WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:11.520 So, hi everyone, my name is Mia and I'm here to tell you something about the weirdest 00:11.520 --> 00:19.240 bugs in history, who knows what this thing is, raise your hand, 1, 2, 3, quite a few people. 00:19.240 --> 00:23.760 So the story starts in September 1999 at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. 00:23.760 --> 00:28.400 So this is the Mars Climate Orbiter, which was one of the biggest projects of NASA. 00:28.400 --> 00:32.880 Now this thing basically, it's a robotic probe, it's about the size of a small car, 00:32.880 --> 00:38.840 and there are no astronauts on warm nothing, just a bunch of sensors and a bunch of electronics. 00:38.840 --> 00:42.560 And so it's something like a weather satellite for a Mars, so the idea was that it would 00:42.560 --> 00:47.160 cruise to Mars, get into the orbit and study the weather and climate there. 00:47.160 --> 00:51.960 The team had been working on this for many years, so this is a huge project, it was kind 00:51.960 --> 00:55.080 of a big deal, it cost millions of dollars. 00:55.080 --> 00:59.840 And after 10 months of just traveling through space, it was finally getting there. 00:59.840 --> 01:06.400 So this was the deployment there, and everyone was watching it live on TV, and what 01:06.400 --> 01:12.440 was supposed to happen is that the orbiter was supposed to enter orbit and then come 01:12.440 --> 01:16.240 behind the Mars and say, hey, I made it. 01:16.240 --> 01:22.280 And so people were waiting, everyone was watching it live on TV, and there was a silence. 01:22.280 --> 01:26.440 They were waiting for a few minutes, for a few hours, but there was nothing, there was absolutely 01:26.440 --> 01:28.040 no signal there. 01:28.040 --> 01:29.440 So what happened? 01:29.440 --> 01:34.320 At first, no one knew, they didn't get any signal, but they had no idea why. 01:34.320 --> 01:38.800 What was supposed to happen is that it was supposed to be around 110 kilometers from 01:38.800 --> 01:39.800 Mars. 01:39.800 --> 01:45.320 However, at some point, they realized that it was 57 kilometers from Mars, so that means 01:45.320 --> 01:51.040 that it was very close to it, and that altitude the Mars and atmosphere just tore it apart. 01:51.040 --> 01:55.920 So it probably broke into pieces or burned up, no one actually knows. 01:55.920 --> 01:57.960 So what happened here? 01:57.960 --> 02:01.440 What could have pushed it so far of the course? 02:01.440 --> 02:08.240 So the spacecraft was built by an external contractor, it was a team that built a spacecraft, 02:08.240 --> 02:11.640 and now it's the whole team that was operating it, right? 02:11.640 --> 02:13.800 So there were these two teams. 02:13.800 --> 02:18.160 And there was one piece of software that was calculating the force of thruster firing, and 02:18.160 --> 02:23.520 it was integrated with the navigation software that was used by the operation team. 02:23.520 --> 02:28.640 And they took the numbers afterwards to realize that it was happening, and all the numbers 02:28.640 --> 02:29.640 were right. 02:29.640 --> 02:36.640 But the meaning of them was off, it was off by a factor of 4.45, and then they realized 02:36.640 --> 02:38.760 where it was the problem. 02:38.760 --> 02:44.760 So the software that was outputting those values was using pound for seconds, which is basically 02:44.760 --> 02:47.120 the imperial measure of impulse. 02:47.120 --> 02:51.440 And the navigation software that was reading the same data was using Newton's seconds, 02:51.440 --> 02:52.440 which is metric. 02:52.440 --> 02:54.840 So basically, had two teams. 02:54.840 --> 02:57.280 One team was producing some data. 02:57.280 --> 03:01.440 The second team was reading the data, and they saw that they were using the same units 03:01.440 --> 03:02.440 but they weren't. 03:02.440 --> 03:06.280 And think about it, this is the project that was running for months, and for years, it was 03:06.280 --> 03:12.120 quite a big deal, and every time during the mission, when the orbit is small thrusters 03:12.200 --> 03:18.600 far to adjust its course, basically, the data was misinterpreted. 03:18.600 --> 03:23.880 So you might be wondering, how is it possible, and this is such a stupid error? 03:23.880 --> 03:29.280 Well, this is most a communication failure, because NASA's team just assumed that everything 03:29.280 --> 03:33.960 was in metric, they never actually checked it, and they didn't have any tests, they just 03:33.960 --> 03:37.880 assumed it's metric, because while we use metrics, so why not? 03:37.880 --> 03:44.200 And the worst part of it is that actually, some people at NASA, from some inconsistencies 03:44.200 --> 03:45.880 weeks before the failure. 