Software Testing Blog

I can’t take credit for the pun in the title (it’s from The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror*) but it fit so well with today’s theme, I just couldn’t help myself.

That’s right, it’s Halloweekend (that lame pun is mine). And so despite the warnings from that old guy in Pet Sematary who said that “Sometimes…dead is better,” we’ve decided to help a few scary software bugs rise from their graves. What could possibly go wrong?

Grills to Cook Babies and More

From OrigSoft.com: “It’s a well-known problem with websites that if you trust user-submitted data that you will get burned. Sears literally did get burned by their own incompetence when their website started promoting ‘Grills to cook babies and more’. The problem wasn’t a huge lack judgment by the Sears product team, but rather a lack of understanding about displaying variable names and values in the URL. A lot of sites do this by default, but the Sears site took it one step further. If a specific page became popular, the results were cached and displayed to users.”

The Ping of Death

From Wired: “A lack of sanity checks and error handling in the IP fragmentation reassembly code makes it possible to crash a wide variety of operating systems by sending a malformed “ping” packet from anywhere on the internet. Most obviously affected are computers running Windows, which lock up and display the so-called “blue screen of death” when they receive these packets. But the attack also affects many Macintosh and Unix systems as well.”

Donkey Kong Kill Screen

From Wikipedia: “Donkey Kong also featured a kill screen in the 22nd stage, and the 117th screen. This is an example of a kill screen that is not due to an integer overflow in a level counter (since programmers prevented this), but a different oversight on the part of the designers. The amount of time allowed for any given screen is determined algorithmically during play by the level the player is on. The timer is calculated 100×(10×(level + 4)), and has a maximum value of 8000. When the level reaches 22, the game reads 100×(10×(22+4)) or 100×260. However, the 8-bit counter rolls over at 256, meaning the game calculates 100*4. This causes the timer to be set so low that there is simply not enough time for the screen to possibly be completed.” (Note: we’ve blogged about this before)

AT&T Lines Go Dead

From DevTopics: A single switch at one of AT&T’s 114 switching centers suffered a minor mechanical problem and shut down the center. When the center came back up, it sent a message to other switching centers, which in turn caused them to shut down and brought down the entire AT&T network for 9 hours.

Cause: A single line of buggy code in a complex software upgrade implemented to speed up calling caused a ripple effect that shut down the network.

Life’s a Glitch, Then You Die*

From StudentLife.com: “It’s Y2K, and Homer is the only technician in the world who forgot to debug his computer. So when the ball drops, the virus spreads and pandemonium ensues. Planes fall from the skies, and nuclear missiles are deployed. Dick Clark’s face melts off, revealing him to be a robot. In short, the world is doomed. But there’s an out; the Simpsons discover that something called “Operation Exodus” plans to rocket the world’s most important people into space so they can start a new human civilization. They yoink a ticket off Krusty’s body and sprint to Houston. But only Lisa, Marge and Maggie are allowed on the ship (Lisa’s their proofreader), and all hope seems lost until Homer and Bart spy another rocket about to take off. They leave Earth behind, but something about this shuttle doesn’t seem right. Homer looks around in panic at Dan Quayle, Pauly Shore and Tom Arnold, realizing they’re far from being the world’s best and brightest people. Also, their ship is headed directly into the sun. Rosie O’Donnell leads all of the passengers in “Clang, Clang, Clang,” and Homer decides death can’t come fast enough, as he ejects his and Bart’s seats from the shuttle, where their heads can pop in peace.”

OK, so only 4 out of the 5 bugs actually occurred. Forgive us then for “exorcising” our “Poe”tic license on that last one. It is Halloween after all.