Worldwide IT meltdown shows the planet’s overwhelming reliance on flaky technology is perilous
KO computer
WE’VE all had bad days at work. But imagine you crashed the global economy — triggering mayhem, misery and multi-trillion-dollar losses — by releasing a dodgy bit of computer code.
It is grimly ironic that the very firm charged with protecting precious IT systems from cyberattack is to blame for history’s biggest tech disaster.
But it should trouble all governments that the modern world operates on such a knife-edge 24/7.
The meltdown crippled airports, airlines, trains, parts of the NHS, GPs, chemists, police, supermarkets, pubs, football clubs and countless other firms and organisations running Windows software.
And that’s just in Britain.
It vividly exposed the extent of the catastrophe malicious hackers could inflict on us all — and the fallibility of those we depend on to stop them.
The planet’s overwhelming reliance on flaky technology is perilous.
Leeds disunited
THERE must be no mercy for the thugs who unleashed anarchy in Leeds.
From the morons filmed torching a bus and overturning a police car to the idiots who joined the fray for “fun”.
We don’t blame cops for retreating. They were the targets of this bloodlust and vastly outnumbered.
But they must return mob-handed to prevent a repeat.
The trigger appears to be some Romanian kids being taken into care.
The mob must be taught, via harsh punishment, that law and order WILL prevail.
We commend, though, community leaders who tried to quell the violence.
That took guts.
Innocent man
THE jailing of innocent journalist Evan Gershkovich for 16 years after a sham trial in Russia was depressingly predictable.
The Kremlin of course knows Evan, of the Wall Street Journal, is no spy.
He is a hostage, a bargaining chip for a dictator who values no one’s life but his own.
It is sickening that the West must do some deal with Putin and his cronies.
But if that’s what it takes to free Evan, so be it.
Asylum folly
TO allow tens of thousands of illegal migrants to claim asylum, as Labour intends, is an offence against fairness.
It signals that it doesn’t much matter now whether you arrive legally or not.
Indeed, if you cross the Channel on a dinghy you’re as good as in.
If you’re not from a “safe” country, your chances of deportation are negligible.
This effective amnesty for most illegal migrants may help “clear the backlog”.
It’s also likely to trigger a new stampede towards the traffickers at Calais.