CS625 Final Term Highlighted Handouts Week 9-16 by Rocky

CS625 Professional Practices · FINAL TERM (WEEK 9-16) · (VURANK) · Introduction to Software Safety · Liability & Practice:

 We will explore areas of legal liability and mechanisms for regulating potentially hazardous activities as well as the factors which should be taken into account for safety related applications  Nowadays, computer-controlled systems are to be found in a wide range of diverse applications such as:-

Industry: Manufacturing systems, robots etc.

Medicine: Intensive care monitoring, radiotherapy etc.

Transport: Railway signaling systems, aircraft, space shuttle etc.

Military and defense applications

Regulatory Issues:

Standards:

Use of appropriate standards is both a familiar and traditional technique for regulating hazardous activities and attempting to ensure the safety of a product

Certification and licensing:

Certification requires that either the product or the practitioner conforms to some specified standard whereas licensing means that the product cannot go on the market at all, or the practitioner operate, unless the product is licensed or the practitioner in possession of the requisite license

Professional codes of practice:

Professional and trade associations should devise codes of practice to govern their members

Regulation by law:

The law may exert a regulatory effect either directly or by requiring compliance with other forms of regulation such as standards and licensing because of fears of litigation if safety standards are breached Certification: This means that a product or a person (like a professional) has been checked and confirmed to meet certain standards or rules

Licensing: This is a legal requirement. It means that a product cannot be sold, or a person cannot do their job, unless they have a special official permission (a license).

Legal Liability:

System designers and software engineers may have legal responsibilities under statutes such as the Health and Safety

Product liability and the Consumer Protection Act 1987

Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers and retailers are held responsible for any injuries products cause.

Regardless of any contractual limitations of liability, if a product or any of its component parts are defective its manufacturer may be liable for damage under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) or the common law of negligence

Negligence

The manufacturer or system designer has failed to take due care in the construction or design of the system, and this lack of care has resulted in failure leading to the injury

Competence, training and experience:

 Competence means “knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge”

 There is an understood assumption that all those engaged in the design and development of safety system software are competent to perform the necessary tasks  Factors such as training and relevant experience are also considered important traits for a competent software engineer

Factors affecting system safety:

 Hazard analysis

 Requirements and specification

 System Reliability and safety

 Design

 Testing and debugging

 Safety integrity analysis and risk assessment

 Documentation

(END OF WEEK 9)

Imp MCQ + short

imp long laws / rules

Responsible

(WEEK # 10)

Computer Misuse & Criminal Law:

The media and popular computing press abound with tales of multi-million pound computer frauds and of the dangers to commercial companies, governmental data banks, financial institutions and national security from the activities of computer hackers

Computing and criminal activity:

 Modern business process is done through utilizing computer software and hardware, i.e. some form of computer system is used in it.  There has been a sharp rise in the number of crimes involving computing; and the Internet has undoubtedly created new security risks

Categories of misuse:

Under the study of the English criminal law, the Law Commission highlighted a number of categories of misuse of computers

 Unauthorized obtaining of information from a computer

Eavesdropping on a computer

Making unauthorized use of computers for personal benefit  Unauthorized alteration or destruction of information stored on a computer

 Denying access to an authorized user

 The unauthorized removal of information stored on a computer