Electronic Frontier Foundation
CrowdStrike’s billion-dollar outage is a wake-up call. We need antitrust action now to prevent future tech collapses. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/crowdstrike-antitrust-and-digital-monoculture
CrowdStrike, Antitrust, and the Digital Monoculture

Last month’s unprecedented global IT failure should be a wakeup call. Decades of antitrust inaction have made many industries dangerously reliant on the same tools, making such crises inevitable. We must demand regulators break up the digital monocultures that are creating a less competitive, less...

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Aug 4, 2024 at 5:58pmScheduler
Show threadDavid W. JonesAug 4, 2024

@eff
If it's too big to fail, it's too big. Break it up!

Applies to all industries, including the finance "industry".

Show threadEhay2kAug 4, 2024

@eff

Not taking sides here, but if a company has the BEST cybersecurity on the planet available, should they not have a "monopoly" position?

That's a challenge here, innovation on excellent cybersecurity can't be subject to market requirements that other people be allowed to compete.

Your product either works or it doesn't. In CrowdStrike's case, it worked a little bit too well but also because not enough people tested before they deployed it.

Show threadZenXArchAug 5, 2024
@Ehay2k @eff Breaking monopolies isnt just about fairness. Its about allowing the existense of better innovations that might not happen at just a single company.
Show threadEhay2kAug 6, 2024
@ZenXArch @eff
I agree that generally speaking monopolies are not good for the consumer. However, if you have a quasi-monopoly because your product is so much better than anyone else's, then that's actually the free market at work. What you shouldn't be allowed to do, and what companies are often punished for, is using your market position as leverage to further your monopoly.
In this case, CrowdStrike doesn't have a monopoly, far from it. It's a very crowded space with lots of competition.
Show threadCharlie Br0wnnAug 5, 2024

@Ehay2k @eff

1) there is no way to prevent errors in software - all software has vulnerabilities

2) 70 percent of all security incidents are caused by human error

3) if everybody has the same software, then all the bad guys will have only one software stack to break into

4) most security software builds on a core of open source non-commercial software because it is superior to commercial software

= a commercial monopoly is bad for everybody

Show threadPrometheusAug 6, 2024
@eff
Did the tower of babel collapse all at once, or do we think it shook a little bit before it gave out?