Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Facebook, as well as WhatsApp and Instagram, have been gone fro
Facebook, as well as WhatsApp and Instagram, have been gone from the internet for hours.
Internet users, clearly, are freaking out. Facebook has stated very little about what is actually taking place, however the outage is at the moment seemingly affecting only Facebook and its services. Many experts believe it to be associated to issues with internet infrastructure, particularly DNS and BGP.
Short for for Domain Name System, the DNS is a service that permits the internet to run by translating domains such as Facebook.com into IP addresses and vice versa. For some unknown reason, Facebook’s DNS records, in addition to BGP records, are gone from the internet. BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is the system that figures out the best route for a packet to travel across the internet.
In this information vacuum, however, conspiracy theorists have begun speculating that this can be a massive hack, that it’s tied to Sunday evening’s “60 Minutes” episode during which a Facebook whistleblower said that Facebook is intentionally misleading the public and the federal government on its efforts to curb hate speech and misinformation, or is otherwise related to Facebook’s current problems in the news.
A music studio recording business posted a screenshot of what look to be a bunch of DNS addresses on Twitter and speculated that Facebook is gone forever, which quickly went viral with literally no context by any means. The screenshot appears to be stolen from one other Twitter account known as KillFearNY, which describes itself as a creative and sports agency.
Probably the most popular theories has centered around a supposed hack that resulted in 1.5 billion Facebook records being sold on a hacking forum. In this version, individuals are pointing to a September 22 post from a supposed company referred to as X2Emails which has “more than 1.5b Database of Facebook these database scraped this year and 100% emails are included and phone as well” and is somehow linked to today’s outage.
This theory does not even pass the smell test, though. The person who posted the advertisement does not even pretend the info was stolen from Facebook. The post says it was “scraped,” and it only contains: “We only have these fields : Emails , Gender , Location , cities , dob , phone numbers , names , uid.” Scraped databases of Facebook users show up on a regular basis and have little or nothing to do with any kind of hack.
What’s worse—or better depending on your viewpoint—is that it is very likely that this is all a scam anyway.
One other user in the forum thread alerted others to not trust the seller.
“Scammer. Only sends [a sample of] 20 users. There isn’t any more. Doesn’t accept escrow(moderator). However he expects you to believe in 20 samples and send $5,000. Instead of 1.5 billion, I believe there are 150 users of data for social engineering. “
Aric Toler, a researcher at Bellingcat, was one of the first ones to report that folks needs to be cautious and never take this at face value.
The fact that some wannabe hacker advertises scraped data on a hacking forum that anybody can access is nothing new. It occurs every other week. Typically, hackers who post on Raid Forums do have actual hacked data, however generally they’re simply attempting to rip-off other users.
Even other forum users aren’t taking it seriously.
“Hahahaha 600 TB of Mark Zucker burger selfies :D,” one person posted in a chat.
Facebook couldn’t be reached for comment due to the outage, which nonetheless has seemingly brought about mass chaos not just online but offline, too. Reporters at the New York Times, for instance, have noted that Facebook employees have been unable to get into certain buildings. Facebook employees have additionally had to talk with each other using secondary messaging services like Discord and Zoom.
In January of this year, Motherboard reported on a real incident where attackers scraped Facebook, obtaining a database of 500 million accounts. That database included phone numbers of people that actively tried to keep that data personal. Two months later somebody dumped the database on a hacking forum, according to reports at the time.
We’re still unsure what’s happening at Facebook, and an outage of this severity and length is unprecedented in Facebook history. There could very well be a very interesting explanation for the outage, however we simply do not know enough to say what caused it yet. One thing we’ve learned, though, is that conspiracy theories can spread across the internet just fine without Facebook.
