What a spectacular level of incompetence, to produce software that when it fails, does so in an open state. In computer security, the goal is for systems to fail in a closed state by default, so a breach is more difficult. Clearly Varian has a different vision for software quality:
The investigation into what happened to Mr. Jerome-Parks quickly turned to the Varian software that powered the linear accelerator.
The software required that three essential programming instructions be saved in sequence: first, the quantity or dose of radiation in the beam; then a digital image of the treatment area; and finally, instructions that guide the multileaf collimator.
When the computer kept crashing, Ms. Kalach, the medical physicist, did not realize that her instructions for the collimator had not been saved, state records show. She proceeded as though the problem had been fixed.
Surely, it ought to follow that when developing medical devices that provide potentially lethal does of radiation, the device should fucking fail in a safe state. Holy shit. Meanwhile, I suspect no one from Varian will ever face criminal prosecution for such life ending incompetence.
Words fail.
