HACKER Q&A
📣 amichail

Can a programmer be sued for a bug that kills SSDs?


As the number of writes on an SSD are limited, a bug that causes excessive writes can kill an SSD.


  👤 elmerfud Accepted Answer ✓
The first question is, did the programmer create and hide this SSD killing mechanism in a program you would not expect this of? If you can't show intent or malic then your chances of successfully suing go way down.

Now as far as a bug that causes excessive writes and accidental damage their might be a case but it's tricky. First is it a bug or is the program trying to a excessively "safe" with it's data. If you cannot tolerate data loss then you should prefer SSD wear. You account for SSD failures through established mechanisms such as raid.

Even if it can be shown it's a bug, and could never be counted as a feature, the liability of the programmer will likely be limited by the license agreement.

I think the real problem is that even if it's something that was reported and corrected with a bug report, one person's bug is another person's operating as intended.


👤 themomaster
iirc, Turbotax in the mid 2000s instituted a DRM that destroyed a whole lot of hard drives, but I don't believe they were ever sued for it.