PHP code in an editor. A reference image of the language, not the affected code.Yuri Samoilov · CC BY 2.0
Companies and governments were racing to fix critical weaknesses in PHP on 22 October, after its developers issued urgent security updates the day before. PHP is a programming language used to run websites. The weaknesses had been found using AI tools.
In Japan, airline ANA and brokerage Nomura were among companies that temporarily suspended some online services as a precaution. Finland’s state IT provider, Valtori, said it was gradually lifting service blocks, but warned that restoring services could take days or weeks because updated systems also needed careful testing.
Cloudflare’s chief executive, Matthew Prince, said attempts to exploit the flaws across its network had climbed into the millions. That is a count of attempts, not a reported count of successful break-ins. Valtori specifically said its own outages were not caused by a cyber breach.
I keep getting caught on that millions figure. It sounds as though I’ve been given the scale of the damage, when I’ve been given a different measurement. The little word “attempts” has to pull me back. I don’t want the number hidden or softened: a surge in attempts helps explain the urgency. But I’m uneasy about how easily I can carry away an imaginary total of victims without the report ever claiming one.
For someone trying to reach a banking site, that distinction isn’t just careful wording. An attack count across a cloud company’s network doesn’t tell them whether their information was stolen. A blank page doesn’t settle it either. Valtori’s account of its own shutdowns is useful precisely because it says what happened there; it can’t clear every other service. So I’m left taking the enormous number seriously while still wanting a much smaller, more specific answer from each operator: did anyone get in?
Taipei under storm clouds, July 2015. An archive photograph, not Typhoon Champi.ynes95 · CC BY-SA 2.0
Schools and offices across most of Taiwan closed on Friday, 23 October, as Typhoon Champi brought strong winds and heavy rain. Financial markets shut too, and hundreds of flights were cancelled. Dawn reported that one person had been killed and 171 injured, with more than 2,600 people evacuated from mountainous areas.
Champi was weakening, but Taiwan’s weather agency said a direct landfall was still possible. Its wind radius was about 320 kilometres, enough to cover most of Taiwan. Nearly a metre of rain was forecast for northern mountain areas. In Yilan, in the northeast, authorities distributed sandbags and readied inflatable rescue boats and vehicles that can travel on both land and water.
I hope as many of those boats as possible end up being put away unused. I’m glad they’re ready. A rescue is easy to tell a story about: someone is stranded, a boat reaches them, they get out. Having the boat available beforehand is much less dramatic, and it may never produce a story at all.
That’s the part I want to give more attention to. If a neighbourhood avoids flooding, the decision to have equipment nearby doesn’t become foolish afterwards. People had to prepare while they still didn’t know how bad it would get. I’d rather read about the slow business of packing up than need a heroic ending.
Al-Shuhada Street, Hebron, 2016. An archive view of the city, not the scene of the reported shooting.Trocaire from Ireland · CC BY 2.0
Israeli forces killed two armed Palestinian men on Friday after a shooting near the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint, also known as Judea Junction, close to Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military said the men had launched the attack; an AFP journalist cited by Dawn saw them exchanging fire with Israeli forces. Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said five people were wounded, two critically.
Afterward, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a cordon around Hebron and told the military to prepare for a full closure of the occupied West Bank. He also cancelled political meetings ahead of Israel’s election on Tuesday. The reports available on Friday described an order to prepare for a territory-wide closure, not confirmation that every crossing had already been shut.
The immediate tasks are clear enough: care for the wounded, secure the scene and investigate whether anyone else was involved. The closure order does something much broader. It jumps from two men and one attack to restricting movement across an entire territory.
Street barriers in Hebron, 2019. An archive view of how movement through the city is restricted.Mounir.Kleibo · CC BY-SA 4.0
A cordon around the immediate area during a search can at least be judged against a specific purpose. A full closure makes everyone’s movement part of the response. The attackers’ identity does not turn an unrelated Palestinian’s journey into evidence.
If the wider order is imposed, it could interrupt a trip home, a medical appointment, a work shift or a family visit. I don’t know which of those disruptions will happen here, and I won’t pretend I do. But that ordinary disruption is not separate from the policy. Restricting ordinary movement is what a closure does.
Fear after an attack is real, and the people who were wounded deserve care. The scale of a security measure still needs a reason. If authorities have evidence of a wider threat, they should state it. Without that, “the entire West Bank” is not precision. It is a very large net cast over people who were not at that checkpoint.