03:45.880 --> 03:50.640 So they reported to the management, but management said, now that could not happen, it's 03:50.640 --> 03:51.640 impossible. 03:51.640 --> 03:56.240 And so yeah, this is what happened afterwards. 03:56.240 --> 04:00.680 Speaking of single mistakes that caused worldwide destruction, and I think this, you're 04:00.680 --> 04:03.640 a developer at Google one day, you push a comment. 04:03.640 --> 04:09.360 It's a very small change, and what happens next? 04:09.360 --> 04:14.560 Every website in Google is marked as dangerous, including Google itself. 04:14.560 --> 04:21.800 So this is exactly what happened in 2002 when a Google engineer made one tiny typo. 04:21.800 --> 04:27.080 So for 14 minutes, every Google search said, this side, my hardware computer, and even 04:27.080 --> 04:28.480 Gmail was affected. 04:28.480 --> 04:33.760 Email started going to say, to scam spam, and the best part is there's only one service 04:33.760 --> 04:36.760 that wasn't affected, which is the ads. 04:36.760 --> 04:41.360 And they're now up here in random, here in my slides too, because the ads are everywhere 04:41.360 --> 04:43.760 and un-destroyable. 04:43.760 --> 04:49.160 You might be wondering why I know the ads, I have no idea, I guess ads always work. 04:49.160 --> 04:50.480 So what went wrong? 04:50.480 --> 04:54.280 Well, one of the engineers, while updating the malware registry, which is basically just 04:54.280 --> 04:59.880 a list of dangerous websites, and instead of entering a specific URL, they accidentally 04:59.880 --> 05:05.320 added just one character, which is a forward slash, and in technical terms, this means 05:05.320 --> 05:06.320 everything. 05:06.320 --> 05:09.800 So you might be wondering, did they have tests? 05:09.800 --> 05:11.600 Well, they didn't. 05:11.600 --> 05:17.840 That's not every bug, it's fixing, and some bugs are so iconic that they actually never 05:17.840 --> 05:18.840 get fixed. 05:18.840 --> 05:20.840 Who knows a game civilization? 05:20.840 --> 05:23.400 Oh, go ahead, a lot of people. 05:23.480 --> 05:28.280 So it's a strategy game where you build and grow civilization in your competing against 05:28.280 --> 05:33.280 historical leaders like Napalau and Cleopatra or Jinguis Khan. 05:33.280 --> 05:34.640 And then there's Gandhi. 05:34.640 --> 05:40.440 It's a leader known for peace, for diplomacy, and at first, everything seemed normal, Gandhi 05:40.440 --> 05:45.040 preferred negotiations over war just as you would expect. 05:45.040 --> 05:49.520 But a players' progress or the game, and civilizations became more advanced, they actually 05:49.520 --> 05:51.960 started noticing something strange. 05:51.960 --> 05:58.360 The moment Gandhi unlocked atomic technology, he started dropping nukes of everyone. 05:58.360 --> 06:00.840 So why did this happen? 06:00.840 --> 06:06.160 Well, popular story says that developers gave Gandhi the lowest aggression rating, because 06:06.160 --> 06:12.080 he was the most peaceful development right, and later in the game, when all civilizations 06:12.080 --> 06:17.000 became more peaceful, the game automatically lowered all aggression scores. 06:17.000 --> 06:20.720 So because his score was one, when it lowered, it became minus one, which is basically 06:20.720 --> 06:24.040 in binary, the highest possible number. 06:24.040 --> 06:26.480 And now here comes the plot twist, actually. 06:26.480 --> 06:29.120 So many people know this story. 06:29.120 --> 06:32.000 And actually, it's not true. 06:32.000 --> 06:35.280 How this started is that it started at Reddit. 06:35.280 --> 06:36.840 Someone made a joke about it. 06:36.840 --> 06:39.240 Hey, Gandhi is throwing nukes. 06:39.240 --> 06:43.680 And game developers thought, well, actually, this is a really good joke. 06:43.680 --> 06:47.720 People are tweeting about it, I guess there was no Twitter back then, but whatever was 06:47.720 --> 06:48.720 there. 06:48.720 --> 06:54.000 They said, let's maybe write the way, let's use it, so let's introduce the bug. 06:54.000 --> 06:59.920 So because people are making jokes, and ready, they introduced the bug, and so that's 06:59.920 --> 07:06.840 how a myth became a joke, and it never got fixed. 07:06.840 --> 07:12.160 And to be nice, I knew employee had some micro-sistered California cap mysteriously disappearing 07:12.160 --> 07:13.960 from the database. 