This Halloween we return with some horror stories from the world of technology. Because, the scariest thing about horror is the countless number of unordered sequels. You can read the first article of the series here
This is a compilation of stories from various origins. All of them are real.
Some horror stories from the world of technology
Asking the app does not get to Rome
I recently discovered Moovit, a map application that not only tells you the route of the bus but also which stop you are passing by. I was about to buy the paid version until I had to go to a certain address in the Argentine capital. I followed the instructions on the app and got anywhere else but where I needed to go. An error in reading the OpenStreetMap API was responsible for the confusion.
In my case it was just a waste of time. But, Natalia Lorena Cappetti cost her life.
Natalia was an Argentine tourist on vacation in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). As she did not know the city, she asked the Google Maps app to indicate the best way between the city center and the Christ the Redeemer monument. Following the directions, he entered a favela where his car was shot at by criminals.
After a month of agony he passed away in hospital.
The reality imitates fiction
Honor debt is a Tom Clancy novel famous for anticipating an attack on the United States using commercial aircraft. That occupies a few pages. The bulk of the book tells how the computer systems that automate stock trading were manipulated to sink the economy.
Although a large-scale attack like the one Clancy writes did not happen, if there were small-scale events that should make us question how safe our money is.
Knight Capital was one of the largest financial services companies in the United States.. He bought and sold large amounts of shares and his trade constituted 17$% of the Nasdaq. All this changed on August 1, 2012 when their computer systems began to buy and sell huge amounts of shares on their own. When they were finally able to stop them, the loss had risen to $440 million. Or, if you prefer. about 10 million dollars per minute.
Apparently the cause was incorrectly installed software by a technician, whatever that means. Knight Capital was unable to continue in business and was acquired by another company.
reality imitates fiction 2
War Games is a movie based on a book. I don't know if it has too many cinematographic merits, but what is certain is that it made many teenagers of the time passionate about computers. His argument is that an artificial intelligence misreads signals and is about to cause the third world war.
The terrifying thing about this story is how close we came to World War III being real.
It was September 26, 1983, and Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was in charge of monitoring the early warning system on the outskirts of Moscow. Shortly after midnight the alarm sounded. A satellite had detected 5 ballistic missiles launched by the United States.
Petrov did not trust satellites and reasoned that if the United States decided to attack Russia it would do so with more than 5 missilesThat's why he indicated to his superiors that it was a false alarm. Later it was discovered that the 5 missiles were actually the reflection of the sun on the mountains.
programmer and killer
This story could perfectly have been an episode of Law & Order SVU.
Hans Reiser is famous for having been an active contributor to open source projects. His most famous work was ReiserFS, a very innovative file system used in its day by several Linux distributions.
In 98 Hans traveled to Russia where he fell in love with Nina Sharanova with whom he would end up marrying and having two children. The marriage would last until 2004. She would get a restraining order and start divorce proceedings. She, too, would not lack time to get married to Hans's best friend.
Nina disappeared from the places she used to frequent in September 2006.
When the police began to investigate, they naturally focused their eyes on the ex-husband. Hans happened to have some books on how to commit murder, he had washed the car (Inside) and removed the passenger seat (Probably for sunbathing). There were some traces of blood.
This evidence and some more were enough to sentence him to 25 years in prison, but he obtained a reduction of 10 years in exchange for indicating the location of the corpse.
The autopsy indicated that Natalia had been strangled while the couple's children played in the next room.