[whouweling]

Interesting edge case! This is why it may be sensible to do some extra checks in things like product expiration batch jobs, to check if the previous run was not to far in the future or past and refuse to run in that case.

Scary to think what might happen if some database purge process is running after this bit flip!

[viraptor]

This is going to give me actual nightmares. Not only database cleanups, but there are quite a few automated backup cycling scripts which would happily throw out terabytes of data this way...

[nolok]

As parent said, it's usually a very good idea to check for time delay and ensure it "makes sense" before doing anything destructive. Doesn't cost much, can save a lot, and adding a command switch to bypass it allows to skip the "haven't booted in a couple week and now everything refuses to run" problem.

A much more common case of when such a check help is "last time run is in the future", that you face every time there is a clock issue. Some scripts... Don't react too well about that.