07:13.960 --> 07:18.640 People started investigating what's wrong with the database, with the application software, 07:18.640 --> 07:21.680 used to realize that the system wasn't with the software. 07:21.680 --> 07:23.080 It was with his name. 07:23.080 --> 07:25.920 His name was Steve Null. 07:25.920 --> 07:31.200 And in terms of the bug in the 80s, lots of systems didn't know how to parse the string 07:31.200 --> 07:32.200 null properly. 07:32.200 --> 07:37.160 Of course, the director reproduced it in postgres, this was the first thing I did. 07:37.160 --> 07:38.880 And it worked fine. 07:38.880 --> 07:43.720 However, you can find still bugs like this in various super-all systems, for example, I found 07:43.720 --> 07:50.480 an open issue in Apache Flex, which has been open for like 15 years. 07:50.480 --> 07:53.280 And we all know this urban legend. 07:53.280 --> 07:58.120 I have absolutely no idea if this is true if anyone else please tell me. 07:58.120 --> 08:03.640 So this is a person who changed their license plate to drop database to attempt and SQL injection 08:03.640 --> 08:05.280 attack. 08:05.280 --> 08:11.080 And speaking of SQL injection attacks, it cannot mention this comic. 08:11.120 --> 08:12.560 Hi, this is your son's school. 08:12.560 --> 08:14.520 We are having some computer trouble. 08:14.520 --> 08:16.400 Oh dear, did he break something? 08:16.400 --> 08:20.520 In a way, did you really name your son, Robert, job table students? 08:20.520 --> 08:23.320 Oh yes, little bobby tables, we call him. 08:23.320 --> 08:25.720 Well, we've lost the CS students records. 08:25.720 --> 08:27.000 I hope you're happy. 08:27.000 --> 08:31.320 And I hope you've learned to sanitize your database inputs. 08:31.320 --> 08:35.720 And sometimes it's not a problem just with SQL injection attacks, but it's a problem 08:35.720 --> 08:41.040 with lots of data that is testing data or looks like testing data, but it's not. 08:41.280 --> 08:45.200 So there are lots of systems that just remove data that was 08:45.200 --> 08:51.600 testing data, for example, everything was which starts with test, which starts with ABCDE. 08:51.600 --> 08:59.080 And if you're now thinking, well, ABCDE isn't that like testing data, well, actually I have some news for you. 08:59.080 --> 09:07.120 Between 1990 and 2020, over 300 babies in the US have been called ABCDE. 09:08.080 --> 09:12.240 I can imagine how well it goes and holds itself for. 09:13.200 --> 09:18.640 For a long time, we thought that the most expensive book ever was a Codex Eye Sister. 09:18.640 --> 09:22.720 This was a book written by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century. 09:22.720 --> 09:28.560 And it was later bought by Bill Gates for 30.8 million in 1994. 09:28.560 --> 09:32.960 So this was a book filled with the thoughts of one of history's greatest minds, 09:32.960 --> 09:37.920 hundred and pages of scientific observations and ideas that were centuries ahead of our time. 09:38.800 --> 09:46.080 So what kind of book would have to be to be that record like some rare manuscript or some historical book? 09:46.080 --> 09:53.520 Well, actually in the 20th century, I book appeared in Amazon, which with a price tag of 23.7 million. 09:54.320 --> 09:56.160 So you might be wondering what kind of book it is? 09:56.880 --> 10:00.160 Well, it was a book about the genetic development of slice. 10:00.880 --> 10:03.360 And just like the cover, it's bug two. 10:04.800 --> 10:13.040 So how did it happen? So on Amazon, there are third-party sellers and they can set their pricing rules, 10:13.040 --> 10:20.400 based on competitors. So for example, you can have a rule always be 0.07% cheaper than the next lowest price, 10:20.400 --> 10:25.760 or always be 27% more expensive than the lowest option. And you have lots of people there, 10:25.760 --> 10:30.640 it was fine because they sort of balance each other. However, the problem here was that there were 10:30.640 --> 10:36.880 only two sellers. So what happened is that those got stuck in a loop. So every time the algorithm ran, 10:36.880 --> 10:44.160 one went up, the second one went up. And again, again, until the book was listed for 23.7 million. 10:44.160 --> 10:49.920 And as soon as people noticed, the problem was fixed and price dropped back to normal. 10:50.560 --> 10:57.680 Our field can sometimes be mysterious to outsiders. When WhatsApp said the maximum number of people in 10:57.680 --> 11:05.360 a group chat, the independent reported it with a comment, WhatsApp increases group chat size limit to 256 people. 11:05.360 --> 11:09.360 It's not clear why WhatsApp set it on such an oddly specific number. 