On the vulnerability of our infrastructure
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“In the history of shipping IT, no one has ever gone through such a monumental crisis.” In the untold story of NotPetya; Wired dives into how this Russian cyberattack brought Maersk to its knees. It cost $10bn in damages, reaching hospitals, banks and governments, and is described as the cyber equivalent of a nuclear bomb. If they can make an Oscar nominated film out of The Post they could surely do the same for this. Also a powerful prompt to check your servers aren’t still running Windows 2000.
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In the aftermath of the Genoa bridge collapse, Ian Bogost considers the impact on public trust of failures of infrastructure, from bridges, voting systems and utilities. He argues that a decline in trust in the infrastructure that holds our societies together could break the foundations upon which it stands.
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At Wells Fargo an automated tool made incorrect calculations that cost 625 of people their homes. I was going express surprise we don’t hear about this happening more often. However, because software obfuscates decision making (if the computer says no, how can someone on the front line argue) mistakes like this can easily go unobserved and unchallenged. There are many more untold stories like this out there.
A full list of the pertinent questions Senators are asking in Housing Wire.
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On internet shutdowns: The number of state-imposed internet shutdowns jumped from 75 in 2016 to 108 in 2017. A concerning trend is that many of places where the internet is growing fastest are also the places using shutdowns to assert control. The most prevalent is in India, who in recent years have invested heavily in digital identity, infrastructure and their digital economy. It's something that international indicators like the UN's e-gov survey looking at national infrastructure don't account for.
Open data An investigation into the UK companies register finds that 345 companies have an owner who is a disqualified director, and more than 10,000 declare a foreign company as their owner. The report wouldn’t be possible without open data; specifically in 2016 the UK led the world in creating the first open register of people who own and control UK companies. If you’re more interested in the ‘how’ than the ‘what’ they’ve helpfully published their analysis and code on Github.
More from Ukraine, a longread on ProZorro, a contracting platform for government built on an open data standard, is weaponising transparency to combat corruption. A very literal example of starting with a crisis.
Ways of working
Energy company Bulb share their tips on how to test product copy with users.
Jared Spool, a global authority on user experience, describes experience rot and how to combat it. Mostly, it means saying no a lot more than most organisations will allow.
We've got an app for that
An interview with the incredible team who built a tool like Shazam for air-strikes, saving lives in Syria and beyond. It now offers an average warning time of eight minutes, offering civilians a far better chance of survival. Well worth the read.
Saudi Arabia recently ran a hajj hackathon, aiming to find new ways to make the pilgrimage safer. It was won by an all-female team who designed an app that provides real time translation of text and signage without requiring a connection to the internet.
Welcome to the bad place
🤖UK Digital Minister is said to be debating appearing at the Tory party conference as a hologram, following the lead of (among others) NZ PM Jacinda Ahern.
🛴More shake-ups in Australia and New Zealand. Australian Digital Minister Angus Taylor resigned his post as part of the anti-Turnbull coup. And New Zealand's Digital Minister Clare Curran has had the digital portfolio removed from her, after not declaring a meeting with a Government CTO candidate. |
