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Who will pay for it?

Who will pay for it?

Posted Oct 31, 2011 16:58 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
In reply to: Who will pay for it? by epa
Parent article: The embedded long-term support initiative

But we aren't talking about unsafe wiring in a desk lamp. Even if we were I'd argue that spending two hours travelling on the bus with a microwave (it caught fire spontaneously after ~8 months use) to get it replaced was a lot more hassle than any software update I've ever undertaken.

Your building example was better. But in fact it's completely routine to "snag" large office or industrial buildings.

When I helped take possession of a four story building in 1998 we were all issued with a sheet of orange stickers labelled "snag". Each problem we discovered was to be marked with a label, and added to a list maintained by the liaison to the building contractor. Some problems were corrected in a few days to our satisfaction, as well as if they'd been corrected during construction. Many were "bodged" so that they met the strict letter of the requirements, but were not really adequate (e.g. it's much cheaper to fiddle with the hinges on a door to make it close, for a few days until it settles again, than to buy and install a new door which fits properly). A few simply couldn't be fixed at all, no way around it without tearing down the building and beginning anew. Some orange stickers for those last problems remained as visible sores on the pristine new building until their adhesive failed years later.

If we added to the "snags" every conceivable way a resourceful and determined attacker could get into the building, we'd never have finished. What if they just drive a truck through the large glass frontage? What if they tailgate a legitimate employee? What if they pay someone to pull the fire alarm, dress as firemen, and just walk in?


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