Answer to a Question
Question: On 2021/10/14, America held an international conference regarding the fight against cybercrime with the participation of 30 countries, yet did not invite Russia or China. This followed the cessation of Facebook services on the evening of Monday, 2021/10/4, where hundreds of millions of people worldwide were suddenly unable to use Facebook and its subsidiaries, WhatsApp and Instagram, for approximately 6 hours. The following day, the US Senate held a hearing for a former Facebook employee... What lies behind this matter? Is it a technical error or was it manufactured? If it was, what is the reality of it? Furthermore, is there a connection between this and the known fact that the tech community supported Biden in the elections against Trump?
Answer: In an incident unlike any seen for 13 years, the services of Facebook and its subsidiaries—WhatsApp and Messenger—were cut off for 6 hours on Monday, 2021/10/4, causing major disruption first to the Facebook company and secondly to the technology sector. By reviewing what occurred, the following becomes clear:
First: This outage is considered the worst since 2008, as services for Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger were cut off for 3.5 billion users around the world. This was accompanied by a record decline in the company's stock, reaching 15%, resembling a collapse. The shares of most technology companies fell significantly; Twitter’s decline reached 5.7%, with other companies falling to varying degrees. The losses of tech titans dominated world news. According to the newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm on 2021/10/5, Zuckerberg, the largest shareholder in Facebook, lost about $6 billion (some estimates say $7 billion), followed by Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, with a loss of $4.8 billion, then Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google with a loss of more than $2 billion each, then Steve Ballmer of Microsoft with a loss of $1.6 billion, as well as other tech billionaires. Among the ten wealthiest individuals who lost the most, there was only one Chinese billionaire—Ma Huateng of Tencent, with a loss of nearly $1 billion—while the other nine were Americans. Thus, it is clear that the interruption of Facebook and its subsidiaries was a severe blow to the entire American tech sector. China was not affected by this; rather, it was the only country surviving this blow because it bans Facebook applications and its subsidiaries. Sada El-Balad quoted the Russian RT network on 2021/10/5 as saying: "The world was affected while China tweeted separately from the rest of the world because it possesses its own package of social media applications." What increases the danger and sensitivity of what happened is that the American tech sector is one of the largest sectors of the economy in America on one hand, and on the other hand, it was the largest funder of the election campaign for the Democratic President Biden and an enemy of the former Republican President Trump, who was supported by the energy sector, especially oil companies in America. This may suggest the political dimensions of this major malfunction that hit Facebook significantly and directly, and other tech companies to a lesser extent.
Second: By examining what happened, we find that Facebook was subjected to a major breach (sabotage). Simultaneously, other American tech giants were subjected to sabotage operations, though the success was not on the scale of what happened to Facebook and its subsidiaries. This operation is either a cyberattack from parties possessing electronic claws like Russia or China; or an internal operation from the company itself as a message directed to the company's enemies that it can harm them by cutting services even for a few hours; or it is a normal technical error by an employee in the company; or it is a matter of revenge carried out by Trump and his group because these companies stood behind his defeat in the elections and Biden's subsequent victory. While the matter remains shrouded in some ambiguity, there is some news pointing to the cause, or making it more likely, as follows:
1- Regarding Russia and China, there are those who said they were behind the external attack. The United States held an online summit for 30 countries to discuss a sub-topic of cyberattacks, which is "ransomware" (RT, 2021/10/13), and Russia was not invited. These programs cost American companies losses of nearly half a billion dollars annually when hackers steal data from those companies and demand a ransom to return it, with payment required in encrypted digital currencies. Most of these attacks come from Russia. America justified not inviting Russia by saying it discusses the issue of electronic security with Russia individually. Although America has actually accused Russia of responsibility for many electronic attacks over the past years and months, the assumption that Russia or China is behind the attack on Facebook is considered unlikely and far-fetched for several reasons:
a- The company itself rules out this possibility. (The New York Times reported that Facebook rules out a cyberattack as the cause of its service interruption along with WhatsApp and Instagram. Al Arabiya, 2021/10/4).
b- On the other hand, Russia, which was accused of electronic attacks against American institutions at the end of the Trump era, has undoubtedly become strongly fearful of any acts of piracy or attacks from its side against America. This is because this topic has been under discussion between the two parties before and after the summit between Presidents Biden and Putin on 2021/6/16, and America is demanding Russia take action against those who carry out electronic attacks from Russia against American interests. Furthermore, President Biden was extremely severe in responding to electronic attacks. (US President Joe Biden warned that a major electronic attack on the United States could lead to a "real war" with a major power. Russian Sputnik agency, 2021/7/28).
c- As for China, its piracy efforts are less than Russia's. (Microsoft said that Russia had the lion's share of state-sponsored hacking operations detected by the company during the past year, at a rate of 58%... Microsoft said in its second annual "Digital Defense" report, which covers the period from July 2020 to June 2021, that China, on the other hand, was responsible for only less than one in every ten state-supported hacking attempts monitored by Microsoft... Al Arabiya 2021/10/4).
