Hysteria . A metier flurry . Basements full of transcribed beans . That was the post leading up to the number of the century , just 24 short years ago — for those of us who remember it . Of course , the Y2 K fury ended up being unfounded , and in retrospect , most of us have since chalk up the pathetic worries to nothing more than apocalyptical anxiety .

That ’s what make the ongoing events of last night so shocking . Not only is a Y2K - spirit level event possible — it justhappened .

Just like that , the entire expert infrastructure of our world collapsed in a moment . Seemingly everything except our own personal machine was offline — forget banks , airports , and even 911 call centers in the dark . Though many of us sit around at dwelling house are n’t experiencing the free weight of the situation the same elbow room , the skies being emptied of planes and airports give up assistant make the item .

Theexact movement of the incidentis as vague as what people were read lead up to Y2 K — and for most the great unwashed , it ’ll never count . A line of code in an update push through by a cybersecurity company resulting in massBlue Screens of Death ? Really ? It ’s as senseless and nonobjective as errors in the data format of calendar data when the big number switch .

The feeling of fragility , though , ride out with you . It ’s that shrewish touch that this whole organisation we all live in could go off overnight — and not even a caller as big as Microsoft could sterilise the office quickly .

It ’s not just me who get a flashback to 1999 , either . The Divine ofhaveibeenpwned.com , the iconic website that correspond whether your personal datum has been compromised , take to X ( formerly Twitter ) to make that exact same comparing .

This is basically what we were all distressed about with Y2 K , except it's really bechance this time ☠ ️

& mdash ; Troy Hunt ( @troyhunt)July 19 , 2024

I do n’t think Hunt is implying that there ’s some technical similarity to the Y2 K countdown . His point , and mine , is that a technical glitch — no matter how small — could somehow interrupt the entire apparatus of mod life that we all reckon on .

There are sure enough moral to be learn here from an IT infrastructure perspective — something I ’m trusted will be taken to heart by the industry at heavy . But maybe there ’s another reminder to be had . Not thatairlines should go back to Windows 3.1and we should become Luddites waiting around for a disaster .

But to remember that there ’s a unannealed nature to the earth we live in . And while engineering has helped us domesticate the chaos , if we ’re not careful , the whole firm of cards can come catch on down when just a individual bill wobbles under the pressure .

Maybe we ’ve always know that in theory , but to see it happen in the real world ? At the very least , it gives me some more empathy for my parent ’ stockpile basement in the wintertime of 1999 .