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A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
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Previous: Hennessy ad | Main | Next: Restroom sign
August 5, 2005 12:02 AM
Broken: Airport monitor virus
Alex B. points out this virus error message he saw a few months back at the Houston airport.
Not Broken. I am a contractor for Continental Airlines (who's screen you show), and while I do not support/maintain the Flight Information Display screens, I can give you some information.
Each screen in the cluster (10-12 screens) is powered by an individual PC. Each PC is connected to Continental's corporate LAN, where they receive updates from a central server.
Because of the LAN connectivity, and that the screens are running a Windows based Operating System, corporate policy requires that they have an anti-virus software installed. While the Flight Info software overrides most dialog boxes, there are a few that still get through. This includes the anti-virus pop-up that you see.
It's not broken, as I said before. The reason it's not broken is it's preventing a virus from getting on our network, which in turn could cause flight delays (yes on the FAA reports the airline files, they can attribute a flight delay to technology).
While I'm sure Mr. Jones is right, what looks broken to me is the fact that such a vital alert box is practically unreadable because it's transparent...I hope there's no detailed information someone might need to jot down!
No Michael, it is broken for a number of reasons.
1. Why would you not issolate your flight screen display information from the rest of your network? The only place a virus is going to get on this machine is from your network, there's no need for this machine to email, access the internet or anything else. All it needs to do is communicate to get some data to display and display it. Viruses require user intervention to run. Clicking on a file, visiting a site, etc. As long as your network is shielding worms, which do not require user interaction this display terminal would be safe. If this screen is showing up, it means your corporate network is infected and is attempting to pass that infection on. That is extrememly broken, and inexcusable. With proper policies and procedures, no corporation should be affected by viruses.
2. This computer is running windows. I don't mean this in the whole windows is bad get a mac mentality, but quite frankly for a system like this that does display you'd be better off not running an OS that is targetted as heavily as Windows is.
3. This virus information is showing to your customers. If customers see this, what faith does it give in your airline. I.E. this airline can't keep their computers virus free, what chance do they have in keeping these huge metal planes in the sky.
4. The photo was cropped to intentionally not show the company responsible for the virus message on their screens, you've now outted your company. Expect to see this picture all over the place with people commenting on the inneptitude of Continental. It's bound to happen.
5. You've also now provided information on how these screens operate and how they are connected. While not a lot of information, if someone was malicious the information you provided could serve as a starting point to altering this display.
I know why the background is black, so it doesnt show all that burn-in, How hard would it be to have a program installed to move the picture around aevery few minutes or hours
What's broken here is that the anti-virus software *interferes* with the flight information display, and the casual passenger can witness that interference.
A much better solution would evaluate all threats to system performance into exactly two categories:
1) Important: Log invisibly and contact the appropriate administrator
2) Critical: Turn off the screen and/or shut down the computer.
Of course, implementing such a solution requires that the components be designed to operate in this way. Most anti-virus software is not configurable in this respect, hence the problem we see here.
Lol. I didn't know they used a full blown OS like Windows to run that kind of thing. If they really need an OS, they should use a mac or Linux. Imagine how the people who's flights are covered up may feel?
'hey i can't see my flight status because of that stupid dialog box!'
ok that's the last airport i want to be flying out of. if the flight status screen can crash, so can tower control's.
sonicx, your reasoning is broken. What do you imagine one system has to do with another?
That's like refusing to fly from an airport where a taxi crashed. If it crashed, so could the planes.
What no one's going to complain that the black on grey text in the dialog isn't as readable as black on white?
"The photo was cropped to intentionally not show the company responsible for the virus message on their screens, you've now outted your company. Expect to see this picture all over the place with people commenting on the inneptitude of Continental. It's bound to happen."
Joshua...you're wrong.
Actually, anyone who knows ANYTHING about the airline industry would know this is Continental, for two reasons:
a) The logo is right there for all to see.
b) The only airline that flies to Dallas Love Field besides Southwest is Continental.
Otherwise, I would say this is in no way broken.
Yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaa. A funny, funny broken.
Customer's user experience:
- I can't see my flight info.
Network admin's user experience:
- Now I have to manipulate the antivirus software in front of the whole airport audience
Grandma who thinks computers are toasters that send email:
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!
The antivirus software is preventing the system from doing its job. How is this not broken? Never mind how easy it is to fix, you install it to keep the system working properly and it's doing the opposite!
Change that policy, get a firewall, and stop wasting money on this crooked-cop software.
In an attempt to sum up several questions that were asked:
"Why would you not issolate your flight screen display information from the rest of your network?"
Flight Info screens are on the corporate network so that a gate agent at their terminal can enter a message into their backend system, and it will automatically update the screens. This could include delays or gate changes. This is also a cost reduction measure, so we don't have to build out duplicate infrastructure for a "private" network just for flight information.
