Going back to 1985, Peter G Neumann's RISKS is billed as a Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems. And that it certainly is. Here are the contents of the current issue:

• Remote physical security for air traffic control center (Rob Slade)
• Beware of the fine print (Peter Mellor)
• The risk with the Mac OS X 10.4.10 version number (T Yip)
• The Athens Affair: Greek Cellphone Caper (Roy Stehle)
• Lightning bolt blamed for NYC power outage (PGN)
• Voltr Risks, Glitch - Fire Alarm - International Space Station (Robert J Perillo)
• Wikipedia, It's Time to Grow Up! The Benoit Murder/Suicide Case (Lauren Weinstein)
• Wikipedia and Responsibility (Lauren Weinstein)
• Re: Transport system complexity presents insurmountable risk? (Mark Brader)
• Re: Gripen: Risks of safety measures in military jet aircraft (Matt Jaffe, Peter Mellor)
• N-version programming -- the errors are in ourselves (Fred Cohen)
• Secure Programming with Static Analysis (Brian Chess)
• Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

RISKS contains a great deal of background to events that are reported in the news and other media. There are many knowledgeable contributors who locate and analyze technical details:

On 2nd February 1989, the first prototype was coming in to land after its sixth test flight. On its previous five flights it had shown a tendency to lateral instability. This time, it showed longitudinal instability, pitching down, then sharply up, then down again to the extent that the pilot could not recover control. The aircraft hit the runway, shearing off the left main gear, bounced, skidded off the runway, turned through 180 degrees, struck the ground with its right wingtip, flipped over, and came to rest on its back. Amazingly, the test pilot, Lars Radestrom, walked away from the wreck.

The investigating committee concluded that the crash was due to a software fault. The chairman, Olaf Forsberg, stated:

"The accident was caused by the aircraft experiencing increasing pitch oscillations (divergent dynamic instability) in the final stage of landing, the oscillations becoming uncontrollable. This was because movement of the stick in the pitch axis exceeded the values predicted when designing the flight control system, whereby the stability margins were exceeded at the critical frequency."

I subscribe to the weekly digest delivered by email once a week, but you can also read all the issues on the web.

Tags: Risks, Technology