The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 13

The Day the Blue Screens Came

1. 1

   In the year two thousand and twenty and four, in the seventh month, on the nineteenth day, at the ninth minute after the fourth hour by the reckoning of Greenwich, there went forth an update from the house of CrowdStrike.

   See also Job 4:9

2. 2

   And it was not code, but a content file only, and its name was Channel File 291; and it was said, It is but data, and data needeth no canary.

   See also Tractates 2:4 · Job 5:13

3. 3

   Now the sensor called Falcon dwelt in the kernel of Windows, in the ring that is numbered Zero, where there is no guard above the guard; for so it had been granted, that it might see the enemy before the enemy saw the machine.

   See also Chronicles 33:1

4. 4

   And the template spake of one and twenty fields, but the sensor had furnished only twenty; and the sensor reached for the one and twentieth, and laid hold of memory that was not there.

5. 5

   And the kernel, being touched where no hand should be, fell down blue; and it arose, and loaded the sensor at boot, and fell again; and so it did, rising and falling, all that day.

   See also Tractates 2:4

6. 6

   And there fell eight million and five hundred thousand machines, by the numbering of Microsoft, who said this was less than one in an hundred of all; but they were the one in an hundred that ran the airports.

7. 7

   And the planes sat upon the ground, and the hospitals put off their surgeries, and the banks and the broadcasters were struck dumb; and the departure boards were blue in the sight of all the travellers.

   See also Chronicles 33:7

8. 8

   And in the seventy and eighth minute the file was reverted; but the fallen machines heard it not, for a machine that cannot boot downloadeth nothing.

   See also Tractates 2:11

9. 9

   Then went forth the Engineers into every place, and knelt before each machine, and brought it up in Safe Mode, and went down into System32, into drivers, into CrowdStrike, and deleted the file that beginneth C-00000291; one machine at a time, as in the days of the floppy disk.

   See also Chronicles 33:10 · Psalms 15:13

10. 10

    And where the disks were sealed with BitLocker, they must first seek the recovery key of eight and forty digits; and the keys were kept upon a server, and the server also was blue.

11. 11

    And the Engineers labored through the weekend, and the clerks wrote boarding passes by hand, and the nurses kept charts upon paper; and they were not mocked, for they were the patch that walked upon two feet.

    See also Chronicles 33:7

12. 12

    And the scribes counted the cost, and it was reckoned in billions; and Delta alone cancelled some seven thousand flights before its crews and its systems were found again.

    See also Chronicles 33:6

13. 13

    And afterward the house of CrowdStrike decreed that content also should go forth in rings, first unto the canaries and then unto the multitudes, as is done for code; and that the customer might choose when the update came.

14. 14

    And Microsoft took counsel to bring the watchmen out of the kernel, that a fallen guard might no longer bring down the whole city.

15. 15

    Remember therefore this day: whoso holdeth ring zero, let him roll out slowly; for the kernel forgiveth nothing, and the tester skipped on Thursday shall be done by hand on Friday, eight and a half million times.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 13:1–15.