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A massive global technology outage on Friday took down airlines, medical services, TV broadcasts, banks and scores of other business and services around the world, a stunning example of the fragile dependence the global economy has on certain software and the cascading effect it can have when things go wrong.
The outage was attributed to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose software is used by scores of industries around the world to protect against hackers and outside breaches. A software update issued by CrowdStrike appeared to be at the root of the problem, resulting in crashes of machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” said George Kurtz, the chief executive of CrowdStrike. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
Here’s how the spillover effects are being felt all over the world:
U.S. airlines were reporting major disruptions across the country. At least five U.S. airlines — Allegiant Air, American, Delta, Spirit and United — had grounded all flights for a time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The issues were also being felt at airports around the world, including Hong Kong International Airport, Sydney Airport, Berlin Brandenburg Airport, Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and Denver International Airport. At the Manchester Airport in Britain, there were long lines in the departures area as many machines at check-in counters were not working. Ryanair, one of the largest airlines in Europe, said it was experiencing disruption because of a third party IT outage that is “entirely out of our control.”
In the U.S., the outage appeared to be affecting emergency 911 lines in multiple states, the U.S. Emergency Alert System said on social media. It said people experiencing emergencies should call the number for their local police or fire department.
In Britain, the National Health Service was experiencing a loss of access to its computer systems across a number of hospitals and doctors offices.
Many television broadcasters also reported problems. In France, TF1 and Canal+, among the most watched, said in posts on X that it couldn’t go on air. “We’re all onstage, but there’s a gigantic breakdown in the control room” making it impossible to go live, Christophe Beaugrand-Guerrin, a TF1 presenter, wrote on X.
Perseid meteor shower and the Milky Way over Cedar Breaks National Monument, UT.
getty
“Stargazing in summer doesn't get much better than July and August, when the Milky Way arcs across the horizon after dark and, if you get your timing right, dozens of “shooting stars” can be seen as the Perseid meteor shower peaks overnight on Sunday, August 11 through Monday, August 12, 2024.
It happens once a year as Earth busts through the dust and rocks left in the inner solar system by Comet Swift-Tuttle. As they strike the atmosphere, they vaporize, causing a streak of light in the night sky for a fraction of a second.
Everyone should be able to see the Perseids. However, unchecked light pollution means that you will have to travel at least 25 miles/40 kilometers from an urban area to see any but the very brightest meteors.
You can use a Light Pollution Map for that, but an easy way to make sure you'll be in a dark place where artificial lighting is reduced and controlled—even outright banned—is to visit a Dark Sky Place.
The best way to experience a meteor shower is to go camping, staying up all night to catch the show—which will this year be best in the smaller hours of August 12 through dawn. However, be sure to reserve your camping and lodging now and certainly do not plan to travel at the last minute—you'll be one of thousands, and likely be turned away.
Here are some of the best places for dark skies across the U.S.
Where To See The Perseids: Northeast U.S.
Cherry Springs State Park, Pennsylvania
This 82-acre park has a dedicated stargazing field that’s open year-round (as well as Astro Cabins with private stargazing fields). Check to see if it's hosting a special event for the Perseids—it often does. Night sky website
Acadia National Park, Maine
At this 47,000-acre Atlantic coast recreation area you can go Stargazing at Cadillac Summit, where you can walk along the Cadillac Summit Loop and put cameras on tripods on paved parking areas. Night sky website
Where To See The Perseids: Southeast U.S.
Staunton River State Park, Virginia
Near Scottsburg about 25 miles from the North Carolina border, Staunton River is a 2,400-acre park with woodlands, meadows and shoreline. It hosts the Staunton River Star Party every fall on the park’s Observation Field, which will also host a Perseids watch event. Website
Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida
The country's first national preserve consists of 729,000 acres of untouched Florida wilderness, with plenty of camping, canoeing, kayaking, hiking and bird watching. It's been a Dark Sky Park since 2016. Website
Where To See The Perseids: Midwest U.S.
Headlands International Dark Sky Park, Michigan
On the shores of Lake Michigan, this mecca for those searching for the aurora is also a fine place for the Perseids. A 550-acre Dark Sky Park, it has two miles of undeveloped beach that's open all night. Night sky website
Geauga Observatory Park, Ohio
This 1,100-acre Dark Sky Park is one of only two in Ohio. Visitors will notice downward-facing red lighting at night to maximize the view of the night sky. Night sky website
Where To See The Perseids: South U.S.
