John Pescatore

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John Pescatore
VP Distinguished Analyst
11 years at Gartner
32 years IT industry

John Pescatore is a vice president and research fellow in Gartner Research. Mr. Pescatore has 32 years of experience in computer, network and information security. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Pescatore was senior consultant for Entrust Technologies and Trusted Information Systems… Read Full Bio

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The Brakes Always Seem to Fail in Software

by John Pescatore  |  February 4, 2010  |  3 Comments

Toyota is in the news again today, this time admitting that the “recent brake problems in its smash-hit Prius hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle involved computer software used in automated systems…” Since software engineering is still an oxymoron, it is actually quite a scary thought to think that the brakes in my car might be controlled by software. It is sort of like thinking that the fire extinguishers in my house might be filled with gasoline.

Now, mechanical and electrical engineering disciplines do exist, so mechanical problems in cars generally result in recalls where the manufacturer bears the cost of repair. Since software engineering does not exist, the software industry has largely been able to avoid having to bear the cost of fixing the software -they just make the patches available and we have to fix the software.

But, Toyota is unlikely to do that for the braking system software in the Prius – perhaps this will serve as a precedent for chipping away at the software industry’s ability to avoid bearing the cost of fixing defects in their products?

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  • 1 The Brakes Always Seem to Fail in Software « Seo Elite   February 4, 2010 at 9:44 am

    [...] Today found this great post, read this quick excerpt : Toyota is in the news again today, this time admitting that the “recent brake problems in its smash-hit Prius hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle involved computer software used in automated systems…” Since software engineering is still an … Read the rest of this great post Here [...]

  • 2 Stiennon   February 4, 2010 at 10:14 am

    One way the software industry is addressing their issue is by converting to SaaS. If there is a problem they just fix it. No need for update alerts, SLA’s etc. Everyone uses the same version all the time. It is beautiful.

  • 3 John Pescatore   February 4, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    Except, remember: the first S in SaaS is still “software.” Thus, zero day flaws could be exploited with much greater impact – compromise one SaaS provider and you can impact every user of that SaaS. Then there is the % of patches that invariably open up new vulnerabilities, or actually make the old one worse; and the % that break applications, since so much SaaS these days is really Application Platform as a Service.

    So, just as Pizza as a Service can still be really crappy pizza that is just delivered *to* you, Software as a Service…

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