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by dogman144 1807 days ago
Ya poorly worded on my part.

Gist is going from internal combustion with a ton of supporting or fully necessary tech to fully electric, fully SW-driven, really skeeves me out given the above testimonial and others like it.

I openly allow it's quite possible that airplanes can't fly these days but for software though.

1 comments

Modern turbofan/turbojet/turboprop (really, any engine) has a ton of SW involved. Engine controllers [1] literally control the engines. Your point is completely wrong, I've worked on this software and they go through many forms of verification for things to work. Look at the failure rate of avionics and compare that to other industries.

Sure you or your friend may have had a bad experience at that company, but the big players generally won't let software bugs through.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FADEC

Eh,I did say it was only that eng's view of the world, but the big players certainly do let bugs through.

Boeing code leaked in '20 [1] and it was ugly, however it was ~network vs. app layer so unclear how it worked at the engine level.

Add in the track record of CAN bus security difficulties and knowing airplanes use similar tech, "generally won't let bugs through" when paired with the footnoted security leak is a gross overstatement.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-787-code-leak-security-fl...

Before you write it off as an overhyped wired article, it was also a presentation at blackhat [2], so vetted by a fairly rigorous CFP.

[2] https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Wednesday/us-19-Santamarta-Arm...