Points of Failure

Peter Coglan
Sep 10
8 min read

Peter Coglan

September 10, 2025

There you are, in a car park in a small town in the Lake District. You go for your ‘pay and display’ ticket and use your debit card – rejected, even though your account has the funds. You use your credit card – same. You note there’s an app you can use if you install it and pay extra – but there’s only a weak 3G signal, so that won’t work. Then you see that the machine still takes cash. You have a few coins with you and it is just enough; relief….but if, as with most machines, the cash option is no longer there, what then?

Most people will have similar experiences, in a supermarket, at a petrol pump, at a railway station, at one of the rapidly disappearing ATMs. The inexorable drift to a cashless society carries with it the view that IT will solve everything; with AI, with CBDC, with Digital ID.

But will it? Why should it? I had a 40 year career in IT, some ups, some downs, some good times, some bad times, towards the end a huge up, but then a last couple of years of hoping for a way out. Thankfully I got one. I learned some great lessons about IT in those 40 years. Two early ones stand out.

Right at the start in 1975, I was told of the acronym GIGO, which stood for 'Garbage In, Garbage Out.' Still true today - more on that later. Then around 6 years later, the first exercise on a systems design course. We all came up with neat IT solutions. The correct answer however, was why on earth have you used IT? There was a low-cost non-IT solution. When I regularly see unnecessary IT solutions these days, I am reminded of that lesson.

So when that frustrating experience with an automated service device occurs, what has gone wrong? I call it ‘Points of Failure’ and there are many. What does a twenty-first Century automated IT solution need? It needs the following:

· Guaranteed 100% Power

· Hardware (Servers/peripherals) with no faults

· Data Centre infrastructure with no faults

· Automatic Backup service in another data centre not close by

· Operating System with no serious flaws

· Firmware/Middleware with no serious flaws

· Software with no serious flaws

· Network service running (4G/5G etc)

· Security/Firewalls stopping malicious attacks

· Customer routers running

· Customer WIFI running

· Customer service devices running

I could go on but I hope you get the idea. All these are ‘Points of Failure’. If one or more is down, you have a restricted service or none at all.

Regular checking of all of the above is essential. Disaster recovery/Business continuity plans are essential. Let me give you an example from before the days of the internet for everyone:

It is a hot day in North-west England (yes, we did have them before global boiling became a thing). In a data centre for a large company, the chiller breaks down. Not a problem, there’s a backup chiller and it kicks in. Hurrah! Then a few minutes later that chiller fails too. Systems however, were less complex then and there was no public service impact. In 2025, similar failures still happen, and now there is more public impact.

On the plus side, the vast majority of companies now have an IT Risk Register covering all components of hardware, software, licences and so on - all the Points of Failure that they can manage. However, the Risk Registers of all the companies involved in providing the service to the customer, in the car park or the supermarket, may not be aligned.

Your smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop are not on anyone’s Risk Register except your own - if you have one.

The top Point of Failure is power. After a decade or more of strikes causing power cuts, the 1980s Tory government sought assurances from the energy companies and the unions, that they would take all necessary measures to guarantee power supplies. They did, but understandably wanted some guarantees in return, one of which was protection of the pension scheme of current employees. It was agreed. 30 years later a Tory chancellor tried to stop that. He failed, rightly.

The guarantees of power provided back then are more important than ever because of IT. But things have changed with the advent of the net zero policies of the current and previous governments. The biggest risk to guaranteed power now appears to be current government policy, relying perhaps too much on wind, solar, the assumption that they can import affordable oil and gas, and that they can build new nuclear plants on schedule.

Stock up with batteries and candles in readiness this winter and maybe even a generator.

IT Security is essential. Many major organisations have suffered hacking. Famously, Marks & Spencer had a major one this year. Recovery took months, many of their services in store and online impacted. I’ve lost count of the number of businesses I am a customer of that have been hacked. The most serious one was the company that manages a retirement pension for me. Around 90 organisations were impacted. The class action for compensation rumbles on with no end in sight.

The hackers will always be one or two steps ahead of IT security specialists and governments, which brings us to the growing expansion of IT in several related areas: AI, CBDC, Digital Id, Biometrics and SMART gadgets. How far do you want these developments to go?

I’ll start with AI. Our politicians love it. On 9 June this year, the UK Prime Minister said in a speech “I’ve always said: AI and tech make us more human. It may sound like an odd thing to say, but it’s true — and we need to say it.”

In response I wrote a poem called ‘Less Human (Howdy Doody Time)’. It may be doggerel, but it is on my Medium website for those who wish to check (Link below - ED.).

