Windows 3.1 saves Southwest Airlines during CrowdStrike outage | Hacker News Reader

Windows 3.1 saves Southwest Airlines during CrowdStrike outage

tomshardware.com

26 pointssmsm4230 comments

Wow, this is one of the worst articles I've ever seen. Aside from the obviously false information about Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 mentioned in other comments, the article just drops in this statement at the end:

"This is also precisely why military aircraft, like the Air Force One, still use needles, dials, and gauges—you cannot beat the reliability of older systems that have already been put through the wringer."

Gonna need a citation for that! The two jets used for Air Force One are based on the 747-200, which was one of the very early 747 models, so of course it predates glass cockpits. The reason isn't "precisely" because analogue gauges are more reliable, it's because of the plane's age. Look at all military aircraft development and you'll see they use the technology of the era. The replacement for the current VC-25 (Air Force One) aircraft will be based on the 747-8, and you better believe they'll have the glass cockpits now in use in the latest 747s.

> The reason isn't "precisely" because analogue gauges are more reliable, it's because of the plane's age

I have to say, they are always quicker to locate and operate than touchscreen UI controls.

Windows 3.1 did not save Southwest, not using CrowdStrike saved Southwest.

I was going to say the same in less kind words. I am sick of seeing the media, even allegedly informed people like IT admins, devs, the tech media, are all trying to change the news in real time to fit whatever agenda they have.

The number of times I've already explained to people online and in person that this is not the fault of Microsoft, Windows, etc.

It's this blatant disregard for reality that makes me tired of the internet. The next dumb lie they try meme into existence, I'll just not use the internet for a week.

> this is not the fault of Microsoft, Windows, etc.

Partially, it is. The expected lifetime of unprotected Windows machine connected to the Internet is in minutes, and I think there's some fault of Microsoft and Windows in that. And people want a solution to this problem, and when Crowdstrike offers one they take it. The reason "Windows + Crowdstrike" became so omnipresent is because "Windows without Crowdstrike" is too big a risk. It may be not a direct fault but certainly a contribution to the whole situation.

Maybe it you're running Windows XP, but that is absolutely not true for a supported version of Windows. It is absolute FUD to say simply connecting a Windows 10/11 machine to the internet will cause it to be automatically infected.

Yes, but if they used an up-to-date version, they'd probably be using Crowdstrike by now, because everybody else did.

A corporate push for Windows 7 Forever might be in order. Windows 7 was Microsoft's best OS. Most of the bugs had been fixed by then, and reliability was good. No subscriptions, no ads, and updating was optional.

There's almost nothing since then that's really needed in a business.

Windows 7 wouldn't have saved them if they used Crowdstrike. This was the problem. :-/

The last Windows I willingly used was Windows 2000. But I would never go back to that: Linux is so much better now for my needs.

> Most of the bugs had been fixed by then, and reliability was good. No subscriptions, no ads, and updating was optional.

This also describes Debian though.

Debian is God’s operating system

C’mon now, we know that’s TempleOS, not Debian!

"Business Computer Classic". Windows 7 in ROM. Always comes back up when you turn it off and turn it on again, or your money back.

list of unpatched Windows 7 vulnerabilities - https://www.askwoody.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/This-is-...

> These systems do not receive upgrades, so the company is sure it won’t ever receive one and cause an unexpected crash that could disrupt operations. After all, as the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

This is horrible logic. Just because a system doesn't receive upgrades doesn't make it secure or reliable. In fact, the opposite is much more likely true.

Yep. And because it's insecure it becomes increasingly isolated (for very good reasons) from the rest of your network, which creates major operational bottlenecks and impediments against future desirable updates and upgrades.

This is not true.

Southwest is not running Windows 3.1.

https://hachyderm.io/@danderson/112823168105006094

"So, it would seem that one shitpost led some journalists to breathlessly google for corroborating sources, and "Southwest builds its crew scheduling apps in-house, and they look like shit, like they're from the Windows 95 era" morphed into "Southwest runs everything on Windows 3.1".

Maybe I've missed some actual evidence for these claims, I dunno. But every mention of Southwest and Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 eventually lead back to this lineage of 3 articles misquoting each other."

I tried to leave a comment on the original article, but tomshardware.com prevents my comment from being "spamlike", even though it has no spam. If anyone has a functional forum account there, please post a correction.

It's frankly embarrassing that Toms Hardware posted this with no evidence whatsoever, and is banning comments trying to correct it.

Jowi Morales, if you are a real person and not an AI, you should be ashamed.

I also tried to source this the first time I heard it, and similarly couldn't confirm it. It might be trivially true in the sense that every huge corporation has some ancient box (or VM) lurking in the shadows somewhere, but I can't find any evidence online that Windows 3.1 is anywhere on Southwest's critical path for booking/itinerary management/plane repositioning/etc.

On a slightly truer note: the NYC subway runs, in part, on eComStation (a/k/a OS/2 Warp). The eComStation parts of the system chugged along on Friday, while the newer parts (OMNY for contactless payment, train arrival panels, etc.) all had problems.

This is not the first time this has happened.

Back in 2019, many outlets[1] reported that Putin was still using Windows XP. Why? Because in a publicity photo, the taskbar on his computer had a blueish color. And some people even came up with theories like "it's because it's the last version that hasn't been backdoored".

The problem is that this isn't true. If you look at the photo in full resolution[2], it's clear that it was Windows 7 (or maybe even 8 with a Start menu mod).

[1] - For example: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7800831/Vladimir-Pu...

[2] - http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big2x/W2kaDAtDz...

And that's another reason you never trust media nowadays

Gen Z does journalism now, while: https://phys.org/news/2023-06-misinformation-susceptibility-...

I'm guessing those things running 3.1 and 95 are air gapped then? Because wouldn't that make their systems quite vulnerable?

Ummm, yeah.

Maybe not - neither of these came with TCP/IP out of the box. Windows 3.1 didn't come with networking at all out of the box. (That was an upgrade product.)

Why would anyone believe this?

It says something about the state of our industry that it has the credibility that it did.

I guess because most people have seen similar things IRL, not as extreme like Win 3.1, but is not that rare to find Windows XP systems still in place in systems even today (in their defense, most of them are offline, like kiosks ot things like that).

> However, the CrowdStrike global outage might discourage Southwest from upgrading its systems

What the fuck? You can operate modern systems without shitty EDR software no problem. This article isn't very good.

If they're already running Windows 3.1, I can't imagine anything is going to compel them (e.g. cyber insurance premiums) to upgrade anyways.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it

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