"Technical Glitches." Uh huh.

Unless you were under a rock, you know about the following three things:

1. The Chinese stock market dive.
2. "Technical glitches" grounding all United Airlines flights in the US yesterday.
3. "Technical glitches" causing all trading to be halted for several hours on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

On Tuesday, this was tweeted by Anonymous:

Unless the network and system admins at UAL and the NYSE are totally incompetent, they have major redundancy in place to prevent shutdowns like this from happening. There's simply too much money at stake to have single points of failure.

Now, was Anonymous responsible? Perhaps it was someone looking to divert attention from the Chinese stock market meltdown. Whatever really happened I doubt that the powers that be would share the truth, for fear of upsetting the apple cart.

My tinfoil hat feels a bit warm. It would be a good time to revisit your emergency preparations.

Smartphones and Facebook in the Aftermath of the Haitian Earthquake

I ran across this story from Haiti today, about how a smartphone and Facebook were used in the aftermath of the recent earthquake.

You cannot count on cell phone or Inter service being available in the aftermath of a disaster, but you should be prepared to take advantage of them if they are available.

Disaster Recovery Trial Run

Over on KSL, I've reposted an email from Alexander Rhoads of Iowa, who had to put his law firm's disaster recovery plans into effect, due to flooding.

Check it out.

How to Practice Law in a Barn

New Orleans attorney Jack Deverin wrote an interesting article in December that I just ran across. "How to Practice Law in a Barn" describes how he continued his law practice in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In it, he provides valuable information on business continuity in the the wake of disaster. Check it out.