zlacker

Such a device should have a simple protective circuit that doesn't allow this. This is common in any expensive or critical industrial system.

>>Gare+(OP)
"Should" unfortunately ain't the same as "does". The Torvaldsian (for lack of a better word) attitude seems to be to assume that someone is indeed dumb enough to design a system wherein all safety measures are software-defined, and in such a situation the software in question probably shouldn't catastrophically fail on every last failed assertion.