Homeland Security’s “unwelcome visitors": tales of many bug types

The American Homeland Security megadepartment has been in the news recently, covering a whole taxonomy of bug types, relating to people seen as unwelcome visitors and unwelcome visitors seen as raindrops! Firstly, we have the sad story of honest Debbie Williams Arthur who tried to renew her Virginia driver’s license over the net, only to have it rejected with a message saying her car stickers had to be picked up in person. Her husband went to pick them up, only to be told it had to be Debbie, and she had to call a toll free number in the meantime. When she rang the number she was told that Homeland Security had identified her as a fugitive called Debbie K Williams from another part of the U.S, and to bring her ID in to the office. When she got there, they said the problem would be fixed in 15 minutes, then she was told after an hour there were complications. These included the fact that the system didn’t think she existed and the Homeland Security override would not allow her records to be set up. After 3 ½ hours she left, after being advised to walk home because any police check would result in her arrest as a fugitive! She ended up with a hand written note (!) for the police in case she was stopped. Despite being told the issue would be fixed and she’d be given phone updates, none came. Finally after another visit to the office, she got her car stickers (at which point she probably was a fugitive driving with expired car stickers!). This is a production bug, relating to data. The system as a whole works, but missing data and locks on the existing data from the external homeland security system presumably needed software fixes to rectify the bug.

When Debbie contacted her local politician, he told her that 1 in 30 people in her state had similar problems due to data errors. This is what I’ll call a hearsay bug. Sometimes we find these in user testing, when general user feedback finds problems that are hard to get information on to reproduce. Read more about Debbie here .

Systems like the Drivers License system are typical IT bread-and-butter that have been produced for decades, but data defects still slip through. A cutting edge system being developed for Homeland Security is having bread-and-butter bugs for software testers: bugs in functionality. While over-the-horizon radar systems can detect supersonic planes and missiles on the other side of the planet, the pilot project for the first part of the “virtual fence” at the Mexico border has been identifying groups of walking “illegal aliens” as raindrops, amongst other bugs. The people were moving along the ground not falling from the sky. Perhaps they should have been misidentified as Mexican jumping beans (which actually have bugs inside them)! Read more about the storm here .

The last “bug” is actually part of the bread-and-butter of magicians and law enforcement: deception. Mark McAllister, the 28 year old son of an Irish man “with a past”, had been visiting Homeland Security monthly since 2004 under a supervision order like his father. On a recent visit, he was told a computer glitch meant he would have to return the following week. On his return visit, he was arrested, detained and deported to Ireland the next day. While he has been in the US for 20 years, and is married to an American, he was the only family member not to get political asylum because of a teenage offense. His attorney thinks he will not be able to return for 10 years. This is an extreme example of a type of bug often reported by the media, the classic let’s blame it on a “computer glitch”. Read more about the incident here

The main difference between functional bugs and the other types is that functional bugs typically need to be fixed before the software is accepted. The “virtual fence” pilot project is looking at fixing everything, apparently. I guess that is the purpose of a pilot, but it sounds like “back to the drawing board”. After the operational testing before final acceptance, Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said, “Based on the testing completed, we know what changes in hardware and software are required, prior to proceeding with full implementation. Our plan is to develop the new software, fully test it and subsequently integrate it with a new hardware system. We will also upgrade the Project 28 sensor package with new equipment that corrects deficiencies identified in the testing”. Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long. The pilot was originally planned to take 9 months, and is now at 17 months and counting. Some American senators, including the chair of the Homeland Security committee, are asking for assurances that the project can deliver. Two weeks later, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is planning to accept the “virtual fence” software anyway despite the current issues. He justifies it with a metaphor of moving into a newly built house, “There is some stuff you say ‘I am not taking the house until you fix it’ and then there is some stuff you say ‘You know I will live with it but give me credit’ and that is what we are doing now”. Continuing the metaphor, let’s hope the “house” has “windows” to keep out the storm. While builders are responsible for the quality of their houses for years, for software a warranty is typically ninety days. That leads us to the last type of bug: the bug that customers accept past warranty that suddenly becomes a change that they have to pay for. Let’s hope that Chertoff knows to lock in fixes for the known bugs past warranty! Read some more about the fence here

[Update: Another type of bug perhaps, a descriptive bug?. Michael Chertoff visited the fence site last week and said “I think it looks good”. How does it look anything, it’s a virtual fence . Isn’t English a wonderful language? ]