Thus, the assumption that Russia or China is the one behind the attack on Facebook remains weak in evidence.
2- As for the company experiencing a technical error, this possibility came from several sources:
a- (According to Reuters, a number of Facebook employees "refused to be named" told Reuters that the error originated from within the company and that the outage was caused by an internal error in how internet traffic is routed to its systems. Facebook stated in a statement that the error that led to the internet outage is what is known as a "faulty configuration change", which affected the change in Facebook's routing from the internet and its withdrawal from NVRAM, which in turn led to a change in the write memory and copies of the record in progress; so when it was routed again, nothing returned to the way it was. Sada El-Balad, 2021/10/5).
b- (Facebook offered its apology for the failure that occurred across all its applications over the internet. Facebook revealed, early Tuesday morning, the reasons that led to the interruption of its platform services "Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp." The company said in a statement that it believes the main reason for the communication service interruption was "a faulty configuration change on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers"... Al Mayadeen, 2021/10/5).
But this is also a weak and unlikely possibility. It cannot be assumed that all of this was just a technical error for the following reasons:
a- Technical errors are usually carried out by one person and are not carried out by several people at the same time. It is unlikely that one person, regardless of their technical position in the company, is capable of disabling a company the size of Facebook and all its branches—Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram—which have separate administrations. This company employs 20,000 employees for safety and security tasks alone over the internet, let alone the rest of the employees. Cutting this giant company and its massive branches off from the internet is impossible to be in the hands of a single employee!
b- Furthermore, this error was large, compound, and complex. In addition to completely blocking it from the internet and costing it losses reaching $50 billion of its market value, it (made the matter of offering its bandwidth "www.facebook.com", called the domain, for sale possible via public auction on the internet for some time... Al Jazeera Net, 2021/10/6). Also, according to Youm7 on 2021/10/5, the New York Times confirmed that employees were unable to open the building's doors and access the servers to fix the error. Al-Masry Al-Youm also quoted the New York Times on 2021/10/5 that "Facebook sent a team of employees to the company's data center in California to manually reset the servers."
3- As for the company having committed this error intentionally as a message directed at those trying to harm it, statements have been made regarding this, including:
a- It was said that the failure was represented by Facebook withdrawing what is called the Border Gateway Protocol or Border Gateway Protocol route, referred to as BGP. The BGP protocol acts as the road or map that data takes to reach the site, and without it, the user cannot reach it. To clarify with a simple example, the idea of the BGP protocol is similar to the idea of the GPS program we use in our smartphones to know the best route to the place we are heading to by car or on foot. In short, the Facebook site and its subsidiaries like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram fell off those maps and roads that connect them to each other, due to Facebook withdrawing the so-called Border Gateway Protocol.
b- It was also said that the Facebook company itself is the one behind disabling the platform and its products. It is possible that Facebook wanted, through this intentional interruption, for the company's engineers during the downtime to perform a comprehensive scan and delete all sensitive issues discussed in the leaks of the former employee (Frances Haugen), fearing what might result from the session to be held by the US Congress to hear the former employee's testimony regarding the network's psychological harms...
By contemplating these factors suggesting that Facebook itself is behind this disabling in an intentional manner, I say that by contemplating them, it becomes clear that these factors are weak in argument:
a- What happened caused the company large financial losses, and capitalist companies focus on financial gain and commercial reputation in their work; their values are purely material. For this reason, it is unlikely that they would internally carry out self-sabotage that causes them a massive loss and a bad reputation unless the financial gain behind that was greater and compensated for that reputation... There is nothing to indicate this according to the events that took place. All of this makes the possibility of internal sabotage—whether intentional by the company or its employees—an unlikely matter.
b- As for the interruption being intentional by Facebook to delete (all the sensitive issues discussed in the leaks of the former employee Frances Haugen), the hearing for the former Facebook employee's testimony in the Senate was scheduled before the interruption. Its occurrence was on the day following the interruption, i.e., on 2021/10/5, and the interruption was on 2021/10/4. However, this does not prevent the company from having anticipated leaks from the employee, especially since the date of her speech in Congress was announced in advance. For the company to decide on that interruption a day before her speech as a precaution is possible, as she appeared on the American CBS television screen on the famous 60 Minutes program just one day before the Facebook service interruption to direct her arrows of anger at Facebook and its president, and a day after the interruption, the interview was with the Senate with a harsher attack. But this does not make the company intentionally commit an error to lose these massive sums!
