NEW YORK (AP) – It was a rough day for technology: The nation’s biggest airline, its oldest stock exchange, and its most prominent business newspaper all suffered technology problems that upended service for parts of the day.
Government officials said that it did not appear that the incidents were related, or the result of sabotage, counter to an endless stream of jokes and conspiracy theories posted on Facebook and Twitter – and even the suspicions of FBI director James Comey.
“In my business, you don’t love coincidences,” Comey told Congress Wednesday. “But it does appear that there is not a cyber intrusion involved.”
First a “router issue” at United Airlines suspended all of the company’s flights for nearly two hours, leading to 800 flight delays and 60 cancellations. Then at 11:32 a “technical problem” at the New York Stock Exchange halted trading. In the midst of that, the Wall Street Journal’s website, WSJ.com, had “technical difficulties” that sent readers to a temporary site while the paper worked to fix the problem.
“The problem is humans can’t keep up with all the technology they have created,” said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner. “It’s becoming unmanageable by the human brain. Our best hope may be that computers eventually will become smart enough to maintain themselves.”