The Dilithium Crystals Might Be Melting

For those born after the mini-computer era (co-terminus with the original Star Trek), dilithium is the fuel used to power a warp core propulsion system needed for interstellar travel. Dilithium is both naturally occurring and rare, and when it melts, from overuse of the warp core, the starship is basically kaput. This metaphor makes sense if you keep reading. I could have used “The Russians Are Coming,” from the same era but it might have seemed too on the nose. So Dilithium it is. Russia recently stepped up the hacking operation that brought us SolarWinds and we seem to be sabotaging ourselves with insufficient employee focused software to run some of the largest tech companies (talking about you, Amazon). Neither of these trends/events are good and they can be prevented because there are products on the market if we’d only use them. Two articles in the New York Times drive this piece. One is about Russia’s recent stepped-up hacking operation begun as SolarWinds. The other is about Amazon’s embarrassing (to the extent it can be embarrassed) inability to build the needed systems that help it manage personnel.