56 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
56 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
Date: Wednesday, 3 September 1986 16:46-EDT
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From: "Art Evans" <Evans@TL-20B.ARPA>
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To: Risks@CSL.SRI.COM
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Re: Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
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In another forum that I follow, one corespondent always adds the comment
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Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
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after his signature. In response to a request for explanation, he
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replied somewhat as follows. Since I'm reproducing without permission,
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I have disguised a few things.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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My friend Bud used to be the intercept man at a computer vendor for
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calls when an irate customer called. Seems one day Bud was sitting at
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his desk when the phone rang.
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Bud: Hello. Voice: YOU KILLED MABEL!!
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B: Excuse me? V: YOU KILLED MABEL!!
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This went on for a couple of minutes and Bud was getting nowhere, so he
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decided to alter his approach to the customer.
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B: HOW DID I KILL MABEL? V: YOU PM'ED MY MACHINE!!
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Well to avoid making a long story even longer, I will abbreviate what had
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happened. The customer was a Biologist at the University of Blah-de-blah,
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and he had one of our computers that controlled gas mixtures that Mabel (the
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monkey) breathed. Now Mabel was not your ordinary monkey. The University
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had spent years teaching Mabel to swim, and they were studying the effects
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that different gas mixtures had on her physiology. It turns out that the
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repair folks had just gotten a new Calibrated Power Supply (used to
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calibrate analog equipment), and at their first opportunity decided to
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calibrate the D/A converters in that computer. This changed some of the gas
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mixtures and poor Mabel was asphyxiated. Well Bud then called the branch
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manager for the repair folks:
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Manager: Hello
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B: This is Bud, I heard you did a PM at the University of
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Blah-de-blah.
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M: Yes, we really performed a complete PM. What can I do
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for You?
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B: Can You Swim?
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The moral is, of course, that you should always mount a scratch monkey.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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There are several morals here related to risks in use of computers.
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Examples include, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." However, the
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cautious philosophical approach implied by "always mount a scratch
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monkey" says a lot that we should keep in mind.
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Art Evans
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Tartan Labs
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