"This computer is running windows."
So? My bank's ATM machines run Windows. Cisco telephone systems run Windows. I can think of a lot of other places that I would be concerned with a product running Windows than a flight information display.
"This virus information is showing to your customers. If customers see this, what faith does it give in your airline. I.E. this airline can't keep their computers virus free, what chance do they have in keeping these huge metal planes in the sky."
It tells customers that we are concerned about information security. It tells them that they should not worry about getting a virus if they use our free wireless at the President's Club (that is, by the way, on an isolated network with it's own Internet connection).
"You've also now provided information on how these screens operate and how they are connected. While not a lot of information, if someone was malicious the information you provided could serve as a starting point to altering this display."
Visit any of our airports, and there are locations that you can see the PC's mounted on a frame behind the screen. In Houston, the PC's for the screens in Terminals C and E are in a room located out of public areas. At other parts of the airport, they are mounted in not-easily-accessable locations. All do not have keyboards or mice, and require an administrator password to get out of the application that is running on the screens. All information is retreived from a central database not at the airport, and not on the local machine (I know where the central database is, but I can't tell you). These systems are secure (as far as I know, since I don't directly work with them, but know people who do.)
"While I'm sure Mr. Jones is right, what looks broken to me is the fact that such a vital alert box is practically unreadable because it's transparent...I hope there's no detailed information someone might need to jot down!"
The adminstrators use remote access software and secure authentication to access the machines. As I stated in a previous response, there is no keyboard or mouse attached. They can read the dialog box from their own workstation, and not standing in the concourse. With our systems, we usually check them once or twice a day, and clear any faults.
"I know why the background is black, so it doesnt show all that burn-in, How hard would it be to have a program installed to move the picture around aevery few minutes or hours"
Most of the information does rotate on a frequent basis. Watch one for 5 minutes, it rotates the color logo bar (at top of screen, cropped in photo) very frequently. When the flight info updates, most screens shift the image slightly as an anti-burn in. (You can see in the photo that the burned in text is not aligned with the flight information text). It helps, but it's not foolproof. Also, most of our screens are now plasma screens instead of CRT's. Experience shows they still will burn in an image over time. With information like we're presenting, it's hard to keep an image moving (otherwise it'd be hard to read, and really broken.)
"ok that's the last airport i want to be flying out of. if the flight status screen can crash, so can tower control's."
The Control Towers and Air Route Traffic Control Centers are operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, not by the airlines. Consider yourself lucky in that remark, as the FAA is still using 20-25 year old proprietary technology in many of it's facilities, and that is prone to crash more frequently than Windows. Aircraft are self contained, and use no Microsoft products on the Flight Deck.
Just as a side note. Houston Airport System (airport managment) runs the same kind of screens in common areas of the airport. I was looking at one of them one day when every screen popped a dialog box about reorganizing the hard drive. Each showed the message for a minute or so, and then disappeared. A couple of hours later, the same dialog box was showing yet again on the same screens. Also, the "Visual Paging System" that is seen next to our flight information displays is owned and operated by Houston Airport System. I have seen "Dr. Watson" messages on the Visual Paging screens for weeks on end. That's the ones that are truely "broken" in this case.
"The adminstrators use remote access software and secure authentication to access the machines. As I stated in a previous response, there is no keyboard or mouse attached. They can read the dialog box from their own workstation, and not standing in the concourse. With our systems, we usually check them once or twice a day, and clear any faults."
Huh? I was saying that the dialog box was transparent, unreadable. If it's not important that it be read on this screen, then why is it there? Get rid of it! Shut the screen down, make it go away, whatever!
If it's not relevant to a user, then don't have it there. Otherwise, it's just bad UI design and, therefore, a bad customer experience.
Michael Jones, you didn't address any of my points.
And, two, this forum is about broken user experiences, not about whether an experience is a bug or a feature. Is the user experience broken? That is the question to answer.
Way to many things run Windows. If the designers would just do a little research,they would realise that it's stupid. What's wrong with a little Linux here and there? Come on, people!
Michael Jones is broken and crazy. Or he is joking. I hope he is joking. Airport systems infiltrated by viruses is most certainly broken. To say it is not broken is nuts.
Continental is a lousy airline, yes, but that's probably irrelevant to this discussion.
WELL, Micheal Jones, it seems you are a contractor for every error humanly possible (http://www.thisisbroken.com/2005/08/sheetz_kiosk_er.html#comments).
Very intresting that you are a contractor for every computer error on this site.
Anyway, I'm not flying into Dallas Love Field anytime soon. Cancelled.
And just WHY is the FAA using 20-25 year old technology? geez that makes me more comfortable when I fly.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Hennessy ad | Main | Next: Restroom sign
Well, that's not too comforting...
Posted by: Froggy618157725 at August 5, 2005 03:31 AM