On July 19, we witnessed a failure in the operations of several branches
of the service sector, such as banks, airlines, retail, media,healthcare, among others, on a global scale. The cause of the problem
was a failure in the functioning of computers with Windows operating
systems that use CrowdStrike's Falcon platform for digital security. An
automatic update was triggered by the company for all customers,
generating a conflict with the operating system and causing the
computers to fail to start[1].
CrowdStrike is a digital security company based in Texas (USA) that
operates in more than 170 countries. It has revenues of approximately
US$ 900 million and 29,000 customers worldwide, including Google, Amazon
and Intel[2].
This failure exposes the social instability generated by the market
dominance promoted by digital oligopolies, the so-called Big Techs, and
the internet infrastructures politically controlled by the United States.
On the day of the blackout, when those affected tried to access their
applications and systems on Microsoft's cloud, they found that the
operating system was not working; even Microsoft 365, which is a
subscription service that has the Office suite and other internet
services installed in the so-called "clouds", instead of being on its
own servers.
In other words, a single company, due to a simple technical failure,
puts the lives of a huge number of people at risk in various parts of
the world, especially when it comes to the outage of hospital systems.
No data loss or leaks were reported - something that has happened on
several occasions - but what happened shows how fragile this management
structure is for areas that are so important to society today, guided by
a neoliberal ideological basis, sustained by the capitalist-statist system.
THE DEBATE ON DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY AND DEPENDENCE ON BIG TECH
When we talk about Cloud Services and operating system updates, it means
that users' data and files are saved on Microsoft computers (whose
physical location we do not know). Users can access their documents and
information from anywhere with an internet connection, unless the
company itself has a failure, an attack or promotes a block, whether
intentional or not.
In other ways, the blackout showed the great power that a company like
Microsoft and the US have, which owns a large part of the physical
infrastructure that connects the vast majority of parts of the world.
Even with an unintentional failure, it makes it clear that Microsoft or
any other company (Google, Amazon, etc.) has the concrete possibility of
blocking access by individuals, companies and institutions to their own
data. What they call clouds are computers located in data centers, far
from the respective jurisdictions of the States and from the possibility
of physical access. It is common for several strategic data of States,
especially from developing countries, such as Brazil, to be hosted on
the servers of these companies through agreements, as in the case of
public universities. Even more common and worrying is that
anti-capitalist social movements and activists store their data using
software for everyday use, using servers of these companies. The debate
on Digital Sovereignty is urgent; it is a great risk to use
technological tools as if they were neutral, not controlled by interests
other than those of those who use them.
WHERE ARE THE WORKERS WHO MAKE THE MACHINES WORK?
Another important aspect of this debate is overcoming the erasure of the
workforce needed to move all this gear. For example, the reality of
workers in the software development sector is "pejotização"
(self-employed) with remote work; without any guarantee or security,
workers are hired as Legal Entities (PJ), with the old fallacy of the
"entrepreneurial" and "innovation" discourse. When opening any "job
opportunity", it is common to need a huge list of prerequisites for a
position, which, in general, offer very few or almost no labor rights.
Under these conditions, professionals are charged at any time of the
day, with little or no collective interaction to develop the work and
delivery deadlines so short that they make it impossible to verify and
validate the codes, thus creating the need for frequent updates when
errors are observed. This dynamic makes explicit the current logic in
the world of work: maximized precariousness!
It is also clear that in this structure of division of labor -
fragmentation and fragility -, in which economic returns are sought
instead of the best solution for a social demand, companies have minimal
communication between themselves, making integration between software
difficult and, inevitably, causing problems like the one that has
occurred now. In other words, the precariousness of work is also largely
responsible for the occurrence of serious technical and security failures.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A REVOLUTIONARY PROGRAM FOR THE TECHNOLOGY AREA
The rapid repercussion of the "cybernetic blackout" in the main
international media outlets also makes it clear how sensitive the
functioning of large economic sectors is to any movement in the
information technology area. Stock exchanges, banks, airlines, land and
rail transportation sectors, hospitals, etc., have reported several
problems in these sectors.
Therefore, the anti-capitalist struggle in search of a different society
cannot ignore the importance of the technology sector. From our point of
view, it is necessary to: a) advance this debate by joining the groups
that are already building this struggle, aiming to disseminate and
democratize knowledge, for example, of basic concepts of free software
and digital sovereignty with popular control of infrastructure, aiming
to protect the oppressed classes from the actions of governments and
corporations that keep the world's population under constant
surveillance and monitoring; b) use the accumulated knowledge to support
popular and union movements, with more immediate technical issues of
harm reduction and theories to advance the construction of policies;
finally, c) build the union struggle of workers in the technology
sector, aiming to accumulate social strength oriented towards a
combative and revolutionary sense.
OSL Libertarian Socialist Organization
https://socialismolibertario.net/2024/07/25/apagao-cibernetico-lucros-concentrados-precarizacao-ampliada/
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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