More recently the Science & Technology Minister said “AI is going to happen. We know it is. That’s true for every country from Britain to North Korea”. Apart from the unfortunate juxtaposition of Britain and North Korea, I don’t think either the Prime Minister or the Science & Technology Minister understand the subject, given that AI is already here.

Look at social media and search engines. All now have their own AI tool. I generated the picture at the top of the article with the free Deep AI software. How good are the various tools? It depends.

Here is a Google AI summary in answer to a question I posed recently whether William Of Normandy burned his ships after landing at Pevensey in 1066 as a ‘we are staying’ message. This was inspired by the news of the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to Britain, the new BBC drama (not watched as yet), and a line in a Show Of Hands song ‘Breme Fell At Hastings’ – “But they burnt their boats behind them, No hope of safe return”.

“No, the Normans did not burn their boats at Pevensey in 1066; rather, William the Conqueror's invasion fleet, which landed in Pevensey, was deliberately scuttled by a rival Dutch fleet centuries later in the Battle of Beachy Head (1690). William used his ships to transport his army to England, but he needed the ships to return the survivors of the invasion and to transport supplies back to the continent“

I said I would mention GIGO again. You don’t need to be a history expert to see the conflation between the 1066 event involving William I and a later one involving William III, in the middle of the summary - the conqueror’s fleet sat on a Sussex beach for 624 years? Google AI had been fed some garbage causing a Point of Failure.

Put CBDC, Digital ID, Biometrics, and SMART gadgets into the AI mix. Now you get a farrago of potential points of failure on any service. We are into the arena of future fiction becoming fact; Metropolis for example, along with Blade Runner, Minority Report and many more. The recent TV series ‘Person of Interest’ (2012-2016) was remarkably prescient. The Russian TV series ‘Better Than Us’ with its androids and CBDC tech embedded in your wrist and eyes, may not be that far short of actual intention.

Again, what happens when some element fails? The Prime Minister and other senior Ministers waxed lyrically this summer about UK citizens being able to use e-gates at EU airports. The first stage of biometric registration for ETIAS is upon us in October. But those e-gates are already in use for non-EU citizens at some airports. In 2023 at Rome the e-gate I used jammed just after I got through. This was a head height gate front and back, not one you could climb over. A poor lady was stuck. She could not get out. She was still stuck when I had cleared the passport stamping queue people get upset about. No speedy journey to the beach (or the Colosseum) for her. There’s a poem of mine, on this website, E-Gate Twenty Six (link below - Ed.). E-gates are another potential Point of Failure.

Smart gadgets can be wonderful until your wifi is down. I like my Smart speakers, but I still have hifi. Some gadgets just seem overkill - do you really need a Smart tumble dryer or washing machine? Surely most of the effort is loading and unloading? Maybe I’m missing something.

Digital Id is being touted by politicians as the solution to certain sensitive current problems. Do you trust the government though? Have you seen who is pushing for it?

We have 3 or 4 main IDs already in this country. 2 are mandatory as an adult, the others optional: NI Number and NHS Number are mandatory. Passports and Driving Licences aren’t unless you want to drive or travel abroad; photo ID? Not compulsory. But then try to do certain things – sit an exam for public bodies, undertake certain legal duties. You will need photo ID. An old paper driving licence is no use.

There is already a creep in the use of NI Numbers; I suspect that is the direction of travel. Your bank will demand it by 2027 to advise HMRC of interest earned. Just last week I had to provide eBay with mine because I had sold 30 second hand items, average value £5, in the last 12 months - one ID to rule them all, with photo and biometrics.

Now join it all together. You are in a shop, you want to buy a loaf, butter, and boiled ham for a sandwich. Your purchase is rejected - you’ve had your quota of butter and ham for this month. Post wrong-speak on social media? Your internet access, your key to everything is withdrawn, your bank accounts frozen.

Far-fetched you think? The agenda is not safety, but control.

But do not forget. All this control technology has an Achilles Heel; those Points of Failure. Drive into the countryside, no 4G, not even 3G. Cumbria and Gloucestershire are recent ones for me. Go into certain buildings (such as shops in Chester with sandstone walls) – emergency service if you are lucky. Your phone is a point of failure, without all the other elements.

So if the power goes off this winter because the government’s energy contingency plans failed, light one of those candles I advised you to get, switch on your torch, wrap yourself in a blanket, pour yourself a glass of your favourite tipple, and raise a toast to the Energy Minister and Points of Failure.