The Grip of Technology and Digital Landmines

SAN FRANCISCO — “Move fast and break things,” the high-tech mantra popularized 20 years ago by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, was meant to be a rallying cry for disruptive innovation. Now it seems more like an elegy for a society built on a digital foundation too fragile to withstand a flawed program designed to protect computers—not damage them.

The worldwide technology crisis caused by a faulty update installed on computers running Microsoft’s popular Windows software earlier this month by cybersecurity specialist CrowdStrike has proven so severe that some affected companies, such as Delta Air Lines, were still struggling with its effects days later.

It’s a telling moment—illustrating the digital pitfalls of a culture that takes the magic of technology for granted until it turns into a horror show that exposes our ignorance and vulnerability.

Tiffany McAllister and Andres Bernal try to change their flight reservations to Iowa at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, July 19, 2024, as a major internet outage disrupts flights, media and businesses around the world. BEN GRAY/AP

“We are completely dependent on systems that we don’t even know exist until they break,” said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster and historian. “We’ve become a bit like Blanche DuBois in that scene in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” where she says, “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.”

Dangers of a Connected World

Dependency—and extreme vulnerability—begins with the connections that connect our computers, phones, and other devices. While that may make life easier and more convenient, it also means that outages can have far-reaching side effects, whether they’re caused by a mistake like CrowdStrike’s or by malicious intent from a hacker.

“Maybe it’s time to look at how the internet works and then ask why the internet works the way it does. Because a lot of things are held together by rubber and shoelaces,” said Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University.

That risk is compounded by the growing scrutiny of the corporate cabal popularly known as “Big Tech”: Microsoft, whose software powers most of the world’s computers; Apple and Google, whose software powers virtually all of the world’s smartphones; Amazon, which oversees the data centers responsible for keeping websites running (another key service that Microsoft and Google also provide, in addition to their e-commerce marketplace); and Meta Platforms, the social media hub that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

It’s a highly concentrated empire with a few corridors open to a network of smaller companies like CrowdStrike, a company with $3 billion in annual revenue, a fraction of Microsoft’s nearly $250 billion in annual sales. All the key players still tend to prioritize profit over quality, said Isak Nti Asar, co-director of the cybersecurity and global policy program at Indiana University.

“We’ve built a cult of innovation, a system that says, ‘Get technology into people’s hands as quickly as possible, and then fix it when you find out you have a problem,’” Nti Asar said. “We should be moving slower and demanding better technology, rather than surrendering to these feudal lords.”

How the hell did we get here?

But is Big Tech to blame for this situation? Or has 21st-century society unwittingly allowed us to get to this point—consumers eagerly buying their next shiny device, gleefully posting photos online, and seemingly inappropriate lawmakers stepping in to enact safeguards?

“Everyone wants to blame someone else,” Saffo said, “but I would say you need to start looking in the mirror.”

If our digital evolution seems to be headed in the wrong direction, should we change course? Is that even possible when some credit card companies charge their customers a fee if they prefer to have their monthly billing systems delivered to them via the U.S. Postal Service, which has become known as “snail mail” because it moves so slowly?

Staying in a different era has served Southwest Airlines well during the CrowdStrike mess, as its system still runs on Windows software from the 1990s. That technology is so outdated that Southwest doesn’t rely on CrowdStrike for security. But that sword has another, less attractive side: Behaving like a Luddite has embroiled Southwest in the 2022 holiday travel season, when it canceled thousands of flights because the technology couldn’t properly adjust crew schedules.

But it’s becoming increasingly untenable to return to the analog and early digital era of 30 or 40 years ago, when more tasks were done by hand and more records were maintained on pen and paper. If anything, the technology seems destined for even greater ubiquity, now that artificial intelligence seems poised to automate more tasks, including potentially writing software update code that will be checked by a computer — which will be overseen by another computer to make sure it’s not malfunctioning.

That doesn’t mean individual households can’t still fall back on some old tricks as a backup in case the technology fails, said Matt Mittelsteadt, a research associate at the Mercatus Center, a research institution at George Mason University. “There’s a growing understanding that some of the things we used to scoff at, like writing your password on a Post-It, aren’t necessarily the worst ideas.”

At this point, experts say both government and the private sector need to spend more time mapping the digital ecosystem to better understand the system’s vulnerabilities. Otherwise, society as a whole could find itself wandering through a field of digital landmines—blindfolded. Mittelsteadt says: “We have no information about the environment we’re operating in right now, other than there are a lot of ticking time bombs out there.”