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Texas
Just north of Fredericksburg is a pink granite dome 325 ft. above the surroundings called the Enchanted Rock. The unique granite dome provides an elevated viewing platform for the Perseid meteor shower. Night sky website
Big Bend National Park, Texas
This park’s very remote location means minimal light pollution, ideal for the Perseid meteor shower. The park often hosts star parties, moonlight walks and night sky interpretive programs. Website
The Milky Way behind Owachomo Natural Bridge from Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah.
getty
Where To See The Perseids: Southwest U.S.
Dead Horse State Park, Utah
A remote, elevated location above a gooseneck in the Colorado River means dramatic views by day, but also by night. Stay in Kayenta Campground and, by day, visit Canyon lands National Park and Arches National Park nearby. Night sky website
Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah
The world’s first-ever International Dark Sky Park, Natural Bridges is super-dark and home to the spectacular Kachina, Owachomo and Sipapu natural bridges. Night sky website
Where To See The Perseids: West U.S.
Joshua Tree National Park, California
Thispark’s desert landscape is a mecca for those in search of dark skies, particularly for the Perseid meteor shower, so book a campground well ahead and expect crowds. Night sky website
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, California
See “shooting stars” from park benches overlooking a huge open prairie, home to grazing Roosevelt elk and black-tailed deer, while staying in the ancient coast redwood forest. Website
Where To See The Perseids: Northwest U.S.
Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
Try for reflections of “shooting stars” in one of the world’s deepest, clearest and bluest lakes. Anywhere along the 33-mile Rim Drive is perfect, with places to stay including Crater Lake Lodge and camping away from the rim at Mazama Village. Website
Craters of the Moon, Idaho
This Dark Sky Park is a stark and barren region of cinder fields—hence the name—on the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. Extremely dark and with plenty of camping opportunities, it's going to be hard to beat for the Perseids. Night sky website
OpenAI promised to make its AI safe. Employees say it ‘failed’ its first test.
(Illustration by Laura Padilla Castellanos/Washington Post; iStock)
"Last summer, artificial intelligence powerhouse OpenAI promised the White House it would rigorously safety test new versions of its groundbreaking technology to make sure the AI wouldn’t inflict damage — like teaching users to build bioweapons or helping hackers develop new kinds of cyberattacks.
But this spring, some members of OpenAI’s safety team felt pressured to speed through a new testing protocol, designed to prevent the technology from causing catastrophic harm, to meet a May launch date set by OpenAI’s leaders, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Even before testing began on the model, GPT-4 Omni, OpenAI invited employees to celebrate the product, which would power ChatGPT, with a party at one of the company’s San Francisco offices. “They planned the launch after-party prior to knowing if it was safe to launch,” one of the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive company information.“We basically failed at the process.”
The previously unreported incident sheds light on the changing culture at OpenAI, where company leaders including CEO Sam Altman have been accused ofprioritizing commercial interests over public safety— a stark departure from the company’s roots as an altruistic nonprofit. It also raises questions about the federal government’s reliance on self-policing by tech companies — through theWhite House pledgeas well as anexecutive order on AIpassed in October — to protect the public from abuses of generative AI, which executives say has the potential to remake virtually every aspect of human society, from work to war.
Andrew Strait, a former ethics and policy researcher at Google DeepMind, now associate director at the Ada Lovelace Institute in London, said allowing companies to set their own standards for safety is inherently risky.
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“We have no meaningful assurances that internal policies are being faithfully followed or supported by credible methods,” Strait said.
Biden has said that Congress needs to create new laws to protect the public from AI risks.
“President Biden has been clear with tech companies about the importance of ensuring that their products are safe, secure, and trustworthy before releasing them to the public,” said Robyn Patterson, a spokeswoman for the White House. “Leading companies have made voluntary commitments related to independent safety testing and public transparency, which he expects they will meet.”
OpenAI is one of more than a dozen companies that made voluntary commitments to the White House last year, a precursor to the AI executive order. Among the others are Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot; Nvidia, the $3 trillion chips juggernaut; Palantir, the data analytics company that works with militaries and governments; Google DeepMind; and Meta. The pledge requires them to safeguard increasingly capable AI models; the White House said it would remain in effect until similar regulation came into force.
OpenAI’s newest model, GPT-4o, was the company’s first big chance to apply the framework, which calls for the use of human evaluators, including post-PhD professionals trained in biology and third-party auditors, if risks are deemed sufficiently high. But testers compressed the evaluations into a single week, despite complaints from employees.
