To the editor: I am a little embarrassed to admit that I read Michael Hiltzik’s column on the CrowdStrike fiasco with horrified amusement, a dollop of glee and not a whit of surprise. If we continue to abdicate our autonomy to profit-driven tech overlords, we can expect more of the same.
In reading of CrowdStrike’s lack of foresight, I take solace in the U.S. Navy, which trains officers how to use celestial navigation. This assures that if GPS technology is hacked, attacked by foreign agents or given to some other form of chronic cyber-wasting disease, at least somebody can read the stars and assure that ship and crew do not become lost at sea.
So in a mashup of Shakespeare and “Home Alone,” it seems appropriate to offer that the fault is not in our stars (dear Brutus), but in ourselves, and we are what the French would call, ‘les incompétents.’”
Wendy Schramm, Vista, Calif.
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To the editor: As a physicist who suffered from the recent disruption to air travel due to the CrowdStrike failure, I am compelled to comment on this wholly unnecessary and preventable tragedy.
Survival in the natural world requires diversity and balance. When any system (natural or artificial) is too homogeneous and interconnected, then it is easily disrupted when something fails.
Today, we are highly dependent on computers, which store and process enormous quantities of information very rapidly, far beyond any human capabilities. Yet part of that computational ability lies in the interconnectedness and uniformity of computing systems, which is why this outage was so catastrophic.
It is critical that all public and private entities have backup plans and alternative platforms with different operating systems and programs to prevent the catastrophic consequences of connected technology failures.
Monopolies in anything are just not good for the proper functioning of society and must be discouraged — particularly in information systems.
Michael Pravica, Henderson, Nev.
