What happened is that people who used the system very day, day in and day out, became so fast at entering the machine settings the rate of UI events exceeded the ability of the custom monitor software written for the machine to respond correctly to them.

Which is still to some extent a UI issue.

But the literal "killer" is what happened next:
  1) The machine detected that it had screwed up.
  2) But the UI reported this by a cryptic error message: "MALFUNCTION nn" - where the 1 = nn = 64 error codes not only weren't explanatory, but weren't even included in the manual.
  3) And if the operator hit "P" (for "proceed") the machine would GO AHEAD AND OPERATE in the known-to-be-broken mode, giving the patient a fatal (high-power, not-swept-around) electrons rather than a 100x weaker flood of x-rays, with NO FURTHER INDICATION that something is still wrong (unless you count the patient sometimes screaming and running out of the room.)

If 2) and 3) aren't user interface problems, what is?

How to get that economy rolling again after it grinds to a halt. I'm thinking put everything for the next couple of years into farming and becoming self-sufficient, and start printing a crypto-drachma. This will look exactly like a regular drachma, except it will have the word "Crypto" in front of it. People with money eat that shit up. The Crypto-drachma will be backed with the full standing and reputation of the Greek government... and... um... did I mention it has the word "Crypto" in front of it? Say that enough and it will quickly become the pre-eminent currency of the world. Admittedly I know absolutely nothing about economics, but apparently neither did the people who got Greece into this.

According to wikipedia, that had software problems that ended up killing people What's that got to do with UI changes and user experience?

The original post was about bad user interfaces causing harm to people. Changes breaking the user experience was only one of the issues.

In Therac's case the bug WAS primarily in the user interface:
  - Due to a race condition, if a button happened to be pressed at the wrong moment and the menu filled out in a particular order, the device would configure the electron beam for x-ray generation rather than electron beam generation (high electron beam current, no scanning) but not position the target, flattening filter, collimator, or ion-chamber x-ray sensor in the beamway, resulting in a configuration that irradiated the patient with beta radiation, rather than x-rays, at 100x a normal dose.)
  - The machine DID detect that there was a problem. But it reported it as "MALFUNCTION nn" - where nn was a number from 1 to 64 and not explained in the manual. If the operator entered "P" (proceed), it would then go ahead and operate in the improper mode anyhow.

Both the second part and most of the first part sound like user interface problem to me.

Someone started uploading all the HackingTeam source code to GitHub ... There are also some signing keys for kernel drivers in here.

IMHO:

Anyone with a project hosted on git hub should pull a backup copy NOW!

Hosting this leak on git hub could lead to moves by authorities to contain it - which could have the side effect of making GitHub and/or some projects on it unavailable - temporarily or permanently.

Better safe than sorry.

... will this help bona fide security researchers with their work on fighting exploits on all platforms ... ?

I wonder if this will also help people trying to write open software for closed devices? Signing keys, driver sources with spyware installed, ... Not only does it expose the malware bypassing the user's security, it may also expose the internal details of how the devices are driven and/or how to compromise the malware's and devices' anti-user "security".

(I have often wondered how many of the closed-driver devices have the code closed just for business reasons and how many are closed because that's where the spyware has been installed and they can't let the source out - even sanitized - because that would lead to the spyware's exposure.)

That worked very well for PGP.

I believe technically ITAR classifies me as a weapon, because of the things that I know. One of which being exactly how well using ITAR to forbid the distribution of software worked on PGP. And also that putting shit back in the dog doesn't tend to work very well. And that the law was crafted by ignorant people who were under the illusion that was an option. The funny thing is, Americans are actually getting interested in making things again. With their hands. And other parts. And after a couple-three... four... or so... decades of Americans not really being all that interested in that, policy makers have no idea how to deal with it. So they can keep writing their laws and then someone will invent something like a crossbow that shoots dildos, and the legal arms race will continue. Except then at least one person will already have a crossbow that shoots dildos.

There you go, some premium weapon-grade snark. If someone is inspired by this post to create a crossbow that shoots dildos, please credit me. Or at least send me a youtube link.

The goal is to intimidate the makers of such designs. Arrest first and ask questions later, when such designs get out.

It's also to make it harder for "the common man" to arm himself - in case a Schelling Point is reached and a LOT of people suddenly decide that they need to arm themselves against the government or its puppeteers. By slowing them down, and reducing the number and quality of designs available, the powers that be have more time to react and try to divide and reconquer.

Of course intimidating designers is a big part of that.

"We hold these truths to be self evident"

They knew what they were saying. The fact that they had some distastful things in their past, doesn't negate what they set up.

Oh, and the one guy that was perfect, you won't follow either, so unless you are without sin, stop throwing stones.

BTW, Liberals kill babies by the millions, which is much worse that owning a slave IMHO. So can I toss out everything Democrats have supported over the last 40 years?

This is not the first time they did this. In fact it has quite an interesting history in cryptography that was classified as a munition for just this reason.

Which is why OpenBSD is hosted from outside the US. (It's NOT just that Theo happens to live in Canada.)

There is no definition. The court rule that defining marriage is a violation of 14th Amendment. Guess what, polygamists and incestuous marriages are also now legal.

"We hold these truths to be self evident" ...

The responder to my initial post was simply tossing the baby out with the bathwater. Freedom, Liberty are being eroded for group politics; this is evil as the group always has more power than an individual.

Good luck convincing me that groups have more rights than individuals.

Let me know when you accept all versions of "marriage" how anyone defines it, in all 50 states (see plural marriages) We already define marriage and redefining it simply suggests that it isn't really a right.

Gay marriage isn't about sex, or living with someone, kids or anything else they make it out to be, instead it is all about government sanction benefits. I would like to marry my daughter (not for sex, or living with her) so that I can have the same benefits granted to gay people. Until then, you aren't for "marriage equality" you're for redefining marriage as long as it suits your particular version. My version doesn't count.

Very Unstable Herbs!

It's OK. I'm from Colorado, I know what you really meant.

You shouldn't forget that Toshiba was paying (or trying to pay) studios to switch to HD DVD. The Warner defection effectively ended the format war because Toshiba thought it had a deal where they would pay $100 million to Warner and $120 to Fox and they would both switch to HD-DVD exclusively. That deal would probably have fatally wounded Blu-Ray. However, you should know that after a slow start (plague by higher prices and hardware and software defects), by late 2007, Blu-Ray disks were outselling HD-DVD disks 2 to 1 overall. So it was Toshiba who needed to pull off a major victory and that's why they were offering money to both Fox and Warner to go exclusively HD-DVD.

To understand why things shook out as they did you have to understand that Warner probably didn't care which format won as long as one of them did. They were losing money because DVD sales were dropping but most customers were waiting to see which HD format would win. Warner, as the studio with the largest library of titles, figured it was losing the most money from the format war. I think when they evaluated the choices, they could see that going to HD-DVD wasn't going to end the format war, it was going to prolong it. That why they specified that Toshiba had to convince another major studio to defect. Warner wanted an immediate decisive victory. So, when the Fox deal fell through, Warner made their decision. So while they certainly took the money from Sony, they it wasn't the money from Sony that made them choose. And it's reasonably to believe them because 400 million is not that much compared to their estimated yearly profits (billions instead of millions) from their back library sales once the format war was over.

So, your narrative isn't entirely correct, the deal ended the format war decisively because Blu Ray was already winning, this back-room deal ended it in the direction it was already heading. That's not say that Sony wasn't desperate to win, but both sides were throwing money around and Sony was already winning.