| Recurring |
one_organization |
(a) The software failure incident related to the illegal collection of Canadians' metadata by Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) was described as unintentional and blamed on a software flaw that resulted in sharing metadata [39594]. This incident occurred within the same organization, CSE.
(b) There is no information in the provided article about a similar incident happening at other organizations or with their products and services. |
| Phase (Design/Operation) |
design |
(a) The software failure incident in the article was attributed to a design flaw that resulted in the sharing of metadata by Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) with international partners. The breach was described as unintentional and was discovered internally in 2013. The sharing of metadata, which could identify Canadians, was a result of a software flaw in the system [39594].
(b) The article does not provide specific information about the software failure incident being due to operation or misuse of the system. |
| Boundary (Internal/External) |
within_system |
(a) within_system: The software failure incident reported in the article was attributed to a software flaw within the system. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) mentioned that the breach of sharing Canadians' metadata with international partners was unintentional and was caused by a software flaw that led to the sharing of metadata [39594]. This indicates that the failure originated from within the system itself. |
| Nature (Human/Non-human) |
non-human_actions |
(a) The software failure incident in the article was attributed to a non-human action, specifically a software flaw. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) mentioned that the breach of sharing Canadians' metadata with international partners was unintentional and was caused by a software flaw that led to the sharing of metadata that could identify Canadians [39594]. This indicates that the failure was due to a contributing factor introduced without human participation. |
| Dimension (Hardware/Software) |
software |
(a) The software failure incident mentioned in the article was attributed to a software flaw that resulted in the sharing of metadata, leading to the illegal collection of Canadians' metadata in sweeps of foreign communications by Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) [39594].
(b) The software failure incident was specifically linked to a software flaw within the system, indicating that the contributing factors that led to the breach originated in the software itself [39594]. |
| Objective (Malicious/Non-malicious) |
non-malicious |
(a) The software failure incident related to the illegal collection of Canadians' metadata by Canada's ultra-secret eavesdropping agency was non-malicious. The breach was described as unintentional and attributed to a software flaw that resulted in the sharing of metadata, which could identify Canadians. The agency stated that the likelihood of this leading to any abuses was low, and the breach of Canadian privacy and national security laws was deemed unintentional [39594]. |
| Intent (Poor/Accidental Decisions) |
poor_decisions |
(a) poor_decisions: The software failure incident related to the illegal collection of Canadians' metadata by Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) was attributed to a software flaw that resulted in sharing the metadata with international partners unintentionally. This indicates that the failure was due to poor decisions or contributing factors introduced by poor decisions [39594]. |
| Capability (Incompetence/Accidental) |
development_incompetence, accidental |
(a) The software failure incident in the article was attributed to development incompetence. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in Canada revealed that the breach of Canadians' metadata was unintentional and was caused by a software flaw that resulted in the sharing of metadata with international partners [39594]. The agency mentioned that the breach was discovered internally in 2013, indicating that it was a result of a lack of professional competence in ensuring the proper handling of sensitive data. |
| Duration |
temporary |
The software failure incident mentioned in the article is temporary. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) discovered the breach in 2013 due to a software flaw that resulted in the sharing of metadata [39594]. As a result of this incident, the CSE suspended its sharing of metadata with its Five Eyes intelligence partners until a fix is found. This indicates that the software failure was not permanent but rather a temporary issue that could be resolved with a fix. |
| Behaviour |
omission, value, other |
(a) crash: The software failure incident in the article is not described as a crash where the system loses state and does not perform any of its intended functions.
(b) omission: The software flaw resulted in the sharing of metadata, which is considered an omission as the system omitted to properly manage or route communications over networks, leading to the collection of Canadians' metadata [39594].
(c) timing: The software failure incident is not related to timing issues where the system performs its intended functions but at the wrong time.
(d) value: The software flaw led to the system performing its intended functions incorrectly by sharing metadata that could identify Canadians, which is a value-related failure [39594].
(e) byzantine: The software failure incident does not exhibit characteristics of a byzantine failure where the system behaves erroneously with inconsistent responses and interactions.
(f) other: The behavior of the software failure incident in the article can be categorized as a mistake or anomaly in the system's operation, resulting in the unintentional sharing of Canadians' metadata due to a software flaw [39594]. |