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1 From swan!bbn.com!nic!bunny!husc6!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CSL.SRI.COM!risks Thu Jul 5 10:07:45 EDT 1990
2 Article 85 of comp.risks:
3 Path: swan!bbn.com!nic!bunny!husc6!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CSL.SRI.COM!risks
4 >From: risks@CSL.SRI.COM (RISKS Forum)
5 Newsgroups: comp.risks
6 Subject: RISKS DIGEST 10.14
7 Message-ID: <CMM.0.88.646701765.risks@hercules.csl.sri.com>
8 Date: 29 Jun 90 23:22:45 GMT
9 Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
10 Reply-To: risks@csl.sri.com
11 Organization: The Internet
12 Lines: 208
13 Approved: risks@csl.sri.com
14
15 RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Friday 29 June 1990 Volume 10 : Issue 14
16
17 FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS
18 ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator
19
20 Contents:
21 RISKS WILL BE ON VACATION (RISKS Forum)
22 Hubble (Dimitri Mihalas via Mark Bartelt)
23 Re: "Unbreakable Math Code Finally Broken" (Richard A. Schumacher)
24 More on the Risks of searching the Lexis fulltext database (Peter D. Junger)
25 Re: info on carpal tunnel syndrome (Terry Kane)
26
27 The RISKS Forum is moderated. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good
28 taste, objective, coherent, concise, and nonrepetitious. Diversity is welcome.
29 CONTRIBUTIONS to RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM, with relevant, substantive "Subject:" line
30 (otherwise they may be ignored). REQUESTS to RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM.
31 TO FTP VOL i ISSUE j: ftp CRVAX.sri.com<CR>login anonymous<CR>AnyNonNullPW<CR>
32 cd sys$user2:[risks]<CR>GET RISKS-i.j <CR>; j is TWO digits. Vol summaries in
33 risks-i.00 (j=0); "dir risks-*.*<CR>" gives directory listing of back issues.
34 ALL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE CONSIDERED AS PERSONAL COMMENTS; USUAL DISCLAIMERS APPLY.
35
36 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
37
38 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 1990 13:34:45 PDT
39 >From: RISKS Forum <risks@csl.sri.com>
40 Subject: RISKS WILL BE ON VACATION
41
42 for the next three weeks. There might be an issue or two, but don't bet on it.
43 Keep sending in the good stuff in any case. Thanks. The Management
44
45 ------------------------------
46
47 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 13:20:14 EDT
48 >From: Mark Bartelt <sysmark@orca.cita.utoronto.ca>
49 Subject: Hubble
50
51 [This is a message from Dimitri Mihalas (dmihalas@altair.astro.uiuc.edu).
52 Mark Bartelt, Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics]
53
54 in case you have not heard: from a reliable inside source i found out that the
55 problem with ST is that the SOFTWARE driving the polisher was defective. the
56 corrections for spherical aberration were put in with the wrong sign.
57 consequently the mirror is not corrected for sph. abb., but has an added dose
58 of it.
59
60 the error was not detected during testing because no test with collimated
61 light was ever done. (editorial remark: unthinkable!) apparently this was
62 a $30M economy measure in the face of the Challenger accident. likewise
63 none of the optics were ever tested in vacuum. the primary was and is
64 "perfect" relative to the specified curve; but alas the specification
65 was wrong. sigh.
66
67 from my amateur astronomer days (does that include 1990?) i recall that
68 spherical aberration is EASY to detect with the foucault test, which is
69 done with a pinhole, not collimated light. it is hard to believe that
70 ANYONE could have made such a blunder..
71
72 the only reason that people know this much is that the same software
73 was used for AXAF. the errors there were so huge as to be immediately
74 noticeable, and when the software was corrected, the mirror was "perfect".
75 i don't know whether the information from axaf was available prior to
76 the launch of ST, but it seems that it had to be. in which case one
77 wonders why PE didn't issue a "hold everything!".
78
79 the future: no chance of bringing the whole telescope down for a refit.
80 best plan is to design compensating optics into the lightpath for future
81 instruments: relatively easy to do. but that will still take 3-5 years.
82
83 i suppose it's "win a few, lose a few..." but i personally think that
84 nasa, the government, and the people should stick it into PE and TURN
85 it hard until they agree to refund the cost of the mistake and of the repairs.
86 i'm sick of seeing defense and defense-related contractors get away
87 with bloody murder and just get fatter and fatter on the profits.
88
89 back to theory
90 dimitri
91
92 ------------------------------
93
94 Date: 28 Jun 90 18:02:18 GMT
95 >From: schumach@convex.UUCP (Richard A. Schumacher)
96 Subject: Re: "Unbreakable Math Code Finally Broken"
97 References: <CMM.0.88.646532535.risks@hercules.csl.sri.com>
98
99 Y. Radai <RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET> writes:
100 > So the statements that an impenetrable code has been broken and that
101 >organizations need to change their cryptographic systems because of this
102 >achievement seem a wee bit exaggerated.
103
104 On the other hand, the NPR report mentioned that the Bank of England
105 was planning to use a 150 digit number as a key in a new transaction
106 processing system, but changed it to something "much larger" when
107 they learned of the 9th Fermat prime factoring.
