Jack Thiess

When Technology Fails

Welcome to My Capstone Project

My project explores all the consequences of technological failures in the modern day. These failures can cause catastrophic damage, typically in areas most people don’t even think about or know exist. My project has illuminated how much damage has been caused by failures that absolutely could and should have been prevented. Some of the failures I have learned more about include:

CrowdStrike Outage
In 2023, CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, pushed a software update that caused about 8.5 million computers to become completely unusable with no apparent fix. This caused Airlines to shut down, Banks to half funding, and many other businesses to shut down.
Rogers Outage
In 2022, Rogers Communications experienced a massive outage that affected millions of customers across Canada. The outage was caused by a software update that went wrong, leading to widespread service disruptions and financial losses for the company.
Intel CPUs self-destructing
In 2024, it was discovered that the 13th and 14th generations of Intel CPUs had a flaw in the microcode (the code that runs the CPU). This flaw caused the CPUs to request too many volts, causing irreperable damage.

Personal Connection

    Technology has always been a passion of mine since I was young and wanted to know how the playstation put Minecraft on the TV. As I learned more, I got really interested into systems administration (setting up and managing servers to host a variety of systems). I currently manage multiple servers which each are responsible for a variety of tasks, such as file storage, image syncing, video streaming, and game servers.

    One of the core responsibilities in systems administration is making sure that whatveer you are setting up will not break. I personally have failsafes in place in the event that something goes wrong, such as drive parity (a way to make sure that if a drive fails, the data is still safe) and backups (a way to make sure that if something goes wrong, you can restore it).

    It bothers me when companies that have vast amounts of resources fail to use them to prevent failures. It is my belief that they could prevent many of these failures if these companies were to take the time to invest in their systems and make sure that they are not going to fail. I believe that this is a problem that needs to be addressed, and I hope that my project can help to raise awareness of this issue.

Significant Sources

George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Intra, 2021. (Link to Amazon listing)
George Orwell's 1984 is a story centered around the dangers of an authoritarian government and the importance of the truth. The protagonist's job at the start of the book is to modify historical documents to support whatever the government decides the truth is. This doctoring of the truth allows the government to maintain universal control over citizens. This story, while not referencing modern-day technology, shows why using technology to preserve and share history is paramount.

Flinders, Mesh. "What is high availability?" IBM. (Link to article)
This article explains the basics of high availability and why it is important. The article also provides examples of systems people use daily that can not be allowed to fail. IBM is also considered to be an authority on the truth, with a reputation that precedes most modern tech companies' existence. This source gives the reader a wonderful introduction into how much effort needs to be put into keeping systems online and just how important it is that if something fails there is always a backup.

Zimonjic, Peter. "Human error caused 2022 Rogers outage..." CBC/Radio Canada. (Link to article)
This article explores multiple perspectives during a mass outage for users of the Rogers cellular network. This article is refreshingly unbiased and discusses the frustration with the network's outage while also acknowledging the struggles that the company is facing due to this. This article gives the reader perspective of the outage from both sides, allowing the reader to understand that the outage causes issues for everyone (not just the end users).

Jack Thiess

When Technology Fails

Welcome to My Capstone Project

Personal Connection

Significant Sources

Creative Piece (PLACEHOLDER VIDEO)