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A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

cnn.com

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Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#261

Post by GnarfGnarf »

marrone12 wrote: post #69
mgsouth wrote: post #10

Quote from FAA: "Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file." UK news source The Independent is reporting that Nav Canada's NOTAM system also suffered an issue.[1] Speculation: corrupting input, either international or North American? E.G. UTF-8, SQL escape, CSV quoting. edit: Better reporting of Canada's issue from Canada's CBC (and frankly, better reporting about the US, too). [2] "In Can…

The CBC is great. I watch the news show every night even as an American.

Funny! As a Canadian, I am riveted by CNN/MSNBC/PBS/ for news on American political developments.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#262

Post by GnarfGnarf »

pharmakom wrote: post #116

I was recently rewatching some old Taleb talks about fragility. Our software systems are extremely fragile. I wonder if there is any way we can make them anti-fragile? What would this look like?

Software systems will be fragile as long as people and organizations don't understand the cost of quality software, or don't think it's worth it.

You don't get what you don't pay for™

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#263

Post by dpcx »

NavinF wrote: post #131
eurasiantiger wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for example, MySQL/MariaDB using utf8 tables will instantly go down if someone inserts a single multibyte emoji character, and the only way out is to recreate all tables as utf8mb4 and reimport all data.

It doesn't block inserts with invalid data? I thought that was the whole point of telling the database what types you're using

MySQL historically isn't very good about blocking bad data. Sometimes it would silently truncate strings to fit the column type, for example. It's getting better as time goes on, though.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#264

Post by r3trohack3r »

greggarious wrote: post #220
huslage wrote: post #219

You all seem to think this is similar in value or operation to a web app. It is not. It is a safety-critical system that requires very stringent operational and development guidelines ON PURPOSE. The idea that the FAA shouldn't be risk averse in this system is absolutely ridiculous. The complexity of operating the airspace of an entire nation is nothing to scoff at and the importance of the NOTAM system should not be…

If they’re so risk averse, why are their systems failing so severely? It’s absolutely a corruption issue, in that the government prefers to pay 2-3x what they would to solve things internally to contractors who then perform a poor job and lobby to keep whatever they build in place for decades.

> It’s absolutely a corruption issue, in that the government prefers to pay 2-3x

Being serious, I wish I could find one of these 2-3x multiple payouts in government. Every time I've looked at anything government related (including direct contractors) the pay is garbage. Usually 15% to 50% of what the private market pays for my skill set.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#265

Post by adamsmith143 »

gnarbarian wrote: post #224
huslage wrote: post #219

You all seem to think this is similar in value or operation to a web app. It is not. It is a safety-critical system that requires very stringent operational and development guidelines ON PURPOSE. The idea that the FAA shouldn't be risk averse in this system is absolutely ridiculous. The complexity of operating the airspace of an entire nation is nothing to scoff at and the importance of the NOTAM system should not be…

demonstrably the policies employed by the FAA do not effectively avert risk (in software). It's more akin to risk aversion theater.

>a few things 1) mostly thank the airline operators for that.

So Thank airlines for not crashing and do what when Boeing creates a death machine called 737 MAX??

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#266

Post by gnarbarian »

JCM9 wrote: post #231
huslage wrote: post #219

You all seem to think this is similar in value or operation to a web app. It is not. It is a safety-critical system that requires very stringent operational and development guidelines ON PURPOSE. The idea that the FAA shouldn't be risk averse in this system is absolutely ridiculous. The complexity of operating the airspace of an entire nation is nothing to scoff at and the importance of the NOTAM system should not be…

This demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of how the FAA actually operates in its efforts to address “risk.” It’s far more theatre via bureaucracy and paperwork than actual proven engineering efforts that demonstrably reduce risk.

you nailed it. Plus the FAA is unable to even perceive the fact that this culture is counterproductive to the goal nor would they know how to address the problem in any way other than adding more layers of paperwork and bureaucracy.

Re: A corrupt file led to the FAA ground stoppage – also found in backup system

#270

Post by cdiamand »

huslage wrote: post #219

You all seem to think this is similar in value or operation to a web app. It is not. It is a safety-critical system that requires very stringent operational and development guidelines ON PURPOSE. The idea that the FAA shouldn't be risk averse in this system is absolutely ridiculous. The complexity of operating the airspace of an entire nation is nothing to scoff at and the importance of the NOTAM system should not be…

The FAA has risk reduction baked into it's very heart and soul and this is evident the more you learn about how the system operates (go look at a flying textbook).

It is not perfect organization, but I think it deserves more credit than it is receiving in this thread.

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