11:11.600 --> 11:18.240 And speaking of 256, did you know that trains in Switzerland weren't allowed to have 256 11:18.240 --> 11:22.400 axles? Axles is this thing, so basically, which connects the wheels. 11:28.640 --> 11:34.480 So to keep track of trains on the Swiss rail network, they place the textures along the rails. 11:34.480 --> 11:38.640 And these sensors will activate with a wheel pass over then and count the number of wheels. 11:38.640 --> 11:45.200 So these detectors stored the axle count in a 8-bit number. So of course, when the count reaches 11:45.200 --> 11:51.040 255, if you add one more, it draws it to zero, which basically means that the train is the 11:51.040 --> 11:57.200 Phantom train. And if you check Swiss Railway Regulation, you will find a section which states exactly 11:57.200 --> 12:03.360 that the total number of axles in the train must not equal to 156. This is actual. 12:04.320 --> 12:08.720 Sometimes it's hard to say what is the button, but it's a feature. Take X of, for example, 12:08.720 --> 12:16.000 all of us use it. In 2016, researchers in Melbourne analyzed 18 genum research journals in 12:16.000 --> 12:21.840 founded 19.6 of gene studies contained errors. Well, did you know there are genes that are called 12:21.840 --> 12:27.280 March 5 or September 15? Excellent, of course. It ought to correct them to date. 12:28.080 --> 12:34.320 And also around 90% of business spreadsheets contain errors, says the European spreadsheet risks 12:34.400 --> 12:39.840 interest group. Yes, there is a non-profit in Europe that analyzes errors in spreadsheets. 12:41.120 --> 12:45.600 There is a story about JP Morgan, who you spreadsheet to calculate risk. There is something 12:45.600 --> 12:50.000 called value at risk, which means what's the most money we could lose in a single day with 95% 12:50.000 --> 12:55.760 certainty. And you can have the glow, which means you can take higher risk or you can have a high 12:55.760 --> 13:01.760 meaning that the risk should be low. And there's one specific calculation that was done in a series 13:01.760 --> 13:08.000 of spreadsheets. And those spreadsheets had some math errors. And there was another control group 13:08.000 --> 13:12.880 that was making sure that the spreadsheets are correct. And there also had errors. 13:14.160 --> 13:19.680 And what happened is actually that it got so bad that what employees started their own unofficial 13:19.680 --> 13:24.400 spreadsheet just to track it because all of them were full of bugs. And by the time they called 13:24.400 --> 13:29.520 the mistake, it was too late. And they published a report that says, after subtracting the 13:29.600 --> 13:33.360 all rates from the new rate, the spreadsheet divided their sum instead of their average. 13:33.360 --> 13:38.320 This error mutates vulnerability by a factor of two and lower the value at risk. What does it mean 13:38.320 --> 13:44.400 that the super complicated, but what does it mean is that JP Morgan lost six billion of dollars 13:44.400 --> 13:49.360 just because someone added two numbers instead of average them in a spreadsheet. 13:51.520 --> 13:56.720 And sometimes, about doesn't cause a disaster, sometimes it just deletes your whole operating 13:56.720 --> 14:02.720 system. Bumblebee was a project designated to enable and video dual GPU support and linked 14:02.720 --> 14:09.040 up laptops, allowing users to off-log graphics rendering to the discrete GPU. Everything was 14:09.040 --> 14:15.760 working fine until one update in 2011. A user created a GitHub issue with a rather urgent 14:15.760 --> 14:24.080 message. Install script does RMRF user for Ubuntu. So basically what happened is that they wanted 14:24.080 --> 14:30.560 to delete some specific folder called XORG. But instead of there was an empty space after 14:30.560 --> 14:36.560 users, so that means it's just wiped out the core of the operating system. And the 14:36.560 --> 14:42.400 author quickly pushed a fix with the comment message, giant bug closing user to be deleted. 14:42.400 --> 14:48.560 So sorry. And of course, this being of insert the community did not hold back in the 14:48.560 --> 14:56.880 comment section. So you could find 884 comments on the comment. How can you complain about 14:56.880 --> 15:04.480 bugs, Mr. Anderson, when you have no operating system? Bleeding Edge really bleeding for someone 15:04.480 --> 15:15.120 now. Now I'm a lack of disk space now. I don't like the folder anyway. I'm here by 15:15.120 --> 15:17.120 it's thank you for your attention.