Win 7 if you are lucky, most run xp. Modern ones run Android or iOS.
But to your point you can basically go back to the archives of the 90s internet and go on a shopping spree of vulnerabilities for dos looking at Trojan/virus code.
I'm wondering which part? Theres a lot of weird stuff going on on the prescription side of things but thats more about the weird formats that get used.
Most of the internal and data stuff is pretty solid but never saw any of the systems stuff from the machines themselves so unsure how messy that might be.
They've always been big on contractors so it wouldn't surprise me on the readability of some of that stuff.
JD uses desktop simulators, then simulation using real hardware on test stands with recorded data, then field trials, then controlled trials with partner operators. THEN they release to the public.
I'm terrified somebody will think their tweak is 'obviously safe' and share it online and before we know it a combine will run through an elementary school.
Ah, so you are afraid people that people who use and repair tractors, and can already break them in many ways that you don't understand (e.g. mechanically), will break them in a way you do understand (using software!), and so you would rather have those ways be illegal to keep you from worrying.
Using your line of reasoning, we should close down repair shops altogether. How can we trust people without engineering degrees work on something like brakes? Before we know it, we'll see buses full of schoolchildren on fire or something.
The fearmongering aspect of "combine running through an elementary school" aside (although perhaps the fact that schools aren't usually located in corn fields and have walls could warrant a reminder), I personally find the general approach of "I am afraid of X, so let's make/keep X illegal" terrifying.
To be honest statements like "before we know it a combine will run through an elementary school." could be considered a bit extreme / trollish don't you think?
GP is phrased pretty poorly and disrespectfully. Though I think there is a decent underlying point.
People are generally pretty good at not putting questionable, critical parts into vehicles. Hopefully that holds for the software "part" as well. Maybe if software engineering moves towards better testing practices, we'd have reliable methods to test whether firmware was safe or not.
Many states already require vehicle safety inspections to address concerns such as yours. I could see states requiring manufactures work with the state to provide a way to inspect the firmware for safety, (not just checking the hash against the manufacturer code).
Used to work in the centre point tower on Tottenham Court Road.
The lifts had no buttons inside the car, your security tag would program in the floor, so you had to get in the right one otherwise you’d be stuffed.
There was a restaurant open to the public at the top, so in the evening the lifts would be full of forlorn diners trying to find their way out.
The computer would often crash and reboot mid journey - the lift would stop, the lights would go out and the screen would run through a boot sequence, before starting up again.
I once saw a technician tinker the system and he genuinely had a bunch of five inch floppy disks.
I live in central London in a 3-4 years old building (24 floors) and the elevators are truly a joke. Every 3-6 days they somehow get out of sync with which floor they are currently on, especially if you go first to -1, after that pretty much every floor will be wrong :) I always wonder who wrote it.
I know a guy who built an elevator system single board computer to control it. The big problem was the power to the board - the motor turning on and off and the old electrical system made it very spiky, which would cause the computer to glitch. He built in a lot of self-checking in the computer, but it would still fail once a day or so. He eventually fixed that by having the computer just hardware reset itself regularly.
Was there any particular reason that the problem could not have been resolved through hardware since the hardware was a new development?(i.e. a UPS or better filtering?)
It's probably trouble with the sensors in combination with bad capacitors, which cause the motors to not accelerate the elevator at the rate which it is programmed to expect, so it doesn't quite exactly know where it is. Tldr it's glitchy.
My building replaced its elevators last year, and one car still has an “activate Windows” overlay in the corner of the screen. A recent change to the floor selection wallpaper has somehow resulted in the button font in another car mysteriously reverting to Verdana.
All I can do is remind myself there’s a mechanical interlock to keep the car from free-falling.
The post you link actually states the opposite, that Elevators are more dangerous than all the other listed methods of travel except the Space Shuttle.
Don't be horrified for your safety. The software controls where the empty elevator goes. Many of the safety features, like the brakes, are tested regularly under the law and separate from the technician/programmer's work.
