CATS IN THE MATRIX
A 'Cat in the Matrix' is a fleeting moment when the global technological system reveals its hidden mechanism. Maps that lead to nowhere, bugs that break digital continuity, storms that rattle networks.
Like the black cat in the Matrix movies, each of these glitches is an omen, a moment when the simulated perfection of the Tecnosphere crumbles, revealing the vulnerability and complexity of the artificial environment that we inhabit.
HACKED
2025 | ITALY
→ 15-years old hacker diverts naval routes in the Mediterranean
The young Italian hacker was diverting the routes of oil tankers and also targeting the Ministry of Education website, changing failing grades into positive ones.
BUGGED
2024 | USA
→ Drones fall from the sky during a show and hit the crowd
A 7 year old boy ended up in hospital after a festive spectacle in Orlando, due to several small drones colliding on each other and falling to the ground.
HUMAN ERROR
2024 | ITALY
→ Italian ATMs out of order due to work on Swiss gas pipelines
Gas pipeline installation in Switzerland caused damage to network cables, resulting in major disruptions to digital payment services across Italy during black friday.
BUGGED
2024 | INDIA
→ Car follows Google directions over an unfinished bridge
Three men lost their lives in a car crash, following Google Maps on a route passing over a bridge that recently partially collapsed because of flooding in Uttar Pradesh, India.
HACKED
2024 | CHINA
→ AI-powered mini robot ‘kidnaps’ 12 larger robots and escapes
A small Chinese robot coordinated an escape from a showroom, allegedly responding to one of the bigger robots complaints about his non-stop work schedule.
HUMAN ERROR
2024 | BALTIC SEA
→ Dragging anchor (deliberately?) cuts undersea internet cables
A Chinese ship has caused a minor connectivity outage in the Baltic countries by damaging two fiber optic cables with its anchor.
HACKED
2024 | USA
→ Vacuum cleaner robots start yelling racial insults to their owners
Hackers gained control of several household robots in the United States, exploiting security weaknesses such as poorly protected Bluetooth connections and PIN security.
HACKED
2024 | USA
→ Smart glasses hacked to instantly recognize people in public
Two Harvard students demonstrated that Meta’s Ray Ban smart glasses can be easily hooked to a facial recognition system and used to get phone numbers and addresses.
BUGGED
2024 | USA
→ Driverless cars wake residents with nighttime honking
30 electric vehicles of a robotaxi company started honking in San Francisco in the middle of the night, creating a minor traffic jam in a car park.
POLITICAL
2024 | FRANCE
→ Grindr 'discover' feature was blocked in the Olympic Village
Grindr disabled its location services inside the Olympic Village in Paris to protect athletes coming from countries where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal.
BUGGED
2024 | ITALY
→ Queues on South Tyrol roads due to Google Maps error
Thousands of cars exited the Brenner Motorway in Sterzing, clogging back roads to Austria, because the app was reporting a stoppage that wasn't there.
ENVIRONMENTAL
2024 | CANADA
→ Farmers’ GPS equipment doesn’t work due to solar storm
Strong solar storm caused GPS systems used in tractors for farming to go offline during peak planting season, forcing several farmers to completely stop their operations.
ENVIRONMENTAL
2024 | IVORY COAST
→ Seismic activity causes 4 undersea internet cables to malfunction
Several Western African countries went completely offline due to damages to major undersea cables placed in the ‘Bottomless Hole’ canyon off Ivory Coast.
BUGGED
2024 | WWWW
→ Gemini AI rewrites history in the effort of delivering ‘woke’ images
Users generated unrealistic representation of historical figures, such as female popes and asian nazis, due to the finetuning of the AI model being too politically correct.
BUGGED
2022 | USA
→ Man dies following GPS directions at night on a destroyed bridge
A man fell from a bridge that was inoperative since 2013, following Google Maps directions during the night in North Carolina. In 2023 his widow sued Google.
POLITICAL
2022 | UK
→ London faces building ban due to excessive pressure on the grid
Newly built data centers in the UK use the equivalent amount of electricity as a small town, forcing the Greater London Authority to consider a 13-years housebuilding ban.
ENVIRONMENTAL
2022 | UK
→ Data centers in London knocked offline by heat wave
Some websites hosted on data centers in London went offline due to excessive heat (reaching up to 40°C) in the city, which caused problems with the cooling systems.
HUMAN ERROR
2017 | UK
→ Flights deleted because a contractor switched off power
A worker inadvertently switched off power at a British Airways data center, causing the cancellation of several flights and consequent distress for 75.000 travelers.
POLITICAL
2016 | VENEZUELA
→ Venezuelans lose half an hour of sleep to save electricity
Clocks have been moved forward by the government in an effort to save on night-time use of lighting and air conditioning, which was especially draining for the national power grid.
ENVIRONMENTAL
2015 | BELGIUM
→ Lightning strikes cause Google Cloud services to go offline
A lightning storm in Belgium struck the local utility grid, causing power interruption in one of Google’s data centers in St. Ghislain, and knocking some cloud storage systems offline.
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This archive is curated by Annapaola Vacanti and Daniele Bonanzinga