30-Mar-86 11:40:42-PST,3614;000000000000
Mail-From: NEUMANN created at 30-Mar-86 11:39:03
Date: Sun 30 Mar 86 11:39:02-PST
From: RISKS FORUM    (Peter G. Neumann, Coordinator) <[email protected]>
Subject: RISKS-2.35
Sender: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest,  Sunday, 30 Mar 1986  Volume 2 : Issue 35

          FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS
  ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

Contents:
 San Jose Library (Matthew P. Wiener, Ken Laws)
 Inter-system crashes (Rich A. Hammond)

The RISKS Forum is moderated.  Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good
taste, objective, coherent, concise, nonrepetitious.  Diversity is welcome.
(Contributions to [email protected], Requests to [email protected].)
(Back issues Vol i Issue j stored in SRI-CSL:<RISKS>RISKS-i.j.  Vol 1: MAXj=45)

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Date: Fri, 28 Mar 86 00:14:06 pst
From: [email protected] (Matthew P. Wiener)
Subject: San Jose Library
To: [email protected]

From an article in the 27 March 1986 San Francisco Chronicle:
                   ------------------------------
 An employee of the San Jose public library "destroyed 16 days of records
 and garbled two weeks of circulation files."  A supervisor had "neglected
 to create a backup file".  267,000 books are involved.

 They expect 95.5 percent will be returned on time.  That leaves 12000.
 4000 are routinely returned late.  The other 8000 are considered lost
 at a replacement cost of $10 each, or $80,000.  About $18,000 in overdue
 fines will be lost.

 The system was two months old.  Training was still incomplete.  Several
 employees will be disciplined.

 The blunder might cost three new positions for next year, expected to be
 refilled after cut out by Proposition 13 budget cuts.
                   ------------------------------
I have one remark on the above.

Not only does poor computer usage cause risks to everybody else, I think we
should be concerned about workers who are forced to use unfamiliar systems
and then are held responsible for the damage they did.  Somehow it does not
seem fair, but I believe this is becoming far too common.

------------------------------

Date: Thu 27 Mar 86 12:36:52-PST
From: Ken Laws <[email protected]>
Subject: San Jose Library
To: [email protected]

.. at the main library and 17 branches. ...

That's $2,000,000 worth of books unaccounted for.  The library usually gets
95% back without sending out reminders, but with the publicity -- who knows?
They really can't afford to replace even $100,000 worth, even if they knew
what to replace.

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Date: Thu, 27 Mar 86 08:32:18 est
From: hammond%[email protected] (Rich A. Hammond at lafite.UUCP)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Inter-system crashes

I worked in a hotel once when they were adding a new wing.  The main water
and electricity systems had to be turned off to connect the new wing.
Management decided to do both at the same time so there would only be one
interruption in service.  The problem:  Turning off the electric power
caused the emergency generator to come on, but the generator was cooled by
water which came from the main and ran into the drain, i.e., no
recirculation.  Of course there was no water, the generator engine managed
to warp its head pretty badly before we shut it off.

------------------------------

End of RISKS-FORUM Digest
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