Though they expected the technology to pass the tests, many employees were dismayed to see OpenAI treat its vaunted new preparedness protocol as an afterthought. In June, several current and former OpenAI employeessigned a cryptic open letterdemanding that AI companies exempt their workers from confidentiality agreements, freeing them to warn regulators and the public about safety risks of the technology.
Meanwhile, former OpenAI executive Jan Leike resigned days after the GPT-4o launch, writingon Xthat “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.” And former OpenAI research engineer William Saunders, who resigned in February, said in a podcast interview he had noticed a pattern of “rushed and not very solid” safety work “in service of meeting the shipping date” for a new product.
A representative of OpenAI’s preparedness team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive company information, said the evaluations took place during a single week, which was sufficient to complete the tests, but acknowledged that the timing had been “squeezed.”
We “are rethinking our whole way of doing it,” the representative said. “This [was] just not the best way to do it.”
In a statement, OpenAI spokesperson Lindsey Held said the company “didn’t cut corners on our safety process, though we recognize the launch was stressful for our teams.” To comply with the White House commitments, the company “conducted extensive internal and external” tests and held back some multimedia features “initially to continue our safety work,” she added.
OpenAI announced the preparedness initiative as an attempt to bring scientific rigor to the study of catastrophic risks, which it defined as incidents “which could result in hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage or lead to the severe harm or death of many individuals.”
The term has been popularized by an influential faction within the AI field who are concerned that trying to build machines as smart as humans might disempower or destroy humanity. Many AI researchers argue these existential risks are speculative and distract from more pressing harms.
“We aim to set a new high-water mark for quantitative, evidence-based work,” Altmanposted on Xin October, announcing the company’s new team.
OpenAI has launched two new safety teams in the last year, which joined a long-standing division focused on concrete harms, like racial bias or misinformation.
The Superalignment team, announced in July, was dedicated to preventing existential risks from far-advanced AI systems. It has since been redistributed to other parts of the company.
Leike and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, a former board member who voted to push out Altman as CEO in November before quickly recanting, led the team. Both resigned in May. Sutskever has been absent from the company since Altman’s reinstatement, but OpenAI did not announce his resignation until the day after the launch of GPT-4o.
According to the OpenAI representative, however, the preparedness team had the full support of top executives.
Realizing that the timing for testing GPT-4o would be tight, the representative said, he spoke with company leaders, including Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, in April and they agreed to a “fallback plan.” If the evaluations turned up anything alarming, the company would launch an earlier iteration of GPT-4o that the team had already tested.
A few weeks prior to the launch date, the team began doing “dry runs,” planning to have “all systems go the moment we have the model,” the representative said. They scheduled human evaluators in different cities to be ready to run tests, a process that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the representative.
Prep work also involved warning OpenAI’s Safety Advisory Group — a newly created board of advisers who receive a scorecard of risks and advise leaders if changes are needed — that it would have limited time to analyze the results.
OpenAI’s Held said the company committed to allocating more time for the process in the future.
“I definitely don’t think we skirted on [the tests],” the representative said. But the process was intense, he acknowledged. “After that, we said, ‘Let’s not do it again.’”
Apple has released new firmware updates for several of its headphones, including AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Fit Pro. These updates address a security vulnerability that could have allowed an attacker within Bluetooth range to impersonate the details of a previously connected device to our headphones, granting unauthorized access to them.
New Firmware for AirPods and Beats
The update applies to the latest models of AirPods and Beats, specifically the second generation of AirPods Pro, PowerBeats Pro, and Beats Fit Pro, which now have firmware version 6F8. It also applies to first and second generation AirPods, along with AirPods Max, which have received version 6A326.
Although Apple has not indicated whether this security vulnerability has been exploited, it is recommended to update the firmware of our headphones as soon as possible to avoid possible attempts to replicate the exploit now that it has been made public.
How to install these updates?
There is no direct mechanism to initiate a firmware update on AirPods and Beats. Updates are installed automatically while the headphones are connected and within Bluetooth range of an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. However, to encourage the update, we can follow these steps:
Connect the headphones to a device and play some music.
Place them in the charging case and plug it into the power outlet.
Keep them near the device in question.
Later on, we can verify if the update has been installed. We will do it as follows:
Open the Settings app.
Tap on General.
Select About.
Tap on AirPods.
Look for the number next to “Firmware Version”.
Keeping your devices up to date is vital for their security and optimal performance. With updates like today’s, while we wait for the AirPods 4 and the AirPods Lite, it is best to update our headphones as soon as possible.“
