Facebook outage
I did a little Twittergram shortly before noon just as Facebook was coming back up off of a 1.5-hour outage. Twittergrams are 30-second audio messages that I can send to my followers on Twitter. I talked with one of the engineers inside Facebook (we were trying to get him to come down to lunch) and they said that they had a problem with a code update that they rolled up last night — the way they were talking I don’t think it was a hack, but rather an update that didn’t go well. Folks over on TechMeme are saying that Facebook might have been hacked, though. UPDATE: Facebook PR’s Brandee Barker has posted an official statement, which I’ve printed below.
By the way, the first place I go to get news is on Twitter now. The flow there is incredible and generally stories get discussed there long before they do on blogs.
Oh, and Facebook PR has a group that they’ve invited some of the press and bloggers into. Here’s an official statement that was just posted to that group:
This morning, we temporarily took down the Facebook site to fix a bug we identified earlier today. This was not the result of a security breach. Specifically, the bug caused some third party proxy servers to cache otherwise inaccessible content. The result was that an isolated group of users could see some pages that were not intended for them. The site has now been restored and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
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July 31st, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Here’s pictures from lunch toda with Mr Brown
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremiah_owyang/tags/facebook/
July 31st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Site was up and down Robert for over 12 hours, starting going flaky @ AM GMT and wasn’t fully resolved for at least 8 hours
July 31st, 2007 at 2:28 pm
[...] UPDATE 2: Now, speculation about a hacking. Facebook offers a plausible explanation via Scoble. [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 2:28 pm
What you Facebook PR now?
July 31st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
One more VC: no, but I am definitely following Facebook and reporting on news I see.
This statement has been printed by TechCrunch and others. Are you asking them if they are Facebook PR too?
July 31st, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[...] An hour after I published this article, Scoble made good point with his story about today Facebook o…. Oh, and Facebook PR has a group that they’ve invited some of the press and bloggers into. [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 2:46 pm
We took a new Facebook application live today. (http://apps.facebook.com/wmnewshound) “Newshound” had a press release, several blog posts, and emails announcing its debut. Then Facebook went down.-
It was a little frustrating. I can screw-up my own apps; I don’t need any help. ;) People were sending me emails saying, “Nice one, buddy, your app doesn’t work.”
I suppose these are the chances we take with our new model of software interdependence. Maybe we need to pass the collection plate. What do you need Facebook? Whatever it takes to keep you running…
July 31st, 2007 at 2:49 pm
down again
July 31st, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Facebook fanboy. :)
July 31st, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Hopefully this outage has let us to expand our social network horizon.
Mark from ClutterMe.com
July 31st, 2007 at 3:34 pm
“The result was that an isolated group of users could see some pages that were not intended for them.”
Perhaps not a “security breach,” but the impact is much the same, is it not? People were able to see data they were not supposed to see … smells like a security problem to me.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Face book has been done, or unavailable for over 5 hours .. the message displayed says its maintenance
Wonder if thats true
July 31st, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Rick: I’m on Facebook right now. It’s working for me.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Facebook was down???? Ok, slightly facetious, but just goes to show you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. Just go about doing the rest of your stuff, it’ll still be there tomorrow.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:47 pm
[...] that Facebook were fixing a technical issue regarding proxies, and nothing to do with security, according to the Scobleizer blog which has some sort of access to Facebook’s PR team. Facebook is now alive again, and [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I can tell you that I was logging into other peoples profiles the whole day. I could read their inbox messages amongst other things. I also realized that every time I refreshed the profile page, it would be logged in as a different user.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I was with Dan Farber this morning when he got the exact same message on his Blackberry.
Funny, it wasn’t a planned meeting, we just bumped into each other randomly in the bar of my hotel. He was passing down the street and saw me in the window, and came in. Small world.
This is something I’ve noticed; maybe there’s a future blog post in it: Anything to do with Web 2.0, whether we’re talking about something big [Google], medium [Twitter, Facebook] or tiny [gapingvoid, The Assimilated Negro blog] has an Achilles heel. I have yet to find an exception to the rule.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:27 pm
PS: I totally concur with Rachel’s comment:
“Facebook was down???? Ok, slightly facetious, but just goes to show you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. Just go about doing the rest of your stuff, it’ll still be there tomorrow.”
July 31st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
“One more VC”?
“One more passive-aggressive schmuck who’s afraid to stand for to the name his parents, in their love, gifted him”, more like ;-)
Sorry to be an asshole, Robert, but “Strong Opinions+Anonymity=Scum of The Earth”.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I love it! People are addicted to CrackBook. This just reinforces how important they have become, that everyone is blogging/reporting this outage.
July 31st, 2007 at 5:00 pm
@17 [hugh macleod]
One more passive-aggressive schmuck who’s afraid to stand for to the name his parents, in their love, gifted him
Sorry to be an asshole, Robert, but “Strong Opinions+Anonymity=Scum of The Earth
@15: [hugh macleod]
Anything to do with Web 2.0, whether we’re talking about something big [Google], medium [Twitter, Facebook] or tiny [gapingvoid, The Assimilated Negro blog] has an Achilles heel. I have yet to find an exception to the rule.
This- all in response to @4 [One more VC]:
What you Facebook PR now?
Awfully amusing. I do not get your point Hugh. Are you saying that Robert’s latest post on Facebook - something close to his 100th in the last 14 days - isn’t close to PR?
You chose to slam the poster without addressing the post. So… I haven’t a clue to your point.
Yes Robert. This is me. The guy who - jeez, are you somehow forcing sound effects on me?
Aw crap nevermind. If posting a coherent comment on your blog means I have to endure BS like sound effects - you’ve jumped the shark BIG time.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:08 pm
@15 “This is something I’ve noticed; maybe there’s a future blog post in it: Anything to do with Web 2.0, whether we’re talking about something big [Google], medium [Twitter, Facebook] or tiny [gapingvoid, The Assimilated Negro blog] has an Achilles heel. I have yet to find an exception to the rule.”
Doesn’t that apply to any software? If we are to believe Facebook’s PR is sounds like they had a breakdown in regression testing and/or overall testing and QA. Happens in almost any software development project at one time or another. I don’t see how what happened to Facebook is unique to “Web 2.0″ Unless you are suggesting these Web 2.0 companies have poor testing procedure as a whole. In which case, then yes, that is their Achilles heal.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:10 pm
[...] at the CTV studios, apparently they were able to access Facebook. I understand that Scoble and a few others in the valley are back up also. But here in the Canadian hinterlands of Manotick, Facebook is a definite no-show, [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
good good :)
i did twitter about it LOL
July 31st, 2007 at 6:44 pm
[...] Scobleizer has reported that it was in fact a code update gone wrong. 3rd party proxies were coughing up other [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 7:03 pm
[...] to Scoble, “By the way, the first place I go to get news is on Twitter now. The flow there is incredible and [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I would love to see a social website with the following features:
- Encrypted login
- Session encrypted from start to finish
- Blog, IM, file sharing, email
- Site cookies expire at session end
- Site does not maintain logs
- Preferrably offshore
This is what I would like to see. Hushmail handles email this way, but I would like to see all of the above from one provider.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:20 am
I’ve never heard of twittergrams before. Thanks for the knowledge.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
[...] that Facebook were fixing a technical issue regarding proxies, and nothing to do with security, according to the Scobleizer blog (which has some sort of access to Facebook’s PR team). Facebook is now alive again, and [...]