Articles
December 15, 2017
The Vote: Net Neutrality Falls
There is a vote that happened yesterday, and the vote is the reversal: the Federal Communications Commission that voted three to two along party lines to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, the broadband rules that classified the internet as a utility, the decision that Chairman Ajit Pai pushed through at the agency headquarters while the protesters gathered outside. The vote is the December story, and the story is the lesson: the argument between the internet service providers and the consumer advocates, the regulation that divided the country, the fight that is only beginning.
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November 30, 2017
Bitcoin at $10,000
There is a price that is making the headlines this week, and the price is ten thousand dollars: the level that bitcoin crossed for the first time, the milestone that the CoinDesk index passed on Tuesday and that CNBC put on the screen on Wednesday, the number that kept climbing through the evening. The price is the November story, and the story is the lesson: the digital currency that began the year near a thousand dollars, the rally that built through the months, the market that is now worth more than one hundred and sixty billion dollars and still climbing.
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October 19, 2017
#MeToo: The Reckoning at Work
There is a hashtag that is spreading through the conversation this week, and the hashtag is #MeToo: the two words that Alyssa Milano asked survivors to write as a reply to her tweet on October 15, the flood of responses that followed within hours, the twelve million posts that Facebook counted from more than four and a half million people in a single day. The hashtag is the October story, and the story is the lesson: the workplace where power is held and abused, the reporting systems that have failed for years, the leaders who must now answer for the culture they allowed.
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September 13, 2017
Equifax: 143 Million Records
There is a number that is spreading through the news this week, and the number is 143 million: the Americans whose personal data was exposed, the consumers whose names and Social Security numbers are now in the hands of criminals, the breach that Equifax disclosed on September 7 and that the country has been digesting ever since. The number is the September story, and the story is the lesson: the credit bureau that holds the records on nearly every adult in the country, the vulnerability that was known and never patched, the data that cannot be returned. Equifax disclosed the intrusion on the seventh, the stock fell through the week, and the questions grew by the day.
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August 11, 2017
The Memo: Google's Culture War
The memo is the story of the week, and the story is the leak: the internal document that became the public battle, the Google engineer who was fired, the debate that spilled from the company into the world. The memo is "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber", the roughly 3,000 words that James Damore wrote and circulated, the arguments about the gender gap in tech, the diversity programs that he criticized, the response that ended in dismissal on August 8. The memo is the August 2017 story, and the story is the question: how a company handles dissent on the inside, and how a leak turned an internal debate into a global one.
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July 31, 2017
Model 3: The Handover and the Ramp
The handover is the story of the week, and the story is the car: the Model 3 that Tesla delivered on July 28, the first 30 customer cars that left the Fremont factory, the sedan that the world had been waiting for since the reservations opened. The handover is the event: the stage inside the factory, the crowd of employees and owners, Elon Musk at the microphone, the cars that rolled out to the applause. The handover is the July 2017 story, and the story is the beginning: the 400,000 reservations that waited, the ramp that was just starting, the production hell that Musk said was coming.
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June 29, 2017
The Record Fine: Google and the Shopping Search
The fine is the story of the week, and the story is the number: 2.42 billion euros, the record that the European Commission set on June 27, the penalty that Google must pay for the shopping search, the decision that the company said it respectfully disagrees with. The fine is the antitrust case: the investigation that opened in November 2010, the comparison shopping services that complained, the Google Shopping unit that sat at the top of the results, the abuse of dominance that the Commission found. The fine is the June 2017 story, and the story is the lesson: the platform that controls the search, the power that comes with the position, the rules that even the giants must follow.
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May 18, 2017
WannaCry: The Ransomware That Stopped the NHS
The ransomware is the story of the week, and the story is the Friday: the May 12 attack that hit the hospitals and the banks and the factories, the worm that spread without a click, the screens that lit up with the red demand, the machines that locked and the data that waited. The ransomware is WannaCry, and WannaCry is the biggest outbreak the internet has seen: more than 200,000 machines in 150 countries, the National Health Service in England with 47 trusts directly affected and 13 other NHS organisations, roughly 19,000 appointments cancelled, the operations postponed, the ambulances diverted. The outbreak is the May 2017 story, and the story is the lesson: the patching that was postponed, the legacy systems that were trusted, the worm that travelled through the gaps.
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April 12, 2017
The Passenger: United and the Dragged Doctor
There is a video that the whole world watched this week, and the video is the flight: the United Express plane at O'Hare, the passenger who was dragged down the aisle, the blood on his face, the phone that recorded it, the weekend that turned into the crisis. The flight was United Express 3411, operated by Republic Airways for United, bound from Chicago to Louisville on Sunday April 9, overbooked, oversold, and then over the line. The video is the April 2017 story, and the story is the lesson: the passenger who was pulled from his seat, the airline that fumbled the apology, the leadership that is now defined by the response.
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March 3, 2017
The Typo That Broke the Internet: AWS and S3
There is an outage that is still being measured this week, and the outage is the storage: the Amazon Web Services region that went down on Tuesday, the Simple Storage Service that failed in US-EAST-1, the four hours that took a large part of the internet with it, the typo that caused it all. The outage started around 9:37 in the morning Pacific time on February 28, the errors spread to the sites that depended on the region, the recovery came in the early afternoon, the full restoration stretched toward nine in the evening. The outage is the March 2017 story, and the story is the lesson: the single command that broke the network, the single region that held the internet, the human error that the infrastructure could not absorb.
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