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The Crowdstrike software update

For many Crowdstrike customers, the amount of recourse may be limited to "fees paid" under the terms and conditions of their agreements with Crowdstrike. The article linked in this post points out (correctly) that large customers may have negotiated more favorable terms, but, from my experience with technology vendors, I can say that this isn't always a sure thing. Cloud-based vendors and cloud infrastructure providers vary widely in their flexibility, with some using a "take it or leave it" approach to customers. Of course, none of this means that a customer couldn't try to seek recourse on other grounds.

 
A question for you tech-savvy guys: Does this incident say anything about the movement of everything -- or the apparent push to move everything -- to "the Cloud"? Do station clusters still have their own, local data storage, or is that increasingly on the "cloud", too?
This incident had nothing to do with the cloud, but more that CrowdStrike pushed security patches that adversely affected Microsoft products. That included those who relied on Microsoft 365 Office, a cloud-based subscription. Users with their own data centers but used CrowdStrike security, also had the same or similar problem. In the case of cloud users, the errant CrowdStrike patch was blocking access to drives, which in the case of airlines, included their various databases. The same situation would have been true for cloud, or non-cloud applications.
 
The hospital organization I work for now was hit hard with this problem and we worked on fixing the most urgent devices over Friday and yesterday, but we still have a lot to go in areas where we couldn't get access or with people who took their laptops home. For us the fix only involved deleting one line of data to get most PCs working again, but there will probably be other PCs that we won't know about until days or weeks from now.
 
Here in Atlanta, Delta Airlines has really been hit hard. There are still hundreds of people sleeping on the floor. No rental cars available. Still the Blue Screen of Death on the flight departure and arrival boards at Hartsfield Jackson. It's so bad Channel 2 has a link on their website where passengers can get a refund from Delta. On guy that was interviewed was going downtown to take a Greyhound bus for a 15 hour trip. I have a trip a in August. I hope everything is settled by then. Use to be all you really worried about was weather or mechanical issues with the plane.
 
Here's a video from Adam the Woo, who does travel videos, about trying to get a flight from Orlando to Atlanta then Pittsburgh on Delta Friday morning:
 
Here's a video from Adam the Woo, who does travel videos, about trying to get a flight from Orlando to Atlanta then Pittsburgh on Delta Friday morning:
He was very lucky. I got a call from a neighbor (Delta copilot) who called and left a message Saturday morning to make sure his cat has food and water. He said Delta's system that tracks and assigns crews was messed up too He was in Seattle and had to call Atlanta to try to get his assignment. He is a "substitute" copilot. He finally got back Sunday Morning. He left Sunday evening. He had me to take his cat to a groomer who also has a "Cat and Dog Motel" Monday morning. He didn't know when he will be back home. One thing the general public doesn't know is pilots are trained and certified on aircraft types. Usually a Boeing pilot flys Boeing planes and Airbus crews fly Airbus planes. From a Pilot and Copilot staffing point Delta is 2 separate airlines.
 
Most Congresspersons are Lawyers. Hopefully they have a staffer who gets them the correct info. If a large donor who was affected called I will bet they got "educated".
 
I read an article that the Sinclair NBC station in Vegas aired a "LifeLock" infomercial on a loop for 6 hours because of the outage.
With the way some stations do that might have been on purpose. WREG CBS 3 in Memphis is notorious for that on non-sports periods on weekends, usually this time of year. 😡
 
House committee calls CrowdStrike CEO for hearings:



They likely have no idea what this company does.
This is one area where legislators, few of whom are engineers, should let the market self-regulate.
 
This is one area where legislators, few of whom are engineers, should let the market self-regulate.
Didn't they try that with AM stereo. The FCC had a standard and the commission let a Kahn go ahead and ruin it for everyone. IIRC didn't the FCC make a "deal" for FM stereo. Motorola almost pulled it off by putting their system in their auto radios.
 
I don't know about or knowingly used CloudStrike, but one would think any software company would have tested any update on some "willing" Beta customers before releasing it to everyone. A lot of "major" updates on Windows has rebooting involved.
"Self-regulation" gave us Standard Oil and Ma Bell.
Bell had the patents. That gave them a big headstart.
 
Like I said before, the "smart" IT folks don't rely only on Microsoft operating systems. One would think Microsoft would have safe guards to keep apps from messing up their boot files.
 
Off-topic sidebar coming ...

I got a call from a neighbor (Delta copilot) who called and left a message Saturday morning to make sure his cat has food and water. He said Delta's system that tracks and assigns crews was messed up too He was in Seattle and had to call Atlanta to try to get his assignment. He is a "substitute" copilot. He finally got back Sunday Morning. He left Sunday evening. He had me to take his cat to a groomer who also has a "Cat and Dog Motel" Monday morning.

I'm glad he cared enough to call you and make sure his cat was okay. Too often, glitches like these result in companion animals being overlooked.

And I am also glad he has a neighbor like you, because that narrative tells us about your own character.
 
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