25 crazy software bugs explained

Let’s explore 25 crazy software bugs that changed the world. Including funny bugs like the Facetime Eavesdropping, mostly harmless bugs like the Morris Worm, and deadly bugs like Therac-25.

0:00 It's not a bug, it's a feature
0:54 Z2K9
1:37 Pentium FDIV
2:24 Facetime Eavesdropping
3:21 Chase Free Money Glitch
4:38 Network Switch Cascade
5:24 OBOGS Hypoxia
6:05 Heathrow Hell
6:41 Vancouver Rounding Error
7:18 Norris Worm
8:15 NASA Mars Orbiter
8:36 Ariane 5 Rocket
9:03 Prius Brake Delay
9:31 Shitibank's Bad UI
10:09 Y2K Fakeout
10:42 Knight Capital Money Burn Speed Run
11:21 Heartbleed
12:03 Toyota Full Send
12:42 Crowdstrike BSOD
13:10 North Eastern Blackout
13:44 Chinook Overflow
14:12 Therac-25
14:51 Patriot Clock
15:20 Aegis Combat UI
15:43 737 Max Disaster

#programming #hacking #humor

💬 Chat with Me on Discord

🔗 Resources

🔥 Get More Content - Upgrade to PRO

Use code YT25 for 25% off PRO access

🎨 My Editor Settings

- Atom One Dark
- vscode-icons
- Fira Code Font

🔖 Topics Covered

- What happened with Therac-25?
- Most expensive software bugs in history
- How do hackers exploit software bugs?
- Memes about software engineering

[colossalwa]

// TODO: I'll comment it out later

[AQDuck]

"The helicopter has automatic throttle control based on external sensors"
Just gonna check the manufac-
And it's Boeing.

[stevepittman]

10:26 No, what's funny about Y2K is that the reason it didn't actually cause any widespread disasters was precisely *because* of the media attention it garnered, which caused institutions and companies across the US (and, presumably, the world) to get their asses in gear and fix it before January 1 2000. I know this because I was part of the efforts to fix the issue in a certain national bank's systems. They were still using mainframes from the 60s and 70s and their software was still largely written in COBOL, it was a massive effort consisting of contractors like me coming in and updating their shit.

[SirFrankoman]

12:30 My 80 year old grandpa was a victim of this. He said his car suddenly accelerated on its own causing him to crash into our local gas station. Nobody believed him and just figured he was an old man and got confused, but he insisted he did not hit the gas. He complained to Toyota but they also discounted him. Literally a month after he died, my grandma got a letter in the mail about the recall and his proof that he really didn't accelerate.

[kkjdaniel]

The myth of the Gandhi bug still gets perpetuated but Sid Meier himself confirmed in his book that it never happened and isn’t even sure how it began.

[ButterNuss.]

Worst part about the Therac was that the Company KNEW about it. But they did not want to fix it to save money and proceeded to only placebo fix the issue, which cost the life of multiple people and injured many more.
Imagine winning against cancer, going to your last Session and then you get to expirience one of the most gruesome deaths imaginable just because some guy deemed your life less important than a bit of saved cash.

[bskbh]

Let's not forget Meta's BGP bug which took down Facebook & Instagram making the world a better place while it lasted.

[asksearchknock]

10:32 Y2K never caused and disasters BECAUSE the money was spent on fixing things

[joehopfield]

We tested, found, and fixed dozens of unix Y2K bugs. That money was *not* wasted.

[Helloworld.]

Small error for the y2k bug, the reason nothing happened was that many companies, governments, etc updated their systems and hardware so the integer overflow wouldn’t happen, the bug did cause damage but at a smaller scale than what people were expecting

[DerSolinski]

About the last Boeing thing:
They didn't even announced the planes had this system, because then every pilot would need mandatory retraining.
So when the planes did that the pilots had no effing idea what was going on.
Oh and it was there to fix a engineering mistake "in software"...

[ChodaBoyUSA]

The reason Y2K was not a catastrophe is due to thousands of people like me working 7 days per week remediating old code.

[Hobbitstomper]

The Y2K bug was real and while the world didn't end, it did create global issues. It's most likely due to the widespread media attention that most bugs were fixed to avoid severe disasters. However despite years of preparations and spending $100s of million, not everything was patched in time and issues did occur. Those issues ranged from funny things like offering a 105 year old woman a spot in a daycare center, all the way to severe issue with Nuclear Power Plants giving false radiation readings. Check Wikipedia for a documented list of confirmed issues that happened on Jan 1. 2000. There is also a list of confirmed fixes that were patched in time, which prevented severe issues.

[sundhaug]

Two fun facts abouty the Morris-worm:

1. It never hit Norway, because the call came over from the US to literally pull the plug on the connection to the rest of the network
2. Robert Tappan Morris' dad, Robert Morris, was the chief cryptologist (expert in ciphers and codes) of the National Security Agency

[Equalisys]

Mom, I’m not a failure but a feature :p

[AntonPuellulla]

I feel the corrupted blood incident in WoW deserved a mention.

[dasfahrer]

The Y2K bug was legit. Myself and many I used to know in the space got paid HUGE bucks to fix dates in old code. A buddy at the time actually bought a Supra (the F&F body style) within the first month of working for a large bank.

[georgehelyar]

Y2k - My brother works at a hospital where they can't analyse the blood because of dates of birth and it reappears every 10 years, at which point they put a hacky fix in and wait another 10 years.

This happens because it uses 2 digit years. Their hacky fixes involve finding symbols that they can substitute for numbers because of poor input validation, like using 15 for 1915 and !5 for 2015.

[orangejuice]

8:07 I’ve never heard NASA pronounce Nassau before. Must be a feature.

[sninctbur]

I love that Heartbleed is so notorious of a bug that it has its own logo