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Southwest's meltdown was definitely not an attack. Their crew scheduling software was so outdated that it required people to call in and speak to a human to rep

Southwest's meltdown was definitely not an attack. Their crew scheduling software was so outdated that it required people to call in and speak to a human to report when they were out of position due to a cancelled flight. The sheer volume of cancellations resulted in this very manual system simply falling over, and so when the weather cleared up they actually had no idea where most of their crews were.

gojomo 4y ago
Sure, that's the publicly-reported story. Is it sufficient? Hard to tell from the outside. Just a tiny bit of blackmailer-sabotage or vandal mischief-making – the sort of thing often underreported for legitimate reasons! – could've been the margin between some mild embarassment & the total collapse we saw. (For example: tying up the call-in lines to turn a normal hold time of minutes into hours, or long busy signals.) Simple monocausal stories are for unsophisticated spectators.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  All you're doing is letting your imagination run wild because you don't want to believe the simplest (and most likely) explanation. This isn't helpful to anyone.
  - gojomo 4y ago
    It's a helpful exercise for naive young people who always believe the simple publicly-reported stories, and haven't yet had the life experience to know there's often more to the story, which only comes out years later (if ever), or via private conversations to deeply-knowledgeable personnel!
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      No, it's really not a helpful exercise. An actual helpful exercise is to determine when an official story doesn't make sense, and to understand that there is probably more to it. In this case, the official story make perfect sense. Doubting it is just creating fairy tales.
      - flandish 4y ago
        > perfect sense So you just inherently believe all that is reported as fact? Remember when the Gulf of Tonkin incident was “for real really real” and we invaded Vietnam? Or the WMDs in Iraq? I’m not tinfoil hatting - Just calling out how interesting it is 3 major events in a documented as fragile industry happen so close. That’s literally all I mentioned in my orig comment.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Remember when the Gulf of Tonkin incident was “for real really real” and we invaded Vietnam? Well, no, the US military was (openly) in Vietnam in support of South Vietnam long before the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Heck, the US military was there (again overtly) in support of France for several years before South Vietnam existed as such. And, ironically, they were there in support of the Viet Minh – which later became both North Vietnam and the Viet Cong – even before that, with almost no break between, starting in July 1945. Insofar as there was an international incident that led to the US invasion of Vietnam it was – though it took a few years for the response – Pearl Harbor, not the Gulf of Tonkin. All the subsequent fighting in Indochina was breakdown in relation between erstwhile allies who were all already present, after the Japanese were driven out and had surrendered.
        flandish 4y ago
        My point was that the Tonkin incident was reported incorrectly and did not match fact; as we found out some decades later. Tying that to this thread: why is what’s reported about the airlines taken to be fact? (And I’m not speaking as if I mean this is malicious (as the Tonkin incident was) - just reported incorrect from fact for other “capital friendly” (face saving) reasons.) Didn’t someone say “believe half of what you read…” somewhere?
- kube-system 4y ago
  What sort of reason do you have to believe that sabotage is involved, when it is adequately explained by the positive feedback loop of out-of-position calls exceeding the rate at which the can be answered?
  - gojomo 4y ago
    Why do you think I believe it was definitiely involved? I just don't think it's ruled-out by the simple official story. Some but not all of the reasons why I believe there might be more to the story are based on decades of life experience: * Whenever the media reports on something I know about intimately, they get it wrong, preferring pleasing simple narratives to the full details. Hence, I assume their stories on things I don't know intimately show a similar skew towards oversimplification, missing-details that are embarassing to the key actors, and audience-pleasing explanations. * I've not ever been in IT security for a major or public company. But even in tiny organizations, I've observed strong incentives – not all misguided! – to downplay malicious mischief as a contributor to any problems. Organizations don't want to encourage the perpetrators with publicity, nor encourage copycats. Orgs also don't want to be embarassed by lax measures. From direct reports from individuals at larger organizations – and reliable public accounts of late-reported hack/extortion incidents – I believe these incentives can be even stronger at large, slow-moving, distributed-responsibility public companies (though of course the penalties for explicitly-misleading statements also larger). * Plenty of mean, crazy, or self-interested people may have it out for Southwest, from previously-angered travellers to disgruntled employees to motivated short-sellers (individuals or formal funds). And even if the potential for sabotage was under formal investigation right now, the investigators – private or public – might want to hide that fact until definitive evidence collected & perpetrators are prosecutable. It can take months or years for the real story to emerge! A fragile outdated system finally reaching a chaotic breaking point is one possible & sufficient answer, of course. But it's also a potential weak-point to be pushed-over-the-edge by motivated saboteurs or extortionists. In fact, such a weak point is ideal for certain criminal schemes, because of its deniability by both perpetrator and victim as merely a problem of aged systems & incompetence. So, only the naive would rule it out entirely based on only self-serving public narratives.

