Agency sends 16,000 tax SOFTWARE ENGINEERING forms to one man / 1 • Today - motivation: Source:http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/205/Resources/irs_bug.html Jyrki Nummenmaa University of Tampere, CS Department Jyrki Nummenmaa University of Tampere, CS Department SACRAMENTO (Scripps-McClatchy)--Somewhere in the San Diego area, - Software Engineering: Why? there's a dentist who's probably still grinding his teeth over his latest brush - Software Engineering: What? with California’s tax collectors. During one week in September his office received an avalanche of tax forms in the mail -- 16,000 sets of forms in 16,000 individual envelopes. • We will start by examining some example cases. "We did it," admitted Suzanne Schroeder of the state Employment Development Department. "It was a computer problem." The glitch occurred in a mailing of 1.4 million pieces that is sent out each quarter to employers, Schroeder explained. Software Engineering – http://www.cs.uta.fi/se Software Engineering – http://www.cs.uta.fi/se Agency sends 16,000 tax Inappropriate Bank Letter forms to one man / 2 Form The department was using new computer software for producing Reference: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/14.89.html#subj3.1 Jyrki Nummenmaa University of Tampere, CS Department Jyrki Nummenmaa University of Tampere, CS Department <Kenneth.Wood@prg.ox.ac.uk>Fri, 27 Aug 93 16:55:35 BST address labels which was provided by the U.S. Postal service, Schroeder said. The Postal Service software was designed to read The Feedback section of the latest New Scientist relates the the word "suite" abbreviated as "ste," she continued. But the following Computer Weekly story about an unfortunate programmer addresses in the department's database abbreviate "suite" as "su". at an unnamed bank. Apparently, the bank wanted to target its When the software couldn't read "su", it was supposed to jump to the wealthiest customers with a mailshot promoting various new services previous line and read it again, Schroeder said. and the programmer in question wrote a program to select the 2000 wealthiest customers from the bank's records and to generate an appropriate letter for each. But for this particular address, there was a foreign spelling on the previous line and the software couldn't read that either. That set off a In the process of testing the program, he made use of a fictitious series of other jumps, she added, until the computer began spitting customer named Rich Bastard. Unfortunately, as you may already out the same address over and over again. "We alerted the postal have guessed, something went amiss and every single one of the authorities and they corrected the problem with what they call a bank's 2000 prize customers received a letter which began "Dear 'software patch,'" she said. Rich Bastard, ..." Software Engineering – http://www.cs.uta.fi/se Software Engineering – http://www.cs.uta.fi/se Mars Orbiter Failure / 1 Mars Orbiter Failure / 2 Reference: http://www4.cnn.com/TECH/space/9911/10/orbiter.03/ The report cited other contributing causes to the September 23 Jyrki Nummenmaa University of Tampere, CS Department Jyrki Nummenmaa University of Tampere, CS Department failure, including: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Failure to convert English measures to metric • Undetected mistakes in modeling of spacecraft velocity changes. values was the root cause of the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter, a • Insufficient familiarity with the spacecraft on the part of the spacecraft that smashed into the planet instead of reaching a safe orbit, a navigation team. NASA investigation concluded Wednesday. • Inadequate training. In a scathing report released Wednesday, an investigation board concluded • Inadequate communications between project teams. that NASA engineers failed to convert English measures of rocket thrusts to • The report also said the mission navigation team was overworked newton, a metric system measuring rocket force. and not closely supervised by independent experts. • The panel made 10 different recommendations to ensure that a One English pound of force equals 4.45 newtons. A small difference between similar mishap is avoided with the Mars Polar Lander, currently en the two values caused the spacecraft to approach Mars at too low an altitude route for a December 10 touchdown on the red planet. and the craft is thought to have smashed into the planet's atmosphere and was destroyed. Software Engineering – http://www.cs.uta.fi/se Software Engineering – http://www.cs.uta.fi/se 1
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