One of the trading companies got stuck with a very high bills after one of their automated transactions went nuts. It brings in to question the idea of automated trading. Even the old guy who was reporting the story said "It isn't the computer's fault. It is the idiot who programmed it." This is true. This is the kind of thing that happens when you do not test properly.
Possible excuses for the above cluster fuck.
- Its my first day.
- I just clicked next and whammy!
- The window washer exposed himself. As I reached up to cover my eyes, I accidentally hit the submit button.
- I was tying to show the new guy how not to do it when I hit submit out of habit.
- The word "Shit!" screamed at the top of one's lungs should be mapped to the "undo" function.
- I was trying to add some entry limitations to the code and forgot to switch off the production database.
I don't have any details on the case. I wonder how long it took the powers that be to figure out this horrible thing was happening.
- Did the bank call someone? I would not have wanted to be the recipient of that call.
- Did the person realize the moment they hit send?
- Did one of the traders who made a killing off this send a thank you note?
From what I've herd, this case only made it to the media because it might put a large firm out of business. I doubt they had insurance to cover this size of snafu. The news says it might have been 400,000,000 pounds involved. If you or I took a bottle of pop from a shop, we would go to jail. How many of these boners roll by without making the headlines?
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