The Wire - October 14, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z October 14, 2025//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: SUSPICIOUS FIRE STRIKES ITALIAN MONASTERY. ISRAEL/HAMAS DEAL ON ROCKY GROUND DUE TO DELAYS IN RETURN OF CAPTIVES' REMAINS TO ISRAEL.//

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-International Events-

Italy: A catastrophic fire was reported at the Monastery of Bernaga just north of Milan on Sunday. All 21 nuns were evacuated from the convent without any injuries, however the fire consumed most of monastery, including the storage rooms used to house priceless paintings.

Analyst Comment: Random church fires around Europe are disturbingly common these days, but the timing of this fire is exceptionally suspicious. This monastery was associated with St. Carlo Acutis, who was recently canonized by the Vatican three weeks ago. This fire broke out on his very first Feast Day at the same monastery at which he received his first Communion. The cause of the fire is not known, however local sources have implied it may have been an electrical failure of some kind. Due to the delicate nature of such fires, a more thorough investigation will be needed to determine the cause of the blaze.

Middle East: The much-hyped peace accords have reached rocky ground as Israeli forces have cut Gaza aid by 50%. Israeli forces have claimed that Hamas has violated the ceasefire agreement by being too slow to return the remains of the deceased prisoners still in their possession. This afternoon the Red Cross did confirm that four coffins of remains were transferred into their custody this morning, and the remains of the 24 other prisoners will be transferred into the hands of the Red Cross as soon as they are able to arrange transport through the completely destroyed parts of Gaza.

Analyst Comment: Right now, the sheer destruction of Gaza appears to be the biggest barrier to recovering remains. Obviously nobody trusts statements by Hamas officials, however they have claimed that many of the remains are buried in underground locations that are currently off-limits due to under Israeli control, meaning that Hamas cannot physically get to the locations to recover remains. This of course would easily be solved by conveying the GPS coordinates of remains to Red Cross officials managing the exchange, however a very real concern still exists...it's possible that Hamas themselves don't have control of all of the hostage remains.

It is widely known that Israeli forces struck several underground tunnels that were (probably unknowingly) being used to hold captives. This is indeed why there are dead captives in the first place. As such, a tunnel collapsing and all hostages and militants alike being killed in the strike means that the exact position of human remains might be exceptionally hard to find. Considering the history of warfare itself, there is not a single conflict in the history of the world in which all casualties and all remains have been recovered. Of course, this conflict is quite a bit different as the remains that are sought are those of prisoners (i.e. noncombatants), but still, this might be a major sticking point if Hamas cannot actually find all of the prisoners' remains that they had at the start of the conflict.

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Analyst Comments: In the tech world, today is the last day that Microsoft will support the Windows 10 operating system. While this seems rather innocuous, this could be a rather big problem. Microsoft is known for doing their customers dirty just on principle, but in this case the problems that could result from this could quite significantly affect society. When Windows 8 stopped being supported, only 2-3% of users were still using it, with the overwhelming majority of users upgrading to Windows 10 by the time Windows 8 was obsolete. As of this month, roughly 40% of all Windows users are still using Windows 10...which stops being supported today. This means that security patches will be few and far between, with Microsoft charging customers on an individual basis for occasional security updates.

One of the major reasons for the huge number of customers not upgrading yet is the lack of much backward compatibility with older computers. In short, most older laptops can't run Windows 11; even laptops that are only a couple of years old can't run it at all. A lot of customers hit that magic "Check for updates" button, only to find that their computer can't support Windows 11. This continues Microsoft's legendary practice of planned obsolescence, which forces customers to buy a new machine that will work with Windows 11. This is where the risk comes in; if a one-man IT department at a small company tells the higher ups that their computers need to be updated, but they need to buy all new computers, the company will probably put off this decision as late as possible. Thus almost half of Windows users resisting the upgrade. This statistic is probably not just individuals...but a lot of corporate customers as well.

This means that a massive portion of Windows users are still using an operating system that won't be patched if security issues are found. This isn't just a concern for private citizens, but also for the huge bulk of companies that haven't yet upgraded or switched to a different operating system. As such, when this many customers (particularly the corporate customers) are using an operating system that is no longer supported, there's no telling what vulnerabilities could come to light: Do not be surprised if in a few weeks we read about a major data breach or some other catastrophic infrastructure failure that is a direct result of a lazy IT department at some random obscure company not updating their company to Windows 11. Or more likely, not wanting to allocate funding to buy brand new shiny laptops for the entire company, just to avoid the security vulnerabilities posed by an operating system reaching end of life.

One would think that any entity that is involved in the daily propping-up of society should have already transitioned to a secure operating system years ago. However, as is often demonstrated these days "should" does not mean "is". There's no way to predict when or where vulnerabilities will be exploited by malign actors, but there will probably be a global spike in ransomware attacks (for example) over the next few weeks, simply due to the sheer number of computers still using an operating system that is no longer receiving regular security patches.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
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