Slashdot Mirror
Bank E-Communications Aid During London Bombings
davidwr writes "Reuters and eWeek report on how the British Banks' emergency chatroom and web site helped them cope with Thursday's terrorist bombing." From the article: "The Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority switched on a secure section of their Financial Sector Continuity Web site to talk to major banks in the City of London's financial hub about how they were coping. A Bank of England spokeswoman said this was the first time the secure site had been used in an actual crisis situation since its creation in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York."
[Wanker] Whot's happening over there.
[Boss] OMG we are teh fux0r3d!!
[Wanker] Yea but, whot's happening.
[Boss] The effing bus just blew up in front of me!
[Wanker] I see. Wh0t about bank business? Wh0t's happening?
[Boss] Fuck the bank! The bus blew up right in fron of me.
[Boss] OM Gawd!!! We are totally boned!!!
{Wanker] What ever. TTFN
[Boss] OMG! OMG!
[customer] Morning, I'd like to make a withdrawal, please.
[Wanker] Sorry, it's my tea break. Ask him.
[customer] Scuse me old chap, I'd like to make a withdrawal.
[Boss] OMG! The bus blew up. You can't make a withdrawal. Can't you see the bus blew up?
[customer] Yes but, the bank seems fine.
[Boss] Sod off you twat!!! The bus blew up. We're fux0r3d! OMG! OMG!
Did you not hear all about phone systems and long-distance phone networks getting clogged with calls? If it's anything like here in Canada, when phone systems are backed up, priority can only be obtained for connections by emergency services. On a dedicated network, using a web-based chatline is a simple (and simple is beautiful) way for the banks to conference call with the treasury and whatnot without worrying about phone problems. The whole point is that the banks are legitimately worried about becoming targets, this makes sense.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
bankofE89: wtf? something blew up
treasury49: yep i know treasury49: r u ok?
bankofE89: ya
bankofE89: it wasnt nearby
treasury49: ok
bankofE89: a/s/l?
"In the wake of 9/11..." is all too often used to start a paragraph which boils down to "...government spent a ton of money doing absolutely nothing for security while simultaneously doing far more harm to a free and democratic way of life than the terrorists ever could."
I'm pleased to see that at least in one case, someone actually gets it. You can't stop the terrorists. Random bad stuff happens in life, and the best thing for it is to be as prepared as you can. Communications is the single best way to spend money in preparation for insert-bad-stuff-here. Be it terrorism, natural disaster, industrial accident, or what have you, better communications saves lives. As has been said many times by everyone whose job doesn't involve spending billions of dollars, more money should not be spent on trying to prevent disasters, it should be spent on ways to clean up after them. Billions in airport screening is a complete waste of money because it just forces someone to bomb a mall or movie theater instead - billions in police training, EMT and EMS training, hospitals and clinics, etc. is money that will reap rewards no matter what happens next.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
The London Stock Exchange called a Fast market, in reaction to the initial high volatility and volume caused by the situation (possibly over this secure channel).
As a result of the Fast Market call, banks are requested to turn off programmed trading systems. This removes the danger that computer trading triggers will be tripped and cause catastrophic selling - leading to a crash.
Seems like everything was handled pretty well. The London equity market stabilised quickly, and actually returned to peaks of 2 weeks before within the same day. I'm sure that the reason behind this was a feeling that the attack - although bad - could have been a whole lot worse.