Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee Jones
Q: HTF could this happen one out of literally a billion hands? [1] Computers don't just arbitrarily decide to do something differently the 297,446,238th time they do some algorithm.
A: Actually, I got to thinking about that myself. Consider this: any moderately sophisticated computer program probably has a state variable space of almost incalculable size. Take all the variables in the program and the values they can hold. Multiply that by the number of different paths the program might have followed to reach a particular place in the code. Then add in all the interactions between various servers in the system.
Obviously, we had a perfect storm of state variables which caused this problem. We don't believe it's happened before and we definitely don't expect it to happen again. But we're putting in more checks to make sure it doesn't.
|
You're saying the program exploited itself?
If it happened this way once, isn't it likely to happen a few more times very shortly after the first time, when many of the state variables are unchanged?
In my wild guessy opinion, there is a better chance of a piece of malicious code being switched on and off.