1414. (Un)reliable Technology

11/14/2026

Entire blog as a free PDF eBook.

Millions of people worldwide remain locked out of Microsoft’s Outlook email, Teams and other essential office tools after a massive outage disrupted businesses, governments and schools across 74 countries. Source.

If the statements made by executives at this software giant are to be believed, the outage was not caused by one of the hacker attacks that have become so common recently. According to Microsoft, the company has announced a Voluntary Exit Offer program for IT professionals in connection with artificial intelligence (AI), which could affect up to 60,000 employees (representing about 27% of its global workforce of approximately 223,000 people). This move by the Redmond-based giant is part of a shift toward replacing some traditional programming and operational tasks with AI agents. Consequently, the outage—which was likely caused by AI errors—can reportedly be resolved by the very source of the problem itself: the artificial intelligence.

The recent Microsoft incident serves as yet another lesson. Even a “mere” technical problem in a single corporation’s cloud is enough to disrupt communications and administrative operations in dozens of countries. The digitization of critical infrastructure—from cooling systems to payment systems to office communications—creates precisely the vulnerabilities and domino effects that have been portrayed as “inevitable” for years. And this widespread digitization is being driven by the very people who claim that a blackout is “inevitable.” An excerpt from an article published yesterday on tkp.at: Microsoft outage: The major cyber crisis casts its shadow ahead. Source.

Below is a quote from today’s article on uncutnews.ch.

The documented disruptions and cyber incidents from November 11th to 14th

1. Microsoft 365 – Worldwide Outages: Since November 12, Outlook, Exchange Online, Teams features, Copilot, and other cloud services have been affected. Reports came from 74 countries and territories. Government agencies, businesses, banks, and healthcare facilities were among those impacted. Microsoft attributes the problems to a technical error related to changes in the network infrastructure. Source: Associated Press;
2. FAA – Nationwide Flight Grounding: On November 13, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a halt to all flights due to severe communication problems. Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed. According to authorities, older systems were overloaded. The disruption lasted several hours. Source: Associated Press;
3. National Weather Service – Nationwide Communication Outages: The U.S. National Weather Service reported problems with its internet and communications infrastructure on November 13. Weather information may have been unavailable or outdated. The agency later clarified that its radar systems were functioning normally. Source: Reuters;
4. Amtrak – Website and booking system disrupted: As air traffic in the US collapsed, travelers reported significant problems with the American rail company’s website and app. Ticket bookings were particularly affected. Amtrak also reported unusually high demand from stranded air passengers. Source: FOX 5;
5. Workday – Companies lose access to HR systems: On November 13, disruptions occurred in human resources administration, payroll, and other business functions. Workday serves more than 11,500 organizations worldwide, including Walmart and Target. The exact number affected is unknown. The company cited problems with testing its backup systems as the cause. Source: San Francisco Chronicle;
6. Cloudflare – Internet infrastructure service disruptions: On November 12 and 13, Cloudflare reported, among other things, increased error rates for Durable Objects and problems with the Workers API. These services are used by developers and website operators. Source: Cloudflare status updates;
7. GitHub – repeated outages: As early as November 11, Actions, Pages, and Copilot were among the affected features. On November 12, problems with webhooks and email delivery followed, and on November 13, issues arose with pull requests and individual Copilot AI models. Source: GitHub status messages;
8. Anthropic / Claude – AI services affected: On November 13, Anthropic registered two outages affecting Claude, Claude Code, the API, and related services. Additionally, the Microsoft 365 connection was partially down due to Microsoft’s issues. On November 14, further difficulties with payment and subscription functions were reported. Source: Anthropic;
9. OpenAI – Multiple Technical Issues: Between November 11th and 13th, OpenAI reported, among other things, login problems, errors publishing websites, disruptions in the Microsoft 365 connection, and delays in cost data. Not all incidents affected regular ChatGPT operations. Source: OpenAI Status History;
10. Akamai – Email systems affected: The global internet infrastructure company reported problems with its email systems starting November 12th, related to the Microsoft outage. Source: Akamai;
11. Netlify, Asana, and other enterprise platforms: Netlify reported delayed support emails, and Asana experienced issues with Outlook integrations. Other vendors also registered problems resulting from the Microsoft outage. These reports should therefore not be considered separate major outages. Source: Netlify – Source: Asana;
12. Blizzard/Battle.net – Confirmed DDoS Attack: Between November 11th and 12th, a targeted DDoS attack affected the gaming platform. Players were disconnected or unable to log in. This is indeed a confirmed cyberattack. Source: Icy Veins;
13. Expedia – Cyberattack via an external service provider: On November 12, the travel company confirmed an attack via a compromised technology provider. The extent of the potential data breach remained unclear initially. The actual attack predates the current wave of outages. Source: Skift;
14. Uber – stolen personal data: On November 13, it was revealed that attackers had been able to access information from Uber systems using compromised login credentials from a service provider. The actual security incident occurred in October. Source: Reuters.

If something can go wrong, it will—Murphy’s Law, which originated in 1949 during stress tests at Edwards Air Force Base; to this day, it remains the foundation for the development of emergency systems.

A computer system failure? What do we have modern computers and artificial intelligence for, anyway? Let them get to work!

Technocracy is a religion based on the dogma of the infallibility of technology.

Author of the article: Marek Wojcik
Email: worldscam3@gmail.com

<If you like what I write, it would help a lot to further spread these articles if you share them with your friends on social media.