Automation is error prone
Published Fri, Nov 9 2007 9:43 AM
Technorati Tags: Software Development, Blogging, Annoyances, News
That's something to think about as we rely more and more upon automation in our modern society. People make mistakes. When those mistakes are automated they can happen with more frequency.
That's one of the problems with automating processes. Of course we try to avoid doing things like that. That's why programmers run unit tests when they write a piece of code. We want to make sure that the code does what it was designed to do and that little mistakes haven't crept in.
Software and modern computer hardware are incredibly complex things if you look at them. They start off pretty simple though. At the bottom, a computer is nothing more than a complex arrangement of automated switches, similar to the light switch on your wall. What makes it a computer are the number of switches and how they're wired together with switches controlling other switches and so on.
If you'd like a good explanation at a relatively low but very approachable level of just how a computer works then I'd recommend Charles Petzold's book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. It's a very understandable book that starts from simple concepts and leads you through how to build a computer from relays.
Not that you'd ever want to do such a thing. Even a barely functional computer with a tiny amount of memory (64kb) would cost several million dollars to build from relays and wires, and it would consume huge amounts of power and space. It would be made from several million relays and miles upon miles of wire.
Computers are simple though compared to dealing with people. People are intelligent in many many ways. Consider for a moment the simple thing that you and I enjoy doing — reading blogs.
A blog is basically a journal. Bloggers write about what interests them, whether it's politics, celebrities, software, themselves, or something else entirely.
Most blogs use a pre-built software platform like Blogger or Wordpress. These packages provide the blogger with the ability to do a bit of customization, so one person's blog doesn't look exactly like another's. They also provide a few automated features.
One popular feature that blogging platforms provide is comments and trackbacks. OK. that's actually two separate features, still, these features are automated for the most part. The part that's (usually) not automated is the human on the other end of the process.
When a blogger elects to use the comments feature, it's typically because they want to allow feedback on what they write. After all, the blogger is human too, and blogging is, for some of us at least, a chance to exchange ideas and grow.
So naturally bloggers hope that the comments that are posted to their articles are relevant to what they've written. If for example, I'm writing a post about the pitfalls of automation, it's a reasonable assumption that I'm really not interested in comments that tell me how to make that certain organ larger or how to obtain prescription painkillers online without a prescription. I'm sure that someone wants to know that sort of thing, but count me out.
So bloggers typically resort to some sort of automated anti-spam measures to prevent junk comments from being posted to their blogs. Some bloggers use a device called a CAPTCHA image. This is an image that contains some text, but the text has been distorted a bit. The entity posting the comment is supposed to read the text in the image and enter it into an additional field in the comment form. The idea here is that a person can read the text, but an automated process (which is why I said "the entity posting the comment") can't.
This isn't foolproof though. What happens if the person posting the comment is blind? Then they can't read the text in the CAPTCHA image. Blind people read blogs too. They often use a device called a screen reader, that reads the HTML and uses a synthesized voice to speak to the blind person. Some of these screen readers are quite sophisticated, able to use different intonations to indicate when text is emphasized (using the <em> tag rather than the <i> tag for example).
The algorithms that are used to distort the text in CAPTCHA images vary as well, with some doing more to distort the text than others. Why bother distorting the text? Well, there's another device called the optical character reader. The Post Office uses them to help sort mail.
I suppose if someone were really interested in distributing their spam they could build a sophisticated program that was designed to look for CAPTCHA images and pass them through a character recognition algorithm so that they could defeat the process.
And that's just one of the reasons why relying upon automation isn't always a great idea. If you put a lock on a door, some unscrupulous individual is just bound to try to pick the lock, if they don't just break the window to get in. A CAPTCHA image is a form of lock, and so it's a temptation for talented, but unscrupulous people.
Trackbacks are a bit tougher to block using CAPTCHA images. After all, the trackback process is meant to be automated. The only way I know of to block trackbacks with CAPTCHA images is to use them to block the presentation of the trackback URI. That will typically only work once though, unless the relationship between the post permalink and the trackback URI defeats working out a pattern. Once a spammer has found the pattern used, they never need to get past the CAPTCHA image again. They just go around it.
So bloggers resort to spam filters. AKismet is a good one. Remember though, we're dealing with people, and AKismet is just an automated filter. A clever spammer can still find a way to get past it. Worse, if the filter is too aggressive, it will filter out legitimate comments or trackbacks. We don't want either of these problems, and so the blogger has to monitor the filter.
You'd think that I'm a Luddite trying to make the case against automation from the arguments so far. I'm not. I make my living automating things. I'm just aware of the shortcomings of automation and the fact that people have a tendency to both make mistakes and to be malicious.
Automating mistakes makes them happen at a faster rate. Ignoring the malicious nature of people causes our automated processes to fail at times.
I don't trust automation, but I have to rely upon it all of the time. Relying on automation makes my life much easier. Trusting it opens me up to all manner of problems.
Let's step back for a moment. All of what I've written so far is just a prelude. What really inspired this post was an article from the Daily Mail. It's another story about the pitfalls of automation.
A baffled mum was told by police to pay up or face court after her two-year-old daughter was fined for speeding.
Cute toddler Ayesha Khan was apparently clocked driving 65mph in a 40mph zone by South Yorkshire Police.
Despite mum Sharna's protests, dozy police insisted someone would have to cough up or they faced a court appearance.
Imagine that, a two year old girl driving a car, and speeding at that! Now that's certainly a case of reckless driving isn't it? But wait…
Ayesha was allegedly flashed by a speed camera in on the A638 near York Road, Doncaster.
Police finally admitted they had made a mistake after Sharna proved she was in Huddersfield as the time and the car's registration didn't match their car.
Mrs Khan said: "At first I assumed someone had been caught for speeding and just give a false name, but the ticket was issued from a speed camera.
The ticket was issued from a speed camera. It was issued thanks to an automated system.
Chief Inspector Ian Blint, head of roads' policing, said: "There has been an ambiguity in the information supplied to us that caused the notice of intended prosecution to be issued to Ayesha Khan.
"This is beyond our control and we apologise for any inconvenience and distress caused by the Khan family.
As more and more communities use stop-light cameras and automated radar guns with cameras to issue tickets to drivers, we need to be ever vigilant. These systems are, like any automated system, prone to error. Most of them rely upon a good image of the vehicle's license plate, and issue the ticket to the registered owner of the vehicle.
The problem is, sometimes the information is wrong, and other times, someone else may be driving the vehicle. If my son is driving my car and gets an automated speeding ticket, I'm the one that would be charged, but he is the one that should pay the fine. Even worse, if the wrong license plate is read, someone totally innocent, like Ayesha Khan could be hauled into court for something someone else did.
On West Lake Sammamish Parkway, here in Washington between Issaquah and Redmond, there are two radar-based speed signs. It's interesting to watch them when there's a bit of traffic on the road. I've seen them flashing numbers wildly, as cars come around a corner, some obeying the speed limit and others not. These particular signs aren't equipped with cameras, but imagine if they were. If the camera is focused on the lead car, which is obeying the speed limit, but a trailing car is approaching rapidly and triggers the camera, who's going to get the ticket?
Automation is a wonderful thing, but it's not to be trusted.
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Angel commented:
I hate spam!..lol..hate it hate it..and by the way my friend: Happy Vets day and blessings to all the ones fighting!:)