topics
Even large, complex systems can fail due to a small defect. That's what happened on July 19 when the Western computer network collapsed. And it wasn’t because of a hacker attack. Since then, Western vulnerability has become not just the domain of theoretical hypotheses, but a frightening reality
On July 19, 2024, entire areas of technology seemed to have gone back in time
Major international media outlets report almost daily on the intensification of insurgent and subversive espionage activities against the West. These reports are accredited by the heads of both MI5 and MI6. The Financial Times presented them on a full front page, The Economist repeated them in the last issue. The MI5 director general’s words are in quotes: they want to “create confusion, chaos, mayhem on the streets of Britain and Europe.”
Once again, the intelligence data is mysterious. No matter how credible and obscure, these reports of chaos in the streets at first glance seem very nineteenth-century and in any case ignore the common notion that Western societies are structurally vulnerable, regardless of bad actors who would have an endless prairie in front of them if they wanted to.
A very recent example is the July 19, 2024 cyber incident, where from Manila to Eindhoven, from hospital operating rooms to airport control towers, from banks to television channels, from ships to supermarkets, no sector was able to dodge the bullet. In Great Britain, Sky News was unable to broadcast; J. P. Morgan Chase traders stopped; hundreds of supermarkets accepted only cash payment. Entire areas of technology suddenly got thrown into the past. At some airports, passenger name, seat number, gate indication, and departure time were all handwritten in boarding passes. And they were lucky, as hundreds of thousands of travelers had to deal with rescheduled or canceled vacations, canceled flights, airport storming, very long lines, and unimaginable congestion. Systems failed because computers stopped working. Fortunately, the quarantine started at night and was gradually extended as people woke up, reducing exposure.
One aspect is unique. The outage was caused by Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity product! It was an autoimmune phenomenon given that the antivirus was causing the problem!! Ironically, it all happened because of the software used by thousands of companies to protect them from hackers, but it was not a hacker attack!!! We harm ourselves with no outside assistance needed.
Fortunately, the uproar lasted a few hours and wasn’t total, since not everyone was using Microsoft and Crowdstrike, and Western solidarity was somehow immediate and punctual. Elon Musk on X posted a sarcastic meme that said: “Everything else is down, this app still works…”
Is this an isolated incident? Of course not: evidence of a possible systematic failure in the chain dates back to at least 2010, when McAfee caused a similar problem. Since then, a precise realization has emerged, confirmed repeatedly. Take a look at what happened on February 21, 2024, when ChatGPT crashed. Arpa was born as a decentralized and unbreakable network, but the advent of the hyperlink in 1991 dramatically increased the relevance of supply chains of all types, creating a new interdependence, as Bruno Latour pointed out, among other things. The Internet presented opportunity and vulnerability with equal force. More or less, everything is consolidated and smashed together inside a confusing glassware store. July 19, 2024 confirmed the instability associated with digitalization, which will further intensify.
But China, on that ill-fated July day, remained unaffected: there is more than just the West
Characterizing Western societies as risk societies is now a dense area of reflection with different emphases. It has never been comfortable to stare into the abyss, but today more than ever: along the Red Sea, strategic global communications cables are laid on the seabed less than 200 meters deep. It doesn’t take much time to break them.
On July 19, 2024, for many people around the world, the computer screen became still and blue, showing a background usually defined by professionals as BSoD (blue screen of death). Children of easy-going friendliness, computer scientists give themselves over to a Sabbath dictionary to name the adversities of their hyperbolic global village. As apprentices of a good sorcerer, they are often visited by evil spirits.
The possibility of something easily going wrong and carrying the whole affair into an avalanche has been known since the days of Job and Lucretius. In the Middle Ages, between the plague and cholera, this moment did not go unnoticed, as a famous apologist tells us. A crooked nail in the hoof caused the horse to go limp. The first knight was thrown from his horse, causing the others to fall catastrophically. Once the knights were defeated, the army was also defeated. Once that battle was lost, the war was lost, and finally the kingdom was lost. All because of one nail.
In short, one nail can be enough in the fog of war. Modernity took note of this and, crushing the nail, formulated the “law of hammer” on the subject in one of the masterpieces of scientific methodology (Kaplan, The Conduct of the Enquiry, 1964). If you only have a hammer, everything in front of you can be interpreted by reasoning about a nail.
For us millennials by necessity, it’s easy to realize that, unfortunately, it’s not just one nail that can make things go wrong: it’s quite possible that the fatal nail in our rickety structure, held in place by a million often crooked and rusty nails, ends up getting knocked out. Operational processes in most countries of the world are highly vulnerable. On that day, July 19, 2024, virtually all connections were engaged, except for a few, particularly the Chinese. China has remained invulnerable because it favors its autonomy in these aspects as well. In reality, there is more than just the West.
The day of that shutdown, July 19, 2024, was difficult for other reasons as well, as was every day this late in the game. On the same day, a drone launched by the Houthis was not intercepted by Arrow 3, David’s Pranja, and Iron Dome. A ballistic missile and four drones were launched from Yemen, all of which were shot down except for one that penetrated the Israeli defensive grid and carried 40 kilograms of explosives.
The days are not all the same, but what is the same is failure to realize that each day brings a new problem that accumulates with the previous ones. What lesson can be learned to prevent the daily turmoil from turning into total pandemonium? From René Barjavel in Ravage to Don DeLillo in Silence, there are countless representations of the vulnerability of the West. These are not just literary musings; the first important reflection dates back to the late 1950s, during the Pentagon’s Operation “Argus,” when it became clear that a nuclear explosion in the upper atmosphere could blow up strategic communications.
Even if silencing the Internet is easy, silencing the entire planet will not be easy. Shutting down tweets and letting the bots rest can be done, but it won’t be as easy with humans. An appropriate lesson is the blackout that occurred in New York City on the night of July 13-14, 1977, which erupted into mass violence, murder, fires, looting, raids, vandalism for entire blocks and in total darkness, with subways and airports boarded up. There was indeed mayhem in the streets, and from that standpoint, the whole mosaic is being recreated anew. “Give me a hammer,” sang one of the most beloved pacifist songsters: “It’s the hammer of justice, it’s a song about love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land.” Why is pacifist sentiment prevalent in the West today? Since we know that poor and ordinary people suffer in wars, we do not want mayhem in the streets in front of our house.
