Distribute.IT and modern systemic vulnerability

The disaster that befell Australian firm Distribute.IT and its customers as a consequence of a hacker attack is another reminder of the vulnerabilities of modern IT systems. For those feeling morbid, you can read about the unfolding events on the Whirlpool forum. 

As I read the 73 or so pages of comments and updates, I thought of the Distribute.IT folks desperately trying to get their systems back on line.

The Distribute.IT case is just one of a recent set of examples in Australia and overseas that actually threaten the very reliability of the internet based systems on which we now depend.

The collapse in my own system, while personally annoying, is but a small personal example. My thanks to those who have sent me practical advice.

I did try to do a full back up to my external hard drive just before the system went down. That failed, although I think that another back-up of just my documents may have been successful. I should know this later today.

Looking at the vulnerabilities, and I am only speaking as a small personal user, I start with my emails. It's actually quite hard to back up emails. At least, I have yet to work out how! Yet so much of what I do is linked to emails that their loss is a major problem.

A second vulnerability lies in my dependence on the free systems such as Google. While these are quite wonderful, no one can guarantee their longer term survival.

My own technical competence is a specific issue in trying to manage.. I actually know IT and the internet very well, but I am a technical incompetent when it comes to specific computer operations. Sure, I know how to use a dozen different programs, I have created and managed web sites and blogs, I can do ordinary housekeeping, but I am still a technical ignoramus at the purely practical level.

Let me give a simple example.

A week back I discovered a corruption in the heading of some of my history posts, the transformation in the heading of part of the text to some form of skype ad. This is an example. I went in to the post and checked, redoing the heading, but without success. So this is some form of corruption beyond my control. 

This brings me a second problem, the combination of time and money. Some of the back-up and redundancy solutions involve a fair bit of time and cash, two things in short supply just at present. Even at the simplest level, I need help from Google to resolve the skype example, and that takes time.

In all this, I have come to the view that our present internet systems are actually unsustainable. What can go wrong, will go wrong.

When the National Australia Bank system collapsed recently, a large number of customers were left without cash or access to cash. Last night when I went into the local supermarket, their EFTPOS system was down. I had no cash on me, so left without buying stuff for tea.

Now in terms of our just in time world, we have all become so used to internet based systems and the capacity to get what we want when we want it, that we are not set up to cope when things inevitably go wrong.

Normally, this is just an inconvenience. But for some people including the Distribute.IT customers, some of these outages can be absolutely destructive.

Still musing. let me take another example, the growing multiplicity of passwords. To simplify, most of us actually use just a small number of passwords, often storing them on our computers for ease of reference. Yes, both are dangerous, but they do make for ease of use. But beyond this, what happens if you are incapacitated in hospital for some reason and nobody has access to your passwords?

Where am I going in all this? 

Well, I have come to the view that I need multiple redundancies, including the reinstatement of basic paper based systems for system critical stuff. In some cases I am just going to have to take risks because the internet is just so important and convenient. In other cases, I need to be able to operate without either internet or computer.

This actually involves quite profound changes in the way I work.

I am reinstating my cheque book, for example, because this allows me to pay for some things even when systems are down. I plan to carry more cash, income willing, to avoid EFTPOS delays and crashes. I need to put more time into system maintenance. I am actually using pen and paper a lot more.

 I don't know whether or not I am alone in thinking this way, just a troglodyte in a modern world, but I know that I will feel a lot more in control if I do change the way I do things.