A global outage affecting computers running Windows operating systems earlier this month took airlines around the world by surprise, leading to air traffic chaos, while other transportation systems, financial companies, and hospitals and clinics, as well as government departments worldwide were also affected.
In Taiwan, not even the nation’s largest hospital system — National Taiwan University Hospital — was spared.
As the saying goes: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” With this incident over, what lessons can be learned?
First, critical infrastructure is by no means limited to hardware. With ever-increasing digitization and automation of equipment and infrastructure, software is playing a far more important role. Peacetime has made people more complacent and less aware of these changes.
When departments in governments and private entities are busy compiling management inventories for their critical infrastructure, they cannot let such foundational software as operations systems slip through the cracks. At the same time, software crashes absolutely must be included in emergency response training to address problematic software, hardware or computer system breakdowns.
Second, no matter how technologically advanced or how great the level of digitization and automation is, governments and private enterprises must keep backups to be able to maintain the basic functional equipment society needs. Governments and companies need to integrate resilience into their mindset.
Last, Taiwan’s long-term development has tended to favor hardware production, but has somewhat neglected the software side of computers. As a result, the nation has put too high a degree of trust and reliance on Microsoft products and those of other major international manufacturers. Should another system outage occur, all the nation would be able to do is wait for the original manufacturer to implement a solution or fix. The nation cannot have a repeat of this problem when using generative artificial intelligence.
Huang Wei-ping works in public service and has a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
Translated by Tim Smith
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then