On July 19, users of about 8.5 million Windows users worldwide faced the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death.” As I write this column, many remain down. Microsoft has issued a manual fix for machines that aren’t able to automatically recover, but it’s a black eye for Microsoft and for Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm whose fault software update caused the outages.

While 8.5 million may not seem like a lot of machines in the scheme of things (about a billion and a half PCs run Windows 10/11, not counting older versions of the operating system), it wasn’t the number so much as the user identity that mattered.

The victims weren’t, for the most part, kids playing Minecraft. They were corporate customers — airlines, banks, hospitals, hotels. Flights were canceled. Account holders couldn’t access their bank accounts online. Surgeries were postponed.

My knee-jerk reaction, I confess was: Well, yeah … NEVER trust Windows or Crowdstrike (I’m a long-time Linux user and consider Crowdstrike’s close relationship with, and willingness to manufacture cybersecurity scams for, the Democratic Party suspect).

But I quickly realized that WAS just a knee-jerk response. The real lesson is: Widespread and exclusive reliance on single systems is a bad idea.

This outage didn’t affect MacOS, it didn’t affect Linux (and variants such as ChromeOS), and it didn’t affect cybersecurity software other than Crowdstrike’s product.

It did, however, affect the CUSTOMERS of businesses using the Windows/CrowdStrike combo on centralized systems.

For example, four US airlines had to cancel flights.

Why were they all using the same OS/security software combo?

And why didn’t they have backup systems, running different OSes and different security software, that could be quickly brought online to work from the same data sets as the usual systems if something like this happened?

Over the last few years, we’ve seen lots of loud calls for government to impose various top-down, one-size-fits-all “cybersecurity” solutions.

This outage demonstrates the problem with that idea.  Various government operations, including 911 call centers, fell victim to the problem. Requiring private sector entities to use government-approved “solutions” would expose even more users to problems hitting those “solutions.”

In the future, we can expect more, not fewer, collapses of computer systems and networks. Putting all our eggs in one operating system / cybersecurity basket is just asking for worse and more widespread disruption.

Unfortunately, as an individual user, you remain continually vulnerable to mistakes and poor decisions made upstream from your home PC desktop.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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In the wake of a July 13 assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, Chaya Raichik — better known as “LibsOfTikTok” on X, aka Twitter — got to work.

Her job description, as she saw it, broke down int three parts:

First, identify people commenting on the attack in ways she deemed inappropriate.

Second, identify those commenters’ employers

Third, try to get them fired.

She turned up the considerable heat her social media footprint provides, lighting “they should be fired” fires under “ordinary Americans” ranging from teachers to medical assistants to  Home Depot cashiers to chefs.

Backlash quickly followed … not just from her “woke” opponents, but from former allies on the right who supported her bitter complaints about “doxxing” and “muh free speech” in 2022 when the Washington Post publicly revealed her own identity.

My opinion: Sauce for the geese is sauce for the ganders, but it’s a pretty distasteful sauce on both.

I’m on record as being relatively unconcerned about most versions of “doxxing.” Perhaps that’s because I grew up in an era when every household annually received a book listing the names, addresses, and phone numbers of nearly everyone near them, and in a small town where gossip comprised about 80% of the entertainment sector.

Those who choose to publicly comment on any subject are free to SEEK personal anonymity and privacy as to their employment and such, but they’re not entitled to it. There is no right to stop others from knowing things (or thinking they know those things), and saying things, about you.

On the other hand, going all screeching meanie toward everyone you don’t like — encouraging harassment against them, attacking their ability to remain gainfully employed, etc. — is bad behavior.

It’s bad behavior if you’re a “left-wing social justice warrior.”

It’s bad behavior if you’re a “right-wing culture warrior.”

It’s bad behavior if you’re just an enthusiastic everyday gossip.

It’s the kind of behavior normal, decent people don’t engage in and don’t like to see.

Why does Chaya Raichik engage in it?

Maybe it’s a matter of abnormality and her actions are some kind of garbled cry for help with severe mental problems.

Or maybe it’s a matter of incentives — she just finds non-decency too personally, politically, or financially rewarding to pass up.

There’s nothing going on here that government laws or regulations can fix. The only solution is for all of us, as individuals, to build a kinder culture.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,” former US president Barack Obama tweeted on July 13, in response to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.

Former president Bill Clinton agreed: “Violence has no place in America, especially in our political process.”

As did current president Joe Biden Official statement: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

Former president George W. Bush — who got Daddy to secure him a stateside Air National Guard billet so he could avoid risking his hide in Vietnam, then deserted — called the attack “cowardly.”

It probably goes without saying that Donald Trump doesn’t like being shot at.

Yes, of course I also condemn “political violence.” Not just some of it — all of it.

All the aforementioned presidents are mass murderers, and by definition all of the murders they’ve ordered have been “political.”

Obama and Trump in particular have ordered the political murders of American citizens, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki and eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki. Neither of the victims were charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime. Nor have any of the perpetrators been charged with or tried for the murders.

Bill Clinton took “full responsibility” for the murders of 82 Branch Davidians by federal agents in Waco, Texas in 1993. Apparently “full responsibility” doesn’t include throwing one’s self on the mercy of a court.

I have to disagree — but only partially — with journalist/novelist Ben Ehrenreich’s snarky tweet: “There is no place for political violence against rich, white men. It is antithetical to everything America stands for.”

There’s quite a bit of “political violence” in the world, but the term seldom gains much traction, nor does the phenomenon get much attention, unless the target is an American politician.

American politicians are responsible for “political violence” resulting in literally millions of deaths during my lifetime (I was born just as the war in Vietnam was heating up).

While there’s usually vigorous debate about the wisdom of such “political violence,” and plenty of hand-wringing about “collateral damage” and such, we see none of the red-faced, vein-popping outrage that suddenly appears when the target is one of America’s Very Special Important People.

Contra Ehrenreich, the outrage isn’t about the targets being rich or white. It’s about the targets being part of the American political class.

There’s an interrogation scene in the 1996 biopic Michael Collins, in which a prisoner is told “Don’t threaten us, you Fenian swine. We threaten you!”

That sums up our rulers’ attitude toward “political violence”: Perfectly acceptable when they’re choosing the targets, outrageous that they should ever BECOME the targets.

I oppose “political violence,” even against murderous scumbags like Donald Trump. I’d like to see him brought to justice, but I don’t expect the vigilante method to produce good outcomes.

Until we find a way through and out of ALL the “political violence,” just keep in mind that political class VSIPs see themselves as untouchable ranchers and you as disposable livestock.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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