4- As for Trump and his group being behind what happened as a matter of revenge for the company's support for Biden against him in the elections, this has been said:
a- During the Trump administration, some major American tech companies were attacked by Trump for promoting fake news, and many welcomed the Democratic victory in 2020. Silicon Valley tech companies were the largest funders of the election campaign for the Democratic President Biden against the former Republican President Trump, who was supported by the energy sector, especially oil companies in America, which may suggest the political dimensions of this major malfunction that hit Facebook...
b- There was a major problem between the government and tech companies when Trump launched a trade war with China. Apple was hit by tariffs imposed by the administration on some of its consumer electronic products, which are supplied, assembled, and imported from China. Apple CEO Tim Cook was forced to communicate with the White House and even participate in several administration task forces as a way to monitor the damage that Trump's trade policies could inflict on Apple.
c- As for the statements made by the former employee Haugen, she supports the Republican Party. To understand her reality, we mention the following observations:
After leaving her job at Facebook, she began focusing her anger and criticism on the company's founder, Zuckerberg; meaning she took a difficult path, which indicates that a certain party stands behind her... Then she sent those leaked documents to the Wall Street Journal. (Before leaving the company—Facebook—in May, Frances Haugen took internal company documents with her and sent them specifically to the Wall Street Journal. In an article published in mid-September, the daily newspaper revealed, based on this information, that the company had been conducting research on its Instagram network for three years to determine its effects on teenagers. German Deutsche Welle, 2021/10/4). This newspaper is conservative and supports the Republican Party, as stated in Al Jazeera on 2007/10/28 (Wall Street Journal is not just an economic newspaper but also has political positions; it has a conservative orientation and is strongly pro-Israel as appears on its opinion page. It supports the Republican Party and has a relationship with the neoconservatives... Al Jazeera, 2007/10/28). As also stated in Wikipedia—German section: (The Wall Street Journal has a conservative orientation and leans toward the Republicans).
What also indicates the possible relationship of this matter to the Republican Party is that this employee was the director of the Civic Integrity program at Facebook, a program aimed at curbing misinformation and other threats to election security. It is well known that the 2020 presidential election issue was extremely boisterous and intense tension was the order of the day between the two parties. It appears that the Republican Party and Trump's group were in contact with this employee while she was at her job to expose Facebook's hostility to the Republicans...
d- This official, Frances Haugen, said before Congress on 2021/10/5: ("The company rushes after more profits while showing no interest in the safety of users," and she announced during the congressional hearing: "Facebook withholds information and also misleads when inquired about it... and Mark Zuckerberg (owner of Facebook) can individually control and is responsible for designing the algorithms... and 70% of Facebook employees feel the company's lack of integrity. Facebook cannot fix the flaw regarding the treatment of children without intervention from Congress... Erem News site 2021/10/6).
5- The summary of all this makes it likely that Trump and his group were behind that breach (sabotage) in Facebook and its subsidiaries... as well as behind the focus on Facebook's harms, especially its program contents that harm children, teenagers, and girls, which placed Facebook and especially its president Zuckerberg in severe embarrassment... This has created a sort of public opinion against Facebook and its president who supports the Democratic Party, as long as the matter relates to harming children, teenagers, and girls. It may also create embarrassment for Biden if he remains silent about taking measures against the company and its president, but it is not expected that the measures will be deep; rather, they will be less than that, as a method of "appeasing" public opinion.
6- In conclusion, these people's enmity among themselves is severe... and the values among the oppressive, corrupt capitalists are based on personal benefit even if it inflicts harm on others, even if they are their brothers or people of their creed, if they have a creed!
وَمَن كَانَ فِي هَذِهِ أَعْمَىٰ فَهُوَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ أَعْمَىٰ وَأَضَلُّ سَبِيلًا
"And thus will We make some of the wrongdoers allies of others for what they used to earn." (QS. Al-An'am [6]: 129)
أَوَمَن كَانَ مَيْتًا فَأَحْيَيْنَاهُ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُ نُورًا يَمْشِي بِهِ فِي النَّاسِ كَمَن مَّثَلُهُ فِي الظُّلُمَاتِ لَيْسَ بِخَارِجٍ مِّنْهَا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ زُيِّنَ لِلْكَافِرِينَ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
"...like him who is in darkness, never to emerge therefrom? Thus has been made fair-seeming to the disbelievers that which they were doing." (QS. Al-An'am [6]: 122)
It is a tragedy that these people control the world, corrupting it rather than reforming it, for he who lacks a thing cannot give it...
The salvation of the world will be through a people whom Allah loves and who love Him, shaded by the banner of the Righteous Khilafah... their values are the pleasure of Allah and His Messenger; they love good for their brothers as they love it for themselves:
أَذِلَّةٍ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَعِزَّةٍ عَلَى الْكَافِرِينَ يُجَاهِدُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَلَا يَخَافُونَ لَوْمَةَ لَائِمٍ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ فَضْلُ اللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَن يَشَاءُ ۚ وَاللَّهُ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
"...humble toward the believers, powerful against the disbelievers; they strive in the cause of Allah and do not fear the blame of a critic. That is the favor of Allah; He bestows it upon whom He wills. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing." (QS. Al-Ma'idah [5]: 54)
17th of Rabi' al-Awwal 1443 AH 2021/10/24 CE