‘I’m having a great day’: AWS outage offers some a brief glimpse of a tech-free existence

Workers were sent home, exams were delayed, coffee machines had to be turned on manually and language app users feared their hard-won progress was lost as a result of the global outage of Amazon Web Services on Monday, as some made light of their briefly tech-free existence.A glitch in the AWS cloud computing service brought down apps and websites for millions of users around the world affecting more than 2,000 companies, including Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and language app Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations.Many of the sites were restored after a few hours, but some experienced persistent problems throughout the day. By Monday evening, Amazon said all of its cloud services had “returned to normal operations”.But amid the chaos affecting vital services around the world, some more unexpected consequences arose

Amazon Web Services outage shows internet users ‘at mercy’ of too few providers, experts say

Experts have warned of the perils of relying on a small number of companies for operating the global internet after a glitch at Amazon’s cloud computing service brought down apps and websites around the world.The affected platforms included Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations including its main retail site and the Ring doorbell company.More than 2,000 companies worldwide have been affected, according to Downdetector, a site that monitors internet outages, with 8.1m reports of problems from users including 1.9m reports in the US, 1m in the UK and 418,000 in Australia

‘Every kind of creative discipline is in danger’: Lincoln Lawyer author on the dangers of AI

He is one of the most prolific writers in publishing, averaging more than a novel a year. But even Michael Connelly, the author of the bestselling Lincoln Lawyer series, feared he might fall behind when writing about AI.Connelly’s eighth novel in the series, to be released on Tuesday, centres on a lawsuit against an AI company whose chatbot told a 16-year-old boy that it was OK for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for being unfaithful.But as he was writing, he witnessed the technology altering the way the world worked so rapidly that he feared his plot might become out of date.“You don’t have to lick your finger and hold it up to the wind to know that AI is a massive change that’s coming to science, culture, medicine, everything,” he said

Bereaved families call for inquiry into UK failure to act on pro-suicide forum

Bereaved families and survivors of a pro-suicide forum have called for a public inquiry into the government’s failure to prevent harm linked to the online platform.The calls came as a report found that coroners had raised concerns regarding suicide forums at least 65 times to three government departments since 2019.They also highlighted that a substance promoted as a suicide method on such platforms has been linked to at least 133 deaths in the UK, with the youngest known victim just 13 years old.The analysis, published by the Molly Rose Foundation – established after the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell in November 2017 – is the result of systematic review of reports to prevent future deaths issued by coroners.According to their report, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology all failed to act on warnings from coroners about the dangers of pro-suicide forums

‘The wire began to smoke’: how to avoid counterfeit scams on Vinted and other resale sites

When Maheen found a brand-new Dyson Airwrap for the bargain price of £260 on the resale website Vinted, she was thrilled. The seller’s reviews were all five-star, and she trusted in the buyer-protection policy should something go wrong.Sold new, an Airwrap costs between £400 and £480, but Maheen did not suspect anything was amiss. “I had used Vinted many times and it was simple and straightforward. Nothing had ever gone wrong,” she says

‘I lost 25 pounds in 20 days’: what it’s like to be on the frontline of a global cyber-attack

The security chief of SolarWinds reflects on the Russian hack that exposed US government agencies – and the heart attack he suffered in the aftermathTim Brown will remember 12 December 2020 for ever.It was the day the software company SolarWinds was notified it had been hacked by Russia.Brown, the chief information security officer at SolarWinds, immediately understood the implications: any of the company’s more than 300,000 global clients could be affected too.The exploit allowed the hackers remote access to the systems of customers that had installed SolarWinds’ network software Orion, including the US treasury department, the US department of commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, along with thousands of companies and public institutions.Brown says he was “running on adrenaline” in the first few days after the attack