[flippy_flops]

The speculation is fascinating. For most people, their guess is a reflection of themselves. Is there a term for that? This is a gross generalization, but I've seen... - Science people guessing solar flares - My "right-wing friend" guessed international hackers - I, myself, guessed it was a botched software release - Someone in this post commented their military friend says get gas

And yet, like everyone else, I genuinely feel that I'm probably right

[BuyMyBitcoins]

My speculation is: “Higher-ups kept demanding that technicians ‘do more with less’ in order to deliver on quarterly metrics and now we’re finally seeing the cumulative result of employees being stretched thin, underpaid, and overworked.”

You are welcome to infer as to why I’m thinking this way!

[bregma]

So how is the job search going?

[gnuser]

The ops team can run the whole company and better without the C-Suite is my impression of modern day SV. Agile stickers on waterfall gates…

[nonethewiser]

Obviously you’re a self loathing executive.

[spazx]

This is my bet; and mayyybe some external bad actors taking advantage of the situation on top of that.

[Scoundreller]

> Someone in this post commented their military friend says get gas

The Rogers outage in Canada took out the nationwide debit card payment network because that infra depended on Rogers. Credit cards still worked, but depends on your station’s access to make the transaction. And no shortage of shops running their POS “in the cloud” and needing to close if they lose internet access. I actually did have to lend cash to a colleague to buy gas to get home during that Rogers outage.

All it takes is for one pipeline valve to depend on a cellular connection for billing to get the whole line shutdown.

And ugh, we hope for a botched software upgrade too, but a corp cyberattack is so much harder to recover from so can’t be discounted from the realm of possibilities. I know that’s where my mind went with Rogers given how thorough their outage was.

Was kinda unimaginable for a total outage to happen with no org comms ready to go in the pipeline. Your plans are supposed to have those comms ready for a bad update that you’ve been planning for weeks. It’s a cyberattack where you may stay silent. But I know Rogers isn’t going to admit fault until they find someone else to blame.

[charcircuit]

PoS devices are usually networked. If you don't validate transactions in realtime you would later validate in batch, but that has more risk than validating at the time of transaction.

[Scoundreller]

> If you don't validate transactions in realtime you would later validate in batch

yeah, a lot of orgs just don't enable that (or don't have a process to enable it as required, and have difficulty pushing out a notice to do so if the network is down!).

Also can only do offline credit card transactions. Can't with our Interac (Canadian-only) debit network. Unsure about Visa/Mastercard debit transactions.

[rescbr]

> Unsure about Visa/Mastercard debit transactions.

AIUI, the debit card itself enforces online confirmation, even if the transaction goes through the credit card rail.

[mlyle]

> And yet, like everyone else, I genuinely feel that I'm probably right

This is the thing with black swan events. The more pedestrian explanations are almost always true, but then there's a tiny fraction of the time where you're much, much better off having taken a bit of an alarmist view.

[r721]

It looks like you were right:

>A temporary network disruption that affected AT&T customers in the U.S. Thursday was caused by a software update, the company said.

>AT&T told ABC News in a statement ABC News that the outage was not a cyberattack but caused by "the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/att-outage-impacting-us-customers-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39477187

[nonethewiser]

I literally caught myself thinking about a cyberattack merely because its sort of exciting (albeit terrible). And then realizing despite its prominence in my mind, it’s probably not the most likely cause (although certainly plausible still). And furthermore, that my mind gravitates to that without any real information suggesting it over other explanations. More about fearing for the worst instead of what you want I think.

[akira2501]

> I genuinely feel that I'm probably right

We are wired that way for a reason. Until you personally see conflicting evidence you have to make an assumption or you would spend your life paralyzed or ignorant.

Biology rewards action more than accuracy.

[booleandilemma]

A type of availability bias, maybe?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

[ShamelessC]

> Is there a term for that?

Projecting, biased.