What Happened?

 The most amusing irony about the CrowdStrike empowered outage that affected millions of computers and their users last week was how Southwest Airlines saved themselves from being part of the catastrophe. Those daffy folks at Southwest had resisted updating their operating system for their machines and consequently missed the bad code sent out by the company whose sole purpose is to secure cyber traffic. 

All those other airlines and companies that relied on being safe from hackers by utilizing the services of a company that likes to promote themselves as "A single agent solution to stop breaches, ransomware, and cyber attacks—powered by world-class security expertise and deep industry experience" were left conspicuously hanging on July 19, 2024. The chaos that ensued was not unlike what was predicted for January 1, 2000. You remember how everyone assumed that planes would fall from the sky and banks would close and no one would be able to have online meetings at the turn of the century? Well, that didn't happen, and happily the planes that were in the air were coaxed back to the ground and everyone's bank accounts remained more or less intact. Those Team meetings? 

They had to be rescheduled. And all those flights that were not in the air but waiting to take off. Those too. The bank accounts were right where they were when the lights dimmed. But for a short period of time, the planet wrestled with the twenty-first century using twentieth century tools. Calls to 911 had to be rerouted. Starbucks customers had to walk up to a human being and ask them to please make them a double frappadolcefina with cinnamon. One of those was perhaps more burdensome than the other. 

For those who had to wrestle with the Blue Screen Of Death, you have my most sincere sympathy. Mac and Linux users? Feel free at this moment to be very smug about your decision to not be part of the milling sheep running Windows and updating it conscientiously. 

Go ahead. 

And remember that this is precisely the kind of thing that brings a nation together. A crisis like this only brings out the best in all of us. Or at least it brings out the pad and paper to add that total up for you manually. 

Now back to that meeting you missed and don't forget to thank your IT guy.