来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年6月8日
文章结构
事件描述：周二在英国各种网站都无法访问
引出问题：复杂的网络很脆弱，一个小问题就能导致大面积的断网
当前状况：我们缺乏对这类新兴基础设施的有效监管
给出建议：面对新兴基础设施带来的新风险，政府和企业应该怎样做
结论：面对新兴基础设施带来的新风险，我们不应该得过且过
Tuesday’s massive internet outage, which saw news and other hugely popular sites around the world vanish, was unsettling for public to the abrupt disruption of things we took for granted. The Guardian, the New York Times, the BBC, the Financial Times and CNN were all hit, along with internet behemoth Amazon, the Gov.uk site in Britain, PayPal and Reddit. What or who was responsible?
周二的大规模互联网中断，导致世界各地的新闻网站和其他极受欢迎的网站消失，我们认为理所当然的事情突然中断，这让公众感到不安。《卫报》、《纽约时报》、英国广播公司(BBC)、英国《金融时报》和美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)，以及互联网巨头亚马逊(Amazon)、英国政府网站(Gov.uk)、PayPal和Reddit都受到了冲击。谁应该对此负责？
The initial anxiety fell away rapidly when the problem was identified as originating at a content delivery network run by Fastly, which resolved it in just under an hour. The outage raises questions about the consolidation of internet infrastructure. For individual users, relying on one of a handful of large, well-established players doubtless makes more sense than picking from a wider selection. But for the sector as a whole, it concentrates risk, so that one small problem – in this case an unspecified “service configuration” – can lead to vast outages.
当问题被认定是由Fastly运营的一个内容分发网络引发的时，最初的焦虑很快消失了，Fastly在不到一个小时的时间内就解决了问题。这次中断引发了关于互联网基础设施整合带来的问题。对于个人用户来说，依赖少数几家大型、成熟的企业无疑比从一堆企业中选择更有意义。但对于整个行业来说，它集中了风险，因此一个小问题——在本次事件中是一个未指明的“服务配置”——就可能导致大规模的网络中断。
Societies have yet to get to grips with these kinds of issues. We are not regulating this new critical infrastructure accordingly. The outage was a reminder that we are increasingly dependent on services that most of us neither understand nor control, and which in many cases expose us to new risks. Just-in-time delivery saves supermarkets money, but can quickly lead to empty shelves if demand suddenly surges or supply is interrupted unexpectedly. Last month, a cyber-attack forced the operator of the US’s largest fuel pipeline to shut down.
社会还没有开始处理这些问题。我们没有对这种新兴的关键基础设施进行相应的监管。这次断网提醒我们，我们越来越依赖于我们大多数人既不了解也无法控制的服务，而且在很多情况下，这些服务会让我们面临新的风险。零库存供货可以为超市省钱，但如果需求突然激增或供应意外中断，可能很快导致货架空空如也。上个月，一场网络攻击迫使美国最大的燃料管道运营商关闭。
The outage, like the pandemic, should remind governments, companies and citizens of our vulnerabilities and the need to design with the worst-case scenarios in mind. Organisations should look not simply at the likelihood and impact of events occurring, but also at their broader implications and the risk that they could trigger a series of crises. We should focus not only on ensuring that our systems don’t fail, but that we know how to recover if they do. The market will inevitably prioritise lean operations. However, wiser companies, as well as regulators, should realise that building in redundancy may be inefficient in the short term but is often necessary.
停电与大流行一样，应该能够提醒政府、企业和公民我们的弱点，以及在设计时考虑到最坏情况的必要性。各类组织机构不应仅仅关注事件发生的可能性和影响，还应关注其更广泛的影响，以及它们可能引发一系列危机的风险。我们不仅应该专注于确保我们的系统不会出现故障，而且我们应该知道如果出现故障如何恢复。市场将不可避免地优先考虑运营效率。然而，更明智的公司和监管机构应该意识到，建立冗余可能在短期内效率低下，但往往是必要的。
The danger is that these kinds of events could instead desensitise us to technical or organisational failures, leading us to assume that we will always muddle through. We often do. We cannot count on it.
危险在于，这类事件反而可能让我们对技术或组织方面的失败失去敏感性，让我们以为自己总是能应付过去。我们经常能应付过去。但我们不能指望它。