This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Article on MySQL vs. Postgres From: Ron Chmara <ron@Opus1.COM> Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 02:02:36 -0700 The Hermit Hacker wrote: > Someone want to give me an example of something that would be > life-threatening that would run on a database? I can think of loads of > mission critical stuff, but life threatening? How soon we forget the Y2K horror story warnings.... Pharmacy dispensary systems <-No meds, folks die. Medical needs supply chain systems <- No Meds or Gauze or Tools, folks die. Surgery scheduling systems <- No doctors or rooms for surgery, folks die Military bombing flight-path systems <-Bad data for bomb location... Weapons Design specifications storage <- Poorly designed systems killing the testers and military users Powergrid billing info <-No power, on assisted living (life support) Banking/Financial account data <-No money, slow death of hunger Food Shipping systems <- No food Water distribution/management systems <- No water (I live in a desert) Just off of the top of my head, yes, it's possible to kill people with bad data. ===