this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 96 points 3 months ago (2 children)

"This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it's actually happened this time."

What people were worried about with Y2K was nuclear weapons being launched and planes falling out of the sky. And it was nonsense, but bad things could have happened.

The good part is that the harm was mitigated for the most part through due diligence of IT workers.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 64 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This is similar to what would have actually happened if not for the dilligence of IT workers fixing the Y2K code issues globally. Uninformed people were worried about missiles and apocalyptic violence, but IT workers withdrew some cash and made sure not to have travel plans.

The difference here is that this was caused by massive and widespread negligence. Every company affected had poor IT infrastructure architecture. Falcon Sensor is one product installed on Windows servers. Updates should go to test environments prior to being pushed to production environments. Dollars to donuts, all of the companies that were not affected had incompetent management or cheap budgets.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 47 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Millions of man hours spent making sure Y2K didn't cause problems and the only recognition they got was the movie Office Space.

[–] OsaErisXero@kbin.run 18 points 3 months ago

There isn't a single one of them who was working at that time I have spoken with who didn't think Office Space was exactly the correct tribute

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 11 points 3 months ago

I'll take it. I identified so hard with that movie. When I eventually die, I'll do so knowing I've been seen.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

I wonder if there would be any way to work it so that a dry concept like that could be made into a decent movie based on the actual events. They did it for Tetris.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sure, but even the worst Y2K effects wouldn't have had what lots of people were worried about, which was basically the apocalypse.

People who really should have known better were telling me that Y2K would launch the missiles in the silos.

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 10 points 3 months ago

We knew. However we knew there would be problems so we emphasized extremely unlikely scenarios to get the budgets to prevent the really annoying shit that might've happened.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 3 months ago (7 children)

We rarely disagree, but I’m gonna pull the “I work in the industry” card on you. A lot of hardworking people prevented bad things from happening whether big or small. We only look back at it as overblown because of them.

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[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 43 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Y2K wasn't nonsense. It was unremarkable, ultimately, because of the efforts taken to avoid it for a decade.

20 Years Later, the Y2K Bug Seems Like a Joke—Because Those Behind the Scenes Took It Seriously

President Clinton had exhorted the government in mid-1998 to “put our own house in order,” and large businesses — spurred by their own testing — responded in kind, racking up an estimated expenditure of $100 billion in the United States alone. Their preparations encompassed extensive coordination on a national and local level, as well as on a global scale, with other digitally reliant nations examining their own systems.
“The Y2K crisis didn’t happen precisely because people started preparing for it over a decade in advance. And the general public who was busy stocking up on supplies and stuff just didn’t have a sense that the programmers were on the job,” says Paul Saffo, a futurist and adjunct professor at Stanford University.

What is worth noting about this event is how public concern grows and reacts out of ignorance. Just because a pending catastrophe results in something 'less-than' does not mean best efforts weren't taken to avoid it. Just because something isn't as bad as it could have been doesn't mean it was a hoax (see: covid19). Additionally, just because something turns out to be a grave concern doesn't mean best efforts didn't mitigate what could have been far worse (see: inflation).

After the collective sigh of relief in the first few days of January 2000, however, Y2K morphed into a punch line, as relief gave way to derision — as is so often the case when warnings appear unnecessary after they are heeded. It was called a big hoax; the effort to fix it a waste of time.

Written in 2019 about an event in 1999, it's apparent to me that not much has changed. We're doomed to repeat history even provided with the most advanced technology the world has ever known to pull up the full report of history in the palm of our hands.

The inherent conundrum of the ~~Y2K~~ [insert current event here] debate is that those on both ends of the spectrum — from naysayers to doomsayers — can claim that the outcome proved their predictions correct.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I never said it was nonsense. I said what a lot of people were worried about was nonsense- stuff like it causing nuclear armageddon or crashing the global economy.

And this event today isn't even what IT professionals were worried about. This is a big headache for them and a day off for a lot of other people. It's not going to do the damage Y2K would have done had people not done enough.

One exception to that is the UK's NHS. I feel like having IT outages for an entire countries nationalized health service could probably lead to some preventable death. Though I imagine they hopefully have paper backups for the most important shit.

[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Real life Armageddon: Bruce Willis & crew return home and are greeted by boos and protestors with "waste of taxpayer money" signs. Can you imagine...

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

The United States would never send a crew up to stop an asteroid. If it's a Dem president, SCOTUS would block it. If it's Donald, he'd claim the asteroid is fake news and a Dem hoax, then the scoundrels in the House and Senate would obstruct any action via their little bunkers.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 58 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Work is borked so I get to paint Warhammer today.

[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Minis are for painting at unspecified times in the future, not now

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My Mountain of Shame must be mined.

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago

I love this phrase and I will use it.

[–] Sammy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 3 months ago

I fully support your sacrifice o7

[–] pleb_maximus@feddit.de 5 points 3 months ago

Be sure to post the results to the corresponding communities.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 32 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Meanwhile, friends at my old company run sites with CS and my current company doesn’t. I’m kicking back and having a great friday

[–] lauha@lemmy.one 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

So the hindsight is always 20/20 but was there like warning signs or red flags which should have been obvious this is going to happen or are you just lucky in hindsight?

[–] aeno@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 months ago

Red flags? Yeah don't use "security Software" that just increases your attack surface. Why the fuck would you want to install a root kit on your critical infrastructure?

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 3 months ago

The second one, as far as I can tell. But also, those calls are made above me and I have no insight into the decision-making. It could have been keen foresight by someone else.

[–] Thrife@feddit.org 5 points 3 months ago

Same. Had time for my trainees and used this for an extra learning session. :)

[–] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

My office sent out this big message about people not being able to log in this morning. And I had absolutely no issues, and all of my tools are working. So I guess I'm stuck actually doing work.

[–] OsaErisXero@kbin.run 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Your work and their work, since they can't log in.

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 6 points 3 months ago

Look at this "team" player hehe

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 months ago

Bro, why didn't you lie 😭

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago

Nothing like getting a full work day in before the office opens

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Will this change how companies run their IT? Absofuckinglutelynot!

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It kinda sounds like this ones more on the developers than sysadmins...

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Well its really on the people deciding to use garbage software from some random, clearly incompetent company.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Literally one of the largest enterprise grade endpoint protection packages. This isn't an issue of a bad sysadmin, or even developer, so much an issue bigger than the industry itself. Up until now, as far as I knew, crowd strike has been recommended as a solid choice for endpoint protection.

Who else are you going to trust? Fucking Symantec? Ask VMware how being owned by Broadcom is, then get back to me.

No one gives a shit about their job anymore because they have no reason to. I hate to sit here and chalk everything in the world up to late stage capitalism, but jfc if it doesn't seem like the recurring theme from hell. Something tells me the guys who work at Crowdstrike are no different.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 18 points 3 months ago (6 children)

So was this Crowdstrike's fuck up and not Microsoft's?

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[–] variants@possumpat.io 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I like how it's the biggest IT issue and the best solution is to turn it off and on several times

[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

They are saying "up to 15 times" now.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ftfy: 'Largest ~~IT~~ Windows outage in history'

I learned of the problems from the radio news on my way back home.

[–] WindyRebel@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago

CrowdStrike, not Microsoft, is responsible. Let’s put blame where blame is due.

This could happen to any OS that has cybersecurity where permissions are needed at deeper levels to protect systems.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

laughs in linux

[–] WorkIsSlow@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Work was supposed to be slow today. D':

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