told was how his father apologized to the neighbors the night Star Trek premiered. That's cool.
This guy comes off like a hipster d-bag. It's nice when you can discover something cool that doesn't get a lot of mainstream attention, especially as a kid. And it's nice that that movies that may only appear to a niche market still get made.
But to say it's cool that somebody's father felt he needed to apologize for the work the kid had done? How is that cool?
If Gene Roddenberry's father had been proud of his son's work, then Star Trek wouldn't have been as good? What is this guy saying here?
Not to mention that hacked solutions tend to be a fucking NIGHTMARE to maintain over the long-term. Think about the day your "hacker" leaves and his replacement has to come in and try to figure out his predecessor's jerry-rigged mess.
QFT. While hacker != cracker, the submission is incorrect to say a hacker is a great programmer.
A hacker may or may not be a great programmer. What a hacker is, is clever. A hacker can get systems to do things they weren't designed to do. A hacker can repurpose tools to achieve novel results.
What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.
Subby is the author of TFA. TFA has the same text as the summary.
What's the point of that? I guess my own fault for RTFA.
Why not link to the company web page or press release or anything other than the same text posted here?
Subby is using the internet, developed by DARPA. And I presume subby also using SSL and other cryptography, which also is born from the military.
And are we supposed to believe subby has never taken any medicines or had the benefit of any medical procedures? Guess you haven't had any vaccines.
Subby--you're not as ethical or as smart as you think you are.
Heck, where I work we're required to use machine-generated random mixed-case alphanumeric 8 character passwords. We don't get to generate our own passwords; rather, we pick passwords from a list generated by the computer. We can also hit "regenerate" as many times as necessary until we see a password we "like". I know many people visually filter this list for more "memorable" passwords. As long as an attacker has a good model of the likely filters humans employ on this otherwise random noise, the actual search space for our passwords is much, much smaller than implied by 66^8. (I know at least one former coworker in the "single capital letter" column, for example.) At least our passwords expire every 90 days / 3 months. (Windows and *nix have slightly different expiry periods, and are required to have distinct passwords. Wheee.)
I've seen other posts in this thread referring to randomly generated passwords, and I immediately think of the XKCD on passwords. You've come up with something that caters to the machine, not the person.
I have 20+ different user name/passwords combos I need to maintain for work. This means 1) where ever possible I reuse the same password, and 1a) my password tend towards to the lowest common denominator. E.G. one system does not allow special characters in passwords, so none of my passwords have special characters.
If the expectation was I'd keep track of 20+ different random strings, I'd be sending out resumes ASAP.
Allow users to use a 30 character pass phrase, and it's easier to remember and more secure than 8 random characters.
From Wikipedia:
The "IBM Pollyanna principle" is an axiom that states "machines should work; people should think". This can be understood as a statement of extreme optimism, that machines should do all the hard work, freeing people to think (hence the reference to Pollyanna), or as a cynical statement, suggesting that most of the world's major problems result from machines that fail to work, and people who fail to think.
This is key and cannot be stressed enough, as it is the thin line between utopia and distopia--a Star Trek world with an ever-present computer ready to do our bidding or a Skynet world that sees us as malware.
A Watson-like system where a doctor inputs patient information and test results and the output is a possible diagnosis or recommendations on further tests--AKA a tool the doctor uses--is a great idea.
A medical system where the computer is the doctor--think of a prescription vending machine where you answer a series of questions--is a step towards Skynet at worst and Idiocracy at best.
What's the challenge?
Is it: here is a string, length = 6, comprised of 5 lower case letter and 1 upper case letter?
Or is it: here is a string, length between 4 and 8 characters, comprised of lower and upper case characters?
If someone trying to crack my password knows it has exactly one upper case character, I'd assume they know because they have already cracked my password.
What can I say? I'm a product of our fine public school system. ;)
I was thinking more of an oxidizer in the presence of acid. "Bleach" is really a generic term that can refer to many different compounds.
That one of the reasons it's a good jumping off point for a chemistry lesson. 'Here's some grease in the kitchen. This "bathroom cleaner" doesn't do a very good job, but this "kitchen cleaner" does. So what is "grease" chemically? What is in kitchen cleaner that makes grease easier to clean up?'
The main idea is starting with the chemistry you can see.
On the same note, combine chemistry and home ec. I'm guessing it's harder to be bored when you can eat the results of your experiment.
Some cooking is biology (e.g. yeast and fermenting) but most is chemistry. What are baking soda and baking power used for? What gives foods different flavors (sweet, sour, salty, etc.)? Smell as a whole is why too advanced for that age, but you may want to look at specific odors, such as almond or banana. What is it that makes a banana smell the way it does vs. what you get in banana extract of flavoring used for cooking.
Another thing on the practical side, but not as much fun, is cleaning. Why do we use acid (bleach) for some cleaning tasks but base (ammonia) for others? Definitely cover why you don't mix the two (bleach and ammonia).
There's tons of home experiments, even with the post-9/11 issues with getting certain chemicals. Take a cup of every liquid in the fridge, put a small piece of meat in each. What's happens over the next week?
When you get the electrons and valence and that stuff, go to fireworks. Read & observe--this is not a field for home hands on experimenting. What is added to fireworks to get different colors? Why do different things have different colors when they burn?
"Gattaca" wasn't fiction - it was an accurate prediction of a dystopian, fast-approaching and very real future.
You misspelled "Idiocracy"
What's with everyone getting their panties in a wad over this? Some careers pay better than others, and some degree programs are harder than others. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with being a teacher -- they fill an important role in our society. But should elementary school teachers be paid more than engineers and software devs? If you say yes, then it should be clear why Americans aren't going the STEM route.
Why should software devs and engineers get paid more than elementary school teachers? You haven't supported your position any more than I've supported the converse.
Because software dev and engineering is hard? Puh-lease.
Besides, what a position pays should based on utility, not the effort of the person doing the job. It'd be pretty hard for me to dig out a pool in my backyard with a salad fork. Doesn't mean anyone should pay me to do it.
It seems the panty wads are on the folks balking at the salaries paid to teachers. What's the problem? Shouldn't someone be able to make a living acting as the steward for other people's children full time?
Most dev jobs require a CS degree, which is a lot harder to get than an education degree. As for things I don't really know much about, are you referring to teaching? Because I teach a 2 week class that all new hires have to pass, and it's not so hard if you know the material.
So you teach a 2 week class, to adults, who are paid to attend. And that somehow makes you an expert on teaching full time to adolescents?
The ignorance and arrogance is astounding.
Why did your co-dependent become a teacher for?
She should have been an English teacher.