The Morning: When computers go dark

Plus, the U.N. General Assembly, Hezbollah and American portion sizes.

View in browser|nytimes.com September 25, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Steve Lohr explains the threats created by our online, connected world. We're also covering the U.N. General Assembly, Hezbollah and American portion sizes. —David Leonhardt A malfunctioning information screen at an airport in New Delhi. Rajat Gupta/EPA, via Shutterstock A brittle network By Steve Lohr I cover technology and the economy. Two months ago, what should have been a routine software update by a security company, CrowdStrike, crashed millions of computers around the world running Microsoft Windows. Airlines grounded flights. Subways stopped. Operators of 911 lines couldn't dispatch help. Stores shut down. Hospitals canceled surgeries. The chaos, though it lasted only a few days, was telling. New advances make our lives easier, but there are trade-offs. They can vanish quickly — in an outage, a hack or a pandemic. And as the economy has become more dependent on a smaller number of technology companies, we've become more susceptible to hiccups that affect them. American cellphones, for instance, stopped working in Europe for several days in June, stranding many travelers. We're "highly digitized, highly interdependent, highly connected, and highly vulnerable," said Jen Easterly, who leads the Homeland Security Department's agency focused on digital infrastructure. A House hearing yesterday and other government agencies are looking into how an errant sliver of buggy software touched off the CrowdStrike meltdown. This outage was not the work of villainous foreign hackers. Instead, it was simply a reminder of how reliant we are on our tech and the companies that make it. They are corporate paragons of innovation, success and wealth. But every year there are reasons to wonder if they have the incentive or even the capability to be trustworthy stewards of our collective security. Global vulnerability The pandemic taught us a hard-earned lesson: Diversity enhances resilience. Before Covid struck, supply chains were too dependent on China — leading to widespread product shortages when containers full of goods got stuck there. In business technology, Microsoft is a dominant species. Its Windows software controls the basic operations on 1.4 billion machines worldwide — including in hospitals, factories, stores, airports and corporate data centers. The chaos in July unfolded when CrowdStrike's update accidentally tanked an estimated 8.5 million machines running Windows — a large number but a tiny portion of Microsoft's global footprint. "That uniformity brings incredible efficiency, but the bad news is that it also results in incredible brittleness," said Tom Mitchell, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. In a shop on London's Oxford Street.  Sam Bush for The New York Times The biggest and most valuable companies also carry the most risk to the economy as a whole. They are linked to more users, so if something happens to them, all the people who depend on them suffer. Think of Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, which is Google's corporate parent. They are dominant hubs in fields like cloud computing and software, online advertising and e-commerce. If they go down, they can disrupt your daily routines, or your company's. Containing the risks The ascent of these tech giants is relatively recent. But the danger of concentration in key industries is certainly not. "Systemic risk" is the term used by experts and policymakers. When the 2008 financial crisis struck, governments realized that the systemic risk of big bank failures could imperil whole economies. So regulators rewrote the rules. They identified a group of "systemically important" banks and said that these should be subject to greater scrutiny. They introduced "stress tests" of their resilience to see if they have sufficient funds to withstand market drops, even panics. Similarly, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is developing a list of companies that disproportionately affect national security, economic security and public health and safety. The government is paying closer attention. In 2022, President Biden created the Cyber Safety Review Board, modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates airplane crashes and makes recommendations. This year, it issued a harsh critique of a 2023 intrusion into Microsoft's cloud messaging service by a hacker group linked to the Chinese government. The hackers had gained access to the email accounts of senior U.S. government officials, and the report blamed a "cascade of security failures at Microsoft." It recommended more than a dozen fixes, and Microsoft's president said in June that the company was implementing all of them. Microsoft said the issues identified by the safety panel had no relation to the CrowdStrike outage. The company says it is working to reduce the risk of accidental crashes. One perennial challenge for tech companies is to balance developing new products with protecting the ones they already have. They make most of their money selling new offerings, not fixing old ones. After Delta Air Lines said it had lost $500 million in the CrowdStrike outage — from canceled flights, overtime payments and hotel rooms for stranded passengers — its C.E.O. questioned the priorities of tech giants. Their strategies depend on beating their competitors to the next big thing. "They're building the future," said Ed Bastian, Delta's chief, said, "and they have to make sure they fortify the current," securing the day-to-day machinery of the digital world. THE LATEST NEWS U.N. General Assembly President Biden at the U.N. Dave Sanders for The New York Times Biden, speaking at the U.N. for his last time as president, expressed optimism that world leaders could address war, disease and A.I. "Things can get better," he said. Biden also reflected on his decision not to seek re-election. "Some things are more important than staying in power," he said to applause. "It's your people that matter the most." The U.S. will donate $500 million and one million vaccine doses to African countries fighting mpox, Biden said. He called on other countries to act. Volodymyr Zelensky wants Western allies to let Ukraine use the weapons they supplied to strike deep inside Russia. He said, in an address to the Security Council, that "Russia can only be forced into peace." Kamala Harris Kamala Harris said she supported eliminating the Senate filibuster — the chamber's 60-vote threshold for most legislation — to pass a law protecting abortion rights nationwide. Two Senate Democrats turned independents, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, criticized that position. Manchin said he wouldn't endorse Harris. Progressive groups warned that Harris was showing signs of weakness with younger and Black and Latino voters in swing states. Donald Trump A federal grand jury charged the gunman who lurked near Donald Trump's golf course with attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate. He faces life imprisonment. Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who recently dismissed the classified documents case against Trump, will oversee the gunman's case after it was randomly assigned to her, Politico reports. Separately, U.S. intelligence officials briefed Trump about what his campaign called "specific threats from Iran to assassinate him." Trump wants to enact a low-tax, high-tariff strategy to keep manufacturing in the U.S. Those ideas had limited success during his presidency. More on Politics Speaker Mike Johnson  J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press Speaker Mike Johnson plans to bypass House Republican hard-liners by relying on Democratic votes to pass a spending bill today. He has repeatedly done so to avoid shutdowns. A House committee recommended holding Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, in contempt of Congress for failing to testify about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Facebook and Instagram now feature less political content. Mark Zuckerberg, who runs their parent company, has privately expressed cynicism about politics and described himself as a libertarian. Polls show a single-digit Senate race in Texas, where Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent, leads Representative Colin Allred, a Democratic former N.F.L. linebacker. Middle East After an Israeli strike in Tyre, Lebanon. Hasan Fneich/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Some Israeli officials believe the recent strikes against Hezbollah achieved short-term goals, but fear there's no clear further strategy to bring calm. The Israeli military said it intercepted a Hezbollah missile fired at Tel Aviv. It appears to be the group's deepest attack into Israel. Iran's president says Israel is trying to goad his country into a wider war. The conflict with Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, raises the pressure on Tehran to strike back, Steven Erlanger writes. More International News Russia's space agency promised to launch satellites over Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso; the countries say the project will help them contain Islamist insurgents. China said it had launched a ballistic missile carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean, a projection of power in Asia. A desert motor race in northern Chile destroyed geoglyphs — vast figures that Indigenous people carved thousands of years ago. Other Big Stories Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, who was convicted of the 1998 killing of a journalist. The local prosecutor whose office convicted him has fought to overturn his sentence. Caroline Ellison, a top executive at the failed crypto firm FTX, received a two-year prison sentence for conspiring to steal billions from customers. A bankruptcy judge ruled that Infowars' website, social media accounts and other assets can be auctioned to pay the Sandy Hook families that Alex Jones defamed. Opinions Silicon Valley elites support Trump partly to punish the Biden administration for its antitrust policies, Chris Hughes argues. To make good on her promise of an opportunity economy, Harris should focus on communities rather than individuals, Raj Chetty writes. Here's a column by Bret Stephens on Hezbollah's threat to the world. Readers of The Morning: Don't miss out on a full year of savings. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. MORNING READS Partying in Berlin.  Gordon Welters for The New York Times Vibe maintenance: To protect an anything-goes atmosphere, clubs in London and New York — inspired by ones in Berlin — are blocking patrons' phone cameras with stickers. Longevity: Anti-aging enthusiasts are taking a pill typically prescribed to organ transplant patients. Will it extend their lives? Investigation: Some unregulated maternity homes, which offer sanctuary to pregnant women on the brink of homelessness, are limiting residents' movements and contacts. Lives Lived: As a lawyer for the union that represents baseball players, Dick Moss helped set the stage for the sport's free agency revolution. He died at 93. SPORTS The Padres' triple play.  Major League Baseball M.L.B.: The San Diego Padres clinched a postseason berth with a game-ending triple play against the Los Angeles Dodgers. W.N.B.A.: The New York Liberty defeated the Atlanta Dream to advance to the semifinals. They will face the Las Vegas Aces, who bested the Seattle Storm. Brett Favre: The former Green Bay Packers quarterback revealed that he has Parkinson's disease. ARTS AND IDEAS Eva Cremers Restaurant portions swelled in America in the 1980s. The serving size of spaghetti and meatballs doubled; burritos grew heavier than a Tom Clancy hardcover. Now, after decades, it seems our dinners may finally be shrinking, Kim Severson writes. She cites factors including costs, Gen Z's eating habits and a fight against waste. More on culture Over the past year, Times reporters and editors traveled across the country to put together our list of the 50 best restaurants in America. See it here. A woman has accused Sean Combs in a lawsuit of drugging and raping her in 2001. She said she learned last year that the assault had been recorded. Jimmy Kimmel joked about Biden's speech to the U.N.: "He warned his fellow leaders to 'never forget some things are more important than staying in power,' which got a huge laugh from the Russian delegation." THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Armando Rafael for The New York Times Transform a jar of sun-dried tomatoes into the perfect easy pasta sauce. Treat seasonal affective disorder with a light therapy lamp. Choose the right coffee maker. Take a quiz. GAMES Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was prodigy. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Correction: In yesterday's newsletter, the caption with a photo of a damaged home misidentified the location. It was in Metula, Israel, not in Lebanon. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018