Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The US Department of Agriculture implemented new livestock price-reporting
guidelines after discovering that software errors had caused the USDA to understate
the prices meatpackers were receiving for beef. Since beef producers and packers nego-
tiate cattle contracts based on the USDA price reports, the errors cost beef producers
between $15 and $20 million [7].
In 1996 a software error at the US Postal Service caused it to return to the senders
two weeks' worth of mail addressed to the Patent and Trademark Office. In all, 50,000
pieces of mail were returned to the senders [8].
A University of Pittsburgh study revealed that, for most students, computer spelling
and grammar error checkers actually increased the number of errors they made [9, 10].
Between September 2008 and May 2009, hundreds of families living in public hous-
ing in New York City were charged too much rent because of an error in the program
that calculated their monthly bills. For nine months, the New York City Housing Au-
thority did not take seriously the renters' complaints that they were being overcharged.
Instead, it took to court many of the renters who did not make the higher payments and
threatened them with eviction [11].
In 2010 about 450 California prison inmates with a “high risk of violence” were
mistakenly released as part of a program meant to reduce prison overcrowding. Califor-
nia officials could not return any of them to prison or put them on supervised parole
because they had already been granted “nonrevocable parole” [12].
On the first day a new, fully computerized ambulance dispatch system became opera-
tional in the city of London, people making emergency calls were put on hold for up to
30 minutes, the system lost track of some calls, and ambulances took up to three hours
to respond. As many as 20 people died because ambulances did not arrive in time [13].
A software error led the Chicago Board of Trade to suspend trading for an hour on
January 23, 1998. Another bug caused it to suspend trading for 45 minutes on April
1, 1998. In both cases the temporary shutdown of trading caused some investors to
lose money [14]. System errors caused trading on the London International Financial
Futures and Options Exchange to be halted twice within two weeks in May 1999. The
second failure idled dealers for an hour and a half [15].
Thailand's finance minister was trapped inside his BMW limousine for 10 minutes
when the onboard computer crashed, locking all doors and windows and turning off
the air-conditioning. Security guards had to use sledge hammers to break a window,
enabling Suchart Jaovisidha and his driver to escape [16].
Japan's air traffic control system went down for an hour on the morning of March
1, 2003, delaying departures for hours. The backup system failed at the same time as the
main system, which was out of commission for four hours. Airports kept in touch via
telephone, and no passengers were put at risk. However, some flights were delayed over
two hours, and 32 domestic flights had to be canceled [17].
