Last month I wrote, “For me though, the most astounding event of the 21st century is happening right now in Egypt. The Ever Given—launched in 2018—is one of the largest container ships ever built carrying some 20,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units. It is currently blocking the Suez Canal.”
The canal was unblocked and everything is back to normal. But the “astounding events” are not yet over—“astounding” to distinguish from “unpredictable.” A Black Swan is an event that is beyond what is normally expected and has potentially severe consequences: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007. The event is a surprise to the observer. The event has a major effect.
An astounding event or “Flying Pig” is different. Everyone knows that pigs cannot fly and that event could never happen. But the idea has been talked about for a long time. In 1988, the US city of Cincinnati—nicknamed “Porkopolis” due to being the pork processing capital of the US in the 1800s—celebrated its Bicentennial founding. The entrance gateway to its Bicentennial Commons Park features four flying pigs “reflecting the spirits of the pigs who gave their lives so the city could grow.”
If the citizens of Cincinnati were to look skyward and see actual flying pigs, they would be at least prepared, shocked but prepared. They might already expect that flying pigs would cause a pig-pollution problem as pigs average about 4.5 kilos of manure a day. Humans create 120 grams of solid waste a day.
The Ever Given is 400 meters long; the Suez Canal is 210 meters wide. The Egyptian government required, as usual, two Egyptian maritime pilots on board at the time of the accident. These pilots take command over from the captain. Not a Black Swan event.
The first known malware extortion attack (Ransomware), the “AIDS Trojan” was written by Joseph Popp in 1989. The user was asked to pay $189 to “PC Cyborg Corporation.” Examples of ransomware became prominent in 2005. In May 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attack infected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries. Such schemes caused losses of $1.5 billion in 2016, according to market researcher Cybersecurity Ventures.
Considering that in 2019 there were over 2 billion computers in the world, a ransomware attack is a Flying Pig. We all know about ransomware but 99.9 percent of us have never seen one.
Astounding Flying Pig Number Two for 2021.
Wall Street Journal: “The largest gasoline pipeline on the East Coast, and the US in general, was shut down on Friday after its operator struggled to contain a cyberattack.” The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline halted transit as the company was forced to take “certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations.” The Washington Post reported that ransomware was used in the attack. The pipeline that runs from Texas to New York carries 45 percent of the east coast’s fuel supplies and travels through 14 southern and eastern US states.
Gasoline futures increased more than 4 percent after Colonial Pipeline announced its mainlines remain offline.
Colonial Pipeline Co.: “Operations team is developing a system restart plan. Over the past 48 hours, Colonial Pipeline personnel have taken additional precautionary measures to help further monitor and protect the safety and security of its pipeline. We will bring our full system back online only when we believe it is safe to do so.”
The next “Year of The Pig” is 2031. But that timetable may not include the Flying Pig.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.