On Tuesday, March 5th, a wave of panic rippled through social media users worldwide as Facebook and Instagram went down in a sudden and global outage. This unexpected event, lasting roughly an hour and a half, left millions unable to access their accounts, refresh their feeds, or connect with others online. The Great Scroll Stopper: Outage Timeline and User Experience The disruption began around 8:30 PM EST on Tuesday, with users encountering a variety of error messages. These included prompts to “Log in again,” notifications of “session expired,” and the frustrating inability to refresh feeds. The confusion and concern were ... Read more
On Tuesday, March 5th, a wave of panic rippled through social media users worldwide as Facebook and Instagram went down in a sudden and global outage. This unexpected event, lasting roughly an hour and a half, left millions unable to access their accounts, refresh their feeds, or connect with others online. The Great Scroll Stopper: Outage Timeline and User Experience The disruption began around 8:30 PM EST on Tuesday, with users encountering a variety of error messages. These included prompts to "Log in again," notifications of "session expired," and the frustrating inability to refresh feeds. The confusion and concern were further amplified by reports of some users encountering prompts to change their passwords, leading to worries about potential security breaches. Downdetector Sounds the Alarm: Reports Spike Downdetector, a website dedicated to tracking online service outages, witnessed a surge in reports during this period. Facebook received over 300,000 outage reports, while Instagram saw a significant number as well, exceeding 20,000 complaints. Additionally, Reuters reported issues with the WhatsApp Business application programming interface (API), with roughly 200 outage reports logged on Downdetector. Meta Makes a Move: Acknowledgement and Restoration By 10:00 PM EST, services began to come back online, restoring normalcy to the social media landscape. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, acknowledged the issue through a statement from Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson, posted on X (formerly Twitter). The statement read, "We're aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now." Beyond Facebook and Instagram: The Ripple Effect While Facebook and Instagram were the platforms most noticeably affected, the outage appeared to have a broader impact. Shortly after the initial reports, some users also reported encountering issues with YouTube, experiencing similar login and refresh problems. This brief yet widespread disruption serves as a reminder of the interconnected nature of the online world and the potential domino effect that can occur when major platforms experience technical difficulties. The Lighter Side: Enter Elon Musk As the outage unfolded, the internet, never one to miss an opportunity for a good-natured jab, took center stage. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of X, took a playful dig at his competitor, Meta. In a post on X, he remarked, "If you're reading this post, it's because our servers are working." This lighthearted comment, along with several memes and reactions circulating online, helped to break the tension and add a touch of humor to the situation. FAQs: Decoding the Facebook and Instagram Outage Q: What caused the outage? A: Meta has not yet officially disclosed the specific cause of the outage. Q: Were my accounts hacked? A: There is no evidence to suggest that the outage was related to any security breach or hacking attempts. Q: What should I do if I'm still having trouble accessing my accounts? A: If you're still encountering issues, it's recommended to restart your device, check your internet connection, and attempt to log in again. If the problem persists, you can visit the official help pages of Facebook and Instagram for further troubleshooting steps. Q: How can I stay informed about future outages? A: You can follow Meta's official communication channels on X and other platforms, or subscribe to outage tracking services like Downdetector to receive real-time updates about online service disruptions.
Small Business Owners Who Depend On Social Media Are Exploring Other Options After The Facebook Outage. “I plan to have my own website soon so people can order off that,” said one jewelry designer. “I cannot control Instagram.” #Buzznews #Buzzfeed #Facebook #facebookoutage https://www.instagram.com/p/CUsFYitKrsu/?utm_medium=tumblr
Why did facebook go down? A blog about what caused the outage.
What has caused the outage?
Facebook has suffered an outage yesterday. This affected millions of users worldwide, and traffic to the social media giant has fallen off a cliff. According to at least one source, the outage was caused by a ‘server configuration change.’ It’s not clear if that means the configuration change was made by Facebook itself, or if something happened to the servers that Facebook uses. Another source claims it was an internal code change that caused the problem. Many users are seeing the following message when they try to access the site: This site can’t be reached
Read the full article at http://devhood.io/2021/10/05/why-did-facebook-go-down-a-blog-about-what-caused-the-outage/
What has caused the outage? Facebook has suffered an outage yesterday. This affected millions of users worldwide, and traffic to the social media giant has fallen off a cliff. According to at least one source, the outage was caused by a ‘server configuration change.’ It’s not clear if that means the configuration change was made by Facebook itself, or if something happened to the servers that Facebook uses. Another source claims it was an internal code change that caused the problem. Many users are seeing the following message when they try to access the site: This site can’t be reached…
#Humor ¿Extrañó a WhatsApp? ¿No puedo llamar durante el apagón de Facebook? Recuerda tener a tu lado tu tarjeta prepago de Telecom... No te abandona... 😂🤣😂🤣 Pero, vendieron a #Telecom en #Colombia 🤔😳😳🤔 #FacebookMemes #FacebookOutage #WhatsappOutage #Whatsapp (at East Elmhurst) https://www.instagram.com/p/CUq2_CCDisW/?utm_medium=tumblr