[ I've long planned to write an article on the collapse in quality of information systems over the last 30 years.
[ One of the reasons I've yet to develop it is that I've been out of software development per se for too long, and hence assembling the evidence is harder because I lack both the entree and many of the necessary insights into the slapdash ad-hocracy of recent years. [ The following item has emerged in a court-case. [ Some people are sceptical, on the grounds that 'We don't know. It's all too hard' is a rational position for a defendant to adopt if they want to avoid exposing a system's design and features. But for me it rings oh-so-true. Facebook Has No Idea What Data It Has 8 Sep 2022 https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/09/facebook-has-no-idea-what-data-it-has.html From a court deposition: https://theintercept.com/2022/09/07/facebook-personal-data-no-accountability/ > ... he questioned the engineers over whether any documentation existed for a particular Facebook subsystem. “Someone must have a diagram that says this is where this data is stored,” he said, according to the transcript. Zarashaw [a software engineering manager] responded: “We have a somewhat strange engineering culture compared to most where we don’t generate a lot of artifacts during the engineering process. Effectively the code is its own design document often.” ... One of the comments on Bruce's posting: > ... this attitude is by no means limited to Fessbuck… I would say that it is typical of computing in general. -- Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected] T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W. Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
