Man or machine, live or die the Crowdstrike that stopped the world
Man or machine, live or die the Crowdstrike that stopped the world, for a moment.
Sure by now the theories have run wild about what exactly happened yesterday, when the computers, terminals and well - society stopped, and why.
So far the story is a Microsoft targeted security product Crowdstrike, that is designed to prevent a malicious attack that brings the world down - brought the world down.
It happened not long after Donald Trump left the stage at the Republican Convention. It was chaos, all hell broke loose. Planes grounded, government services stopped, commercial operations halted, grocery stores taken down. It seemed everything that ran on software, all computers were driven to an immediate halt, everywhere.
Like a futuristic dystopian movie, like clockwork, society went successively dark. TV networks black, nowhere to turn, (X was fine) although #Trump did stop trending for a while, it was all #crowdstrike, #Microsoft, #ITOutage, and the like. It seemed to me it was X that helped calm the world, slow the panic. Tell the truth.
Our modern world is intertwined with technology, it is hard to see where the machine stops and we start. Or is it the other way around?
As a boy I was enamoured with technology, I had learned basic coding skills at 10, I just got it. It all made sense, it is hard to describe, computing and technology was like an extension of my consciousness. Some of us are just built that way.
One thing I know for sure is most people don’t really grasp technology, the dangers, the opportunities, the hope and the fear. In truth I am terrified by what technology has become, in truth I am excited by where technology can take us; zero or one, which of those statements is really true, or is there a quantum option, both. Is that even a logical argument. Yes. Both and neither.
Computer technology is exactly like nuclear technology, a force for medical advancement, power generation a great good; also a source of devastation, a weapon, uncontrolled radiation, bad. Either way it is here, and it is both. We must navigate the advancement the best way we can, because we don’t control all things, all people all and regimes. We never will - that is life. It is entirely dependant on people, humans, humanity. Computing - the technology of zeros, options explicit or otherwise - rests on people.
It is people that make technology, that underpin it, that power the machine. Every line of code, every piece of hardware, the power running down the line, it all relies on a very disconnected but highly interdependent network of people, and people made things. It is up to us, humanity to power the machines and to make them. It is also up to us to guide the implementation.
I think people struggle to understand that technology is not magic, that ‘cloud’ computing is not connected to some fluffy thing up in the sky; that the internet of things is just a collection of zeros and ones, sitting on physical equipment, in a building (or container at the bottom of the sea), filled with mother boards, drives, ram, processors, networking devices, cooling devices and electricity, lots and lots of it.
We spend a lot of time serving technology, the technology we make to serve us. We live in fear of malicious actions, by cyber terrorists, and sometimes mistakes by vendors like crowdstrike. Many precautions are taken but there is little that can be done to mitigate risk to zero, I think that need is an irrational fear. No matter how nefarious the intentions of some may be, in grabbing power or stealing gold, people the vast, massive networks of people that make and deliver the software, hardware and power we rest on - are filled with good intention. More good than bad. Coders who want to know their solutions power the world, that make it a better place. Some of the kindest, gentlest and most decent people I know write software. The same goes for the infrastructure guys, all the way down to the coal miner who digs the dirt we burn to make the lights flash, they are good and decent people.
Many of them kicked into gear yesterday, hard … All because some kid coder and I’m sure, doing his best, didn’t test his code (test your bloody code). So the unsung heroes - the IT crowd ran in fast and worked all night. They solved the unsolvable, reset, repatched, minimised downtime no physical attendance, got the planes in the air again, turned on the checkouts, belted it back to life. No sleep, till the jobs done.
The primary lesson yesterday was to the nefarious ones, good luck bringing us down with a hack, the great network of men and women that saved the world last night, they have children, parents, planes to catch, groceries to buy and lives to live, they want the technology they provide to serve us, no matter how stupid their boss is. No matter how committed the hacker state might be.
The lesson for the rest of us, don’t trust technology so much you give your entire life to it. Keep your cash, maybe even some gold. Keep as much of your valuable electronic data in your own possession, memory sticks are wonderful, small businesses - get your own servers, nothing better than your own tin. Put the phone down every now and then, hug your kids, talk – go out in nature, have parties.
Know with confidence that AI can not take over our lives unless a vast, disconnected but loosely joined network of people, men and women, will it in unison. Good luck with that.
One more thing, don’t let your Government take your freedoms away with technology or using technology as the excuse - say no to Digital ID. Technology is just people, at the end of the day we can be the masters of our own destiny. Technology powers us all as individuals to be the best we can be, that is what excites me more than any irrational fear.