Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It is not necessarily crowdstrike's responsibility, but it should be someone's.

If I go to Home Depot to buy rope for belaying at my rock climbing center and someone falls, breaks the rope and dies, then I am on the hook for manslaughter.

Not the rope manufacturer, who clearly labeled the packaging with "do not use in situations where safety can be endangered". Not the retailer, who left it in the packaging with the warning, and made no claim that it was suitable for a climbing safety line. But me, who used a product in a situation where it was unsuitable.

If I instead go to Sterling Rope and the same thing happens, fault is much more complicated, but if someone there was sufficiently negligent they could be liable for manslaughter.

In practice, to convict of manslaughter, you would need to show an individual was negligant. However, our entire industry is bad at our job, so no individual involved failed to perform their duties to a "reasonable" standard.

Software engineering is going to follow the path that all other disciplines of meatspace engineering did. We are going to kill a lot of people; and every so often, enough people will die that we add some basic rules for safety critical software, until eventually, this type of failure occuring without gross negligence becomes nearly unthinkable.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: