JJ Celery

Here's a little pick me up for Saturday morning; you may not need coffee anymore after reading. A vast number of Xerox scanners introduce hard to detect errors in the "copy" by switching numbers and characters with similar.

I read this in some unrelated thread after my first coffee and it gave me a cold sweat.

https://chaos.social/@henryk/116107740661188228

original link just in case:

https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switching_written_numbers_when_scanning

#technology #HorrorStory

Henryk Plötz (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] If I were a printer, trying to murder someone, I'd subtly alter the numbers on any printout, hoping to corrupt a medication plan or something. https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switching_written_numbers_when_scanning

chaos.social
Feb 21 at 11:00amWeb
Show threadMark DennehyFeb 21

@jjcelery Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk............

The legal liability alone.... jaysus.

Show threadJJ CeleryFeb 21

@markdennehy the specific problem he highlighted with architectural plans? Every copy no matter how produced has to be stamped and signed by an architect. Can you imagine being that architect and realising you may have unwittingly produced incorrect copies, that are now archived in some planning office FOREVER.

I would never sleep again.

Show threadMark DennehyFeb 21
@jjcelery Forget the architect, day one, lecture one of engineering was 30 seconds of "congrats on passing the leaving cert" and then an hour of "here are all the ways engineers have killed people through professional negligence" and some of those were like the Hyatt walkway collapse where the builder ignored the blueprints and it was still the engineers fault. And that was with _correct_ blueprints. Holy shit, if you had signed off on stuff for 20 years with dodgy photocopies, how many lives?
Show threadJJ CeleryFeb 21
@markdennehy these are of course the extreme examples, but I was going for "ordinary", ie even an ordinary person would never sleep again, nevermind those who signed off on life-impacting documents 😬
Show threadMark DennehyFeb 21
@jjcelery Oh, definitely. Did you really sign your mortgage documents, are your land registry entries actually correct, are you really married/divorced on the terms you thought you were, what's your kid's actual name, etc, etc, etc.
The amount of havoc random character changes can cause is crazy.
It's just that Prof Perry left a few of us with engineer PTSD so our heads go to the same place first :D
Show threadJJ CeleryFeb 21
@markdennehy I think that's an appropriate amount of horror fear to feel for any engineer 😂 I just wish more people in software felt this this same amount of mortification
Show threadMark DennehyFeb 21
@jjcelery I remain perpetually shocked when I see how rare it is in the flesh :(