Big Mistakes

Big Mistakes 

Imagine getting preached at an already difficult time in your life. Now what if you didn’t get hacked, but your bank or hospital, and you need them now! These are the deadly repercussions of unsecure networks from a customer’s perspective.

Company was hacked and audits stops everything for weeks, payment dates are missed,  and patients die. Sounds brutal, but this is the machine we live in. Responsible users suffered an insult on their life's endeavor, if they miss some important due dates. If a bank stops for weeks in an audit, people could lose other equity. It is not just bad customer service, but unsympathetic not to use judgement calls. People sold their time for money to do as they wished with it, the bank takes advantage of our time and money for the sake of a glitch or a hacker. Customer’s loved ones will also suffer unnecessary delays. Their children earned good grades by being punctual with assignments, but they are punished when others were less mature as them. So those customer’s children can’t pay for college in time, even though the customer has the money. Patient went through an avoidable human suffering in the form of a glitch. The glitch may seem simply inconvenient, but so is shouting “bomb!” in public. If the bank up-held its end with other people’s money, then that could save them years of heartache. Hospitals should break protocols, but that is probably the main mistake the software engineer made; protocol. Assuming consequences are not so long lasting.

The problem with customers trusting companies with user info, health, and money can crumble in the result of a failure to perform an action by the software engineers. Because an engineer saves some of their time in their project. Many people are held back a lot of their own time. Imagining that protocol is implemented for the engineer to conduct a quality assurance (QA) on software. This practice would be much like how the food industries all these safety procedures prevent food harm. Perhaps if engineers contracted a third-party bug hunter, or pen-testing. Making a point and finding constructive feedback to learn from mistakes. This reminds of modern problems like the branches of the US government running on old cobol computers that use magnetic film for memory. Programmers need to consider the possibility of error, and if they are using the best language and methods for the task. These are important matters and dramatic outcomes.

There is no silver bullet. Taking into account how best to live in terms of software engineer discipline, the alternatives scenarios are more time consuming and expensive. The scenarios of using a QA protocol can involve an ethical failure of the engineer(s) responsible. These safety practices do protect us in the food industry, but all ceremonies lose their importance overtime. The scenarios of using a 3rd party bug hunter can also involve an ethical failure. This idea has its downfalls because the engineers are usually paying someone whom  they have to pay additionally for each mistake the 3rd party finds. This turns ethical engineering into difficult or crafty engineering, finding ways to cover up problems. The end of the day, designers’ have products like automated cars, which can’t just accomplish fairly safe driving.