gojomo 4y ago

Sure, that's the publicly-reported story. Is it sufficient? Hard to tell from the outside. Just a tiny bit of blackmailer-sabotage or vandal mischief-making – the sort of thing often underreported for legitimate reasons! – could've been the margin between some mild embarassment & the total collapse we saw. (For example: tying up the call-in lines to turn a normal hold time of minutes into hours, or long busy signals.) Simple monocausal stories are for unsophisticated spectators.

jaywalk 4y ago
All you're doing is letting your imagination run wild because you don't want to believe the simplest (and most likely) explanation. This isn't helpful to anyone.
- gojomo 4y ago
  It's a helpful exercise for naive young people who always believe the simple publicly-reported stories, and haven't yet had the life experience to know there's often more to the story, which only comes out years later (if ever), or via private conversations to deeply-knowledgeable personnel!
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    No, it's really not a helpful exercise. An actual helpful exercise is to determine when an official story doesn't make sense, and to understand that there is probably more to it. In this case, the official story make perfect sense. Doubting it is just creating fairy tales.
    - flandish 4y ago
      > perfect sense So you just inherently believe all that is reported as fact? Remember when the Gulf of Tonkin incident was “for real really real” and we invaded Vietnam? Or the WMDs in Iraq? I’m not tinfoil hatting - Just calling out how interesting it is 3 major events in a documented as fragile industry happen so close. That’s literally all I mentioned in my orig comment.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Remember when the Gulf of Tonkin incident was “for real really real” and we invaded Vietnam? Well, no, the US military was (openly) in Vietnam in support of South Vietnam long before the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Heck, the US military was there (again overtly) in support of France for several years before South Vietnam existed as such. And, ironically, they were there in support of the Viet Minh – which later became both North Vietnam and the Viet Cong – even before that, with almost no break between, starting in July 1945. Insofar as there was an international incident that led to the US invasion of Vietnam it was – though it took a few years for the response – Pearl Harbor, not the Gulf of Tonkin. All the subsequent fighting in Indochina was breakdown in relation between erstwhile allies who were all already present, after the Japanese were driven out and had surrendered.
        flandish 4y ago
        My point was that the Tonkin incident was reported incorrectly and did not match fact; as we found out some decades later. Tying that to this thread: why is what’s reported about the airlines taken to be fact? (And I’m not speaking as if I mean this is malicious (as the Tonkin incident was) - just reported incorrect from fact for other “capital friendly” (face saving) reasons.) Didn’t someone say “believe half of what you read…” somewhere?
kube-system 4y ago
What sort of reason do you have to believe that sabotage is involved, when it is adequately explained by the positive feedback loop of out-of-position calls exceeding the rate at which the can be answered?
- gojomo 4y ago
  Why do you think I believe it was definitiely involved? I just don't think it's ruled-out by the simple official story. Some but not all of the reasons why I believe there might be more to the story are based on decades of life experience: * Whenever the media reports on something I know about intimately, they get it wrong, preferring pleasing simple narratives to the full details. Hence, I assume their stories on things I don't know intimately show a similar skew towards oversimplification, missing-details that are embarassing to the key actors, and audience-pleasing explanations. * I've not ever been in IT security for a major or public company. But even in tiny organizations, I've observed strong incentives – not all misguided! – to downplay malicious mischief as a contributor to any problems. Organizations don't want to encourage the perpetrators with publicity, nor encourage copycats. Orgs also don't want to be embarassed by lax measures. From direct reports from individuals at larger organizations – and reliable public accounts of late-reported hack/extortion incidents – I believe these incentives can be even stronger at large, slow-moving, distributed-responsibility public companies (though of course the penalties for explicitly-misleading statements also larger). * Plenty of mean, crazy, or self-interested people may have it out for Southwest, from previously-angered travellers to disgruntled employees to motivated short-sellers (individuals or formal funds). And even if the potential for sabotage was under formal investigation right now, the investigators – private or public – might want to hide that fact until definitive evidence collected & perpetrators are prosecutable. It can take months or years for the real story to emerge! A fragile outdated system finally reaching a chaotic breaking point is one possible & sufficient answer, of course. But it's also a potential weak-point to be pushed-over-the-edge by motivated saboteurs or extortionists. In fact, such a weak point is ideal for certain criminal schemes, because of its deniability by both perpetrator and victim as merely a problem of aged systems & incompetence. So, only the naive would rule it out entirely based on only self-serving public narratives.