108
109 ------------------------------
110
111 Date: 29 Jun 90 16:25:00 EST
112 >From: junger@cwru.cwru.edu
113 Subject: More on the Risks of searching the Lexis fulltext database
114
115 A while back I sent to RISKS an (itself rather buggy) description of a
116 bug that turned up in the Lexis/Nexis database when I was doing date delimited
117 searches in the library containing the fulltext opinions of the United States
118 Supreme Court. A representative of Mead Data Central--the owner of the
119 Nexis/Lexis service--has since contacted me to explain the nature of the bug
120 and to assure me that it will be corrected on June 30.
121
122 In the first place, it appears that the bug is _not_ in the
123 basic software that searches through the database for cases decided on,
124 after, or before a specified date. Secondly, it is clear that the bug
125 did _not_ cause me to miss any cases that I should have located, it just
126 turned up some additonal cases that were not decided within the period
127 that I was searching. That is the good news.
128
129 The bad news is that the problem relates to the way that the
130 Lexis/Nexis system parses dates in the database and that the proposed
131 fix will work only until the year 2000, at which time a new variant of
132 the bug should cause real havoc.
133
134 Here is a corrected version of the type of search that exposed
135 the bug:
136
137 Entitlement and date(aft 12/31/39 and bef 1/1/50)
138
139 That search, when conducted in the Supreme Court file, should find all
140 opinions, and only those opinions, decided by the United States Supreme
141 Court during the decade of the 1940's that contained the word
142 `entitlement'. (Lexis warned me that it assumed that I meant after
143 12/31/1939 and before 1/1/1950.) As it happens, there are no cases that meet
144 those criteria. But Lexis reported that it had found a dozen or so
145 cases--cases that did contain the word `entitlement' but that were
146 decided in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's.
147
148 It seems that a couple of months ago Mead Data Central decided
149 to include the argued-date as well as the decided-date within the date
150 field, and it is this enhancement that caused the bug. The fix that
151 will be implimented this Saturday is to once again exclude the
152 argued-date from the date field.
153
154 Since cases are not always decided in the same year that they
155 are argued, including the argued-date in the date field will, of course,
156 cause some cases to be reported as occurring in two different decades,
157 which would be a nuisance. But that is only a miniscule part of the
158 bug. The real problem occurs because some cases are argued on more than
159 one date, so that the argued-date field would appear in the database as,
160 say: "argued June 22-23, 1980" and the decided date field as: "July 3,
161 1980)." At first glance that would not seem to cause any problem. And
162 it wouldn't, except for the fact that the Lexis system parses the date
163 fields in the same way that it parses user input, and thus concludes
164 that "June 22-23" means "June 22-1923". Thus our hypothetical case
165 would have a date of July 3, 1980 (which is after December 31, 1939) and
166 would also have a date of June 22, 1923 (which is before January 1,
167 1950). If that case--decided, you will recall, in 1980--contains the
168 word `entitlement' it will turn up in my search for cases in the decade
169 of the 1940's, and in my searches in the 1950's, and in the 1960's, etc.
170
171 I can understand why the system parses user input so as to
172 interpret 1/1/50 as 1/1/1950--but I never dreamed that a system would
173 parse its own data. According to the people at Mead Data Central,
174 however, their system parses the data fields in exactly the same way
175 that it parses user input. It seems that the Lexis/Nexis database
176 contains texts--especially news reports--with dates in the form
177 "nn/nn/nn". Today those dates are parsed as "nn/nn/19nn", but what is
178 going to happen in the year 2000?
179
180 It would seem that ambiguous data in the data base will be much
181 harder to find and fix than a software bug.
182
183 Peter D. Junger, CWRU Law School
184
185 ------------------------------
186
187 Date: 29 Jun 90 19:36:47 GMT
188 >From: tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane)
189 Subject: Re: info on carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)
190
191 I am a long time sufferer of CTS. The first symptoms I recall were during
192 high school, nearly twenty years ago, but it was not properly diagnosed
193 until I was in excruciating pain, dropping things, not sleeping because
194 my hand was burning at night and more, all about four years ago.
195
196 Tests said that I had "a very mild case"!? That reassuring info did not
197 make my hand better. I used splints, Motrin, ice until I finally insisted
198 on the carpal tunnel relief operation. That was two years ago, this month,
199 but I still have recurrences - especially when I meet the same RISK which
200 pushed my CTS over the edge: using a MOUSE.
201
202 The typical mouse promotes all the bad habits that can result in CTS symptoms.
203 One typically rests the heel of the palm on the mouse, and press the chord
204 keys - frequently with constant pressure (on Apple's mice, the required
205 pressure is substantial for me, and their new mouse reqlly aggravates the
206 problem with its stylized, aerodynamic "look"). I cannot use a mouse to this
207 day without suffering a "mouse hangover".
208
209 Track balls are better for me, but I still would rather avoid them.
210
211 I am really looking forward to _getting_my_hands_on_ ;-) a touch screen.
212 I've seen some very nice ones with quite satisfactory resolution!
213
214 And please - If you think that you might have CTS - don't waste time.
215 See Your M.D.
216
217 Terry Kane, Sales Technologies, Inc, Atlanta, GA (404) 841-4000
218
219 ------------------------------
220
221 End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 10.14
222 ************************
223
224