They carefully scrutinize each story, looking for scientific or technological errors.

"Koen was born because of a technological error.

He said the issue was, "How shall we respond diplomatically and with a sense of humanity to a technological error resulting in the loss of 290 lives.

All this occurred because there was a technological error in the system that cut down the regular and emergency power causing the five reactors to destabilize and explode.

"Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them, which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs," the official explained.

Mr. Webster said he had never seen the report because the teletype containing it, which was sent from the F.B.I.'s Washington field office to its headquarters two blocks away, was lost through a "technological error."

After two days of angry inquiries and charges of government censorship, the Indian government took a step Thursday toward explaining a mysterious blockade on personal blogs, calling it "a technological error" that would be repaired soon.

The University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and North Shore Medical Center (Salem, Mass.) have installed a "bar coded sponge management system" reasoning that technological error is smaller than human error.