Re: Canal+ crash

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>]

On Sun, 21 Jul 2024 09:22:06 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> On 2024-07-21 03:04, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 20 Jul 2024 11:08:47 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> 
>>> Why on earth do we need security updates?
>> 
>> Because computer systems are complex, and new bugs keep being
>> discovered all the time.
> 
> This does not make sense. You can create a very complex system out of
> screwdrivers and still each screwdriver would require no update.

There is an old engineering adage, that the complexity of a system arises, 
not so much from the number of individual components, as from the number 
of potential interactions between them.

If you have a box full of screwdrivers, then all you have is a box full of 
screwdrivers.

If you have a computer system made up of a bunch of modules interacting 
with each other, then you could have, potentially, quite a complex system 
indeed.

Look up the term “combinatorial explosion” to learn more.