Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday, we had a bunch of problems with AWS. I
guess they're a big server, if you will, Evan Brown,
who's our expert Fox On Tech correspondent following this story
as to how many people were affected dozens of different
companies from Amazon to Venmo, to bank accounts and even
Netflix and shows like that. Evan, welcome in, thanks for
(00:21):
being here, good thank good morning. So what happened here?
And as it fixes, everybody back up and running. So
let's start at the beginning. Let's start at the beginning,
and who these people are the control of this mass amount.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So AWS is Amazon Web Services. This is part of
the Amazon company. Now, most people when they think of Amazon,
they think of the shopping app, maybe streaming videos. Maybe
they think of Jeff Bezos sending celebrities up to space
and rockets. But Amazon also has this other very large
company called Amazon Web Services. They provide cloud computing to
(00:56):
a lot of clients big, in small, public and private
really all around the world. Perhaps the largest, maybe the
largest or one of the largest providers of this service.
And a lot of the companies that run online services
that we use in our day to day life, either
privately or in business are. You know, they make use
(01:17):
of the services provided by Amazon for hosting and throughput
and whatnot. So that could mean everything from something like Salesforce,
which everyone has heard about. That's a Salesforce is a
you know, a business app, to Square, which is another
business app that maybe some smaller businesses use, to Coinbase,
the big crypto trading service, to Venmo, which you use
(01:38):
to pay your babysitter or give your kid their allowance
these days, two smaller apps that are used just for
ordering your breakfast at your favorite little chain coffee shop
or whatever. So all of that stuff can very likely
goes through Amazon Web Services. They are the big provider
and when now normally I want to be very fair
(01:59):
to Amazon Web Services. They have enormously good uptime and
they're very reliable. But something went wrong yesterday and because
of it, you know, rarely happening is very noticeable, and
it was very noticeable because it is so widely used
throughout the entire public internet and commercial internet, so when
it goes down, it's very very noticeable. And that's what
happened yesterday. It seems to be working in Amazon said
(02:23):
that it wasn't an attack, it was something internal to them.
But in terms of exactly the specifics, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was going to ask you that have they zeroed
in on what causes? Was it a glitch? Was it
a power surge? Or was it a hack? Was it intentional?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It looks like something on there, and in terms of
a glitch probably the best way to say it, and
something to do with their own internal systems as opposed
to something nefarious. But like I said, Amazon is very
very good uptime. So but when something like this should happen,
it's it's it has incredible ripple effects. I mean, they
were airlines that couldn't take reservations, there were you know,
(03:01):
I mean it kind of yes, Fortnite was down, and
I know for so many people that's devastating. You could
go without Fortnite, really people. But still, you know, just
in terms of demonstrating how widespread this is, you know,
it was very illustrative. And it also brings about the
whole concept of, you know, do we have enough redundancy
(03:23):
on this thing that we all depend on called the Internet?
And what should we do about that in terms of
oversight and governance Because we had this whole argument already
once before with the whole net neutrality thing. Is the
Internet at private consortium of computer networks or is it
a public utility that we all depend on?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So well, what.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Is the administration doing in Washington? I mean, where does
the government get involved and say, look, we've got to
either jump on board? Is AWS? I mean it's Amazon
Web Services. So it sounds to me like it's a
private company that handles so much, but in handling so much,
it can affect so much in the government as well.
So is there a partnership with the federal government and AWS?
(04:09):
I'm making sure these things, like you said, have some
backup plans.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, I'm sure that they communicate. And it does seem
as if President Trump and Jeff Bezos have a good
working relationship these days. So that's that's that. But that's
kind of informal if you think about it. You know,
it has been the Republican mantra anyway, that the Internet
is a private business and it's private nature is what
drives the innovation, and therefore it should not be regulated
(04:36):
as a utility, which whereas the other side of the
political spectrum was arguing that again going back to the
net neutrality thing, So what's that I.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Said government control. You know, they'd like to have it
on the other side of the alley.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Or government regulation, the idea that it should be regulated
to control access and this, that and the other thing.
So it you know, we might have to have that
discussion again. Consider bring the private Internet failed us yesterday.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And there's not really any other options right this, I mean,
this is basically a great definition of a monopoly with AWS.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No, there are other companies out there, but AWS is
perhaps the most premiere, one of the most premiere of it.
And the question is is will businesses that use AWS
be so you know, shaken up by what happened yesterday
that they try to take their business elsewhere in the
free market or do they do they go somewhere else
for a backup system or something like that. All of
(05:32):
that stuff is possible now. If you're a major company
like Salesforce, maybe you have the ability to do something
like that. If you are a much smaller company that
has an app for e commerce, you know, to augment
your you know, your smoothie chain and you want to
take payments or pre orders from an app, you may
have that flexibility.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So well, I got to take the people at AWS
along with the folks that the Love Security team all
look at this going okay, let's regroup and see where
the problems was and kind of, you know, step our
game up a bit. EVN. Thank you for the update, buddy.
I appreciate you, and it's I'm glad to hear that
most of it, hopefully all of it, is back up
and running smoothly again.