Supportive of everything from browser games to live streaming, Adobe Flash wasn't the internet's favorite multimedia platform without reason. Even in its heyday, though, Flash wasn't universally loved; it had security holes, could be tough to optimize, and wouldn't play ball with all browsers, especially those on mobile devices. When HTML5 hit the scene, Flash began to fall out of favor, and in July 2017, Adobe announced it would cease support at the end of 2020, giving users three and half years to switch to new software. This message, however, didn't reach all corners of the IT globe, and when Flash's "time bomb" code went off on January 12, it did more than just make nostalgic browser games harder to revisit: It brought an entire Chinese railroad to a standstill.
According to a report by Apple Daily, the problem reared its head for China Railway Shenyang in Dalian, Liaoning just after 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 12. Per an event timeline outlined by Github, the head of a switching station reported being unable to access the railroad's timetables, which they normally did through a browser-based Flash interface. Over the next half hour, reports of similar failures poured in from across the network, with as many as 30 stations implicated according to a CR Shenyang statement reported by a Chinese blog.
lucific_valour on January 26th, 2021 at 04:25 UTC »
Without any knowledge of rail operations, I wondered how does Flash fit into the picture.
Ah, that explains why. And as to why didn't they prepare for the Flash shutdown?
Wow, they literally didn't get the memo.
Nah, Adobe doesn't care. In fact they're probably quite stoked for all the free publicity about how their software is crucial for operations. Didn't cost them a cent.
Strummer95 on January 26th, 2021 at 03:54 UTC »
They only had like 4 years to prepare lol
I_might_be_weasel on January 26th, 2021 at 02:29 UTC »
I'm just imagining them driving the trains with a browser based flash game.