A few days back a major certificate expired.

Supposedly most service providers have long since stopped using it, but there might have been a few that were missed.

Speculation in Silly Con Valley is that it's damage control to patch stuff that might still be accessible to the whistleblower who outed herself last night.

Why a former employee would have any access at all has gone unreported (talk about bad security!) ... as has what Facebook can do to fix the barn door after the worm can was spilt.

::shrugs::

Given the foul odour and the fact that it all exploded rather than merely leaking, I think the can may have been surströmming.

Not because they're alleged to have a serious data breach?

https://www.privacyaffairs.com/facebook-data-sold-on-hacker-forum/

It’s DNS. It is always DNS

katrina@teto:~ % nslookup facebook.com

;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 192.168.0.3, trying next server

Server: 192.168.0.2

Address: 192.168.0.2#53

** server can't find facebook.com: SERVFAIL

katrina@teto:~ %

It’s always DNS … until it’s BGP.

It’s BGP according to Cloudflare?

People say that because DNS is the first port of call

If your whole network is dead, it's the DNS failure you'll see

If you manually set the host IP addresses in your config, your connections still won't work.

Don't blame the DNS!!

A case of finest bubbly, vint, brew, or spirits to the poor techie who "hit the button", and I'm looking forward to the "Who, Me?"!

I expect that the news is causing a lot of people to check up their access to the FB sites - when they manage to access the site they will be served an advert so potentially there's a lot of income generated by this "problem."

So after the panic in offices, etc. folks might actually be more productive then? Or just so upset they can't do anything. Families will have actually have to talk to each other with whatever consequences result from actual conversation.

For a fleeting day or hours, we're back in the 90's.

One other side benefit / effect would be constipation for those sitting on the throne, without their connectivity. Their bowels would just not open !

Stuck without the indernett !

Only old people use facebook. The hip kids are either on tiktok or are being jerks to each other on 4chan.

A few whippersnappers use Insta and even WhatsApp, or so I'm told.

A few whippersnappers use Insta and even WhatsApp

use WhatsApp? Not today apparently.

Time to think "what if?". What if this is intentional on FB's part? They've been taking a lot of crap from many corners lately. This would be a way to get all their users upset and demand that the critics leave them alone.

Wild speculation but after the last 4 years, I wouldn't put anything past them or anyone else.

"What if this is intentional on FB's part?"

Maybe it's one of those tests, turn off the service for a while and see if anyone cares notices.

I don't think so. My wife works at the helpdesk of a local college and got at least five calls from people complaining that the internet was down.

She patiently explained that Facebook was down, and the rest of the internet, including the sites one could use to do work-related browsing, are ok. Most of the callers mumbled something like thanks, but one had the gall to ask if the helpdesk people "could do something about the Facebook".

Again, a local college, a temple of knowledge and education.

I was setting up a showroom and was testing different places to put the wifi box in. This was eventually going to be for staff use and to do the test I'd set up the wifi router in different locations around the (multistory) showroom. This was going well until the showroom manager grabbed me. She said she'd been able to connect to the wifi but her tv app (UKTV Play) wasn't working. I said there's no broadband yet, so no internet, so why would it? She said that on the adverts for it they just said you needed a "Network connection" and she had one of those. Sadly when I checked she was right it did say exactly that. She therefore decided not being very technical that the internet wasn't needed.

And for those of us with family stuck abroad in a pandemic won't be able to talk at all. Yay!

I assumed they had collapsed under the weight of antivaxx crap being circulated.

At least that's what it feels like some of the time. Only use the platform because it's a common point of contact to many people

Hmm, you'd greatly benefit to learn the difference between someone who is against 100% of vaccines versus someone who is merely questioning ONE experimental genetic mRNA therapy pathway misrepresented as a traditional vaccine; it's not a vaccine in any traditional sense.

You're welcome.

What is it you want your vaccines to be like? Edward Jenner style where the festering pustules of an infected individual are broken open and said pus scratched into your skin? That is, after all, the traditional way.

You’re right about the mRNA vaccines. They aren’t traditional. They are waaaaay cooler and way better than traditional. But to say they are “genetic therapy” grossly misrepresents the role of mRNA in protein synthesis. It’s quite literally the messenger. A datagram. Not persistent storage. God forbid we should live on a planet where technological progress takes place… and additionally, I’m sometimes surprised to find Luddites hanging out on a tech website.

Funny thing about mRNA vaccines. Every single candidate in the past failed early in the FDA 505(b)1 approval process. Every one. For reasons eerily familiar to those who have been watching VAERS since Dec 2020. Read the individual case records. Just like the Phase I/II clinical trials for the withdrawn candidates.

If you think mRNA vaccines are "cool" I suggest you get up to speed on the published literature. They really dont have a clue about what they do to non target cells. Not a clue. If you have been reading this stuff for decades you will see it is mostly hand waving.

Then there is the "approval". Its not a 505(b)1, like in every other general use vaccine. Its this weird combo of 351 and a BLA. Which is never used for legitimate vaccines. But the 351 will give Pfizers lawyers a great defense strategy against the product liability lawsuits.

Then there is the strange fact that the only vaccine types available in western countries are types which have either all / almost all failed to gain approval in the past. The rest of the world uses attenuated virus vaccines. You know. The safe ones that have been used for over a century.

Its a given that any one who throws around the term "ant-vax" hasnt a clue what they are talking about. Low information bien pensant mouton. All HCOV vaccines are like influenza vaccines, they dont give sterilizing immunity. So unlike the MMR and all the other vaccines you previously got (except Tdap). Its just a shot that wears off very quickly and provides very limited protection. Except unlike the flu shot most people are at lower risk and the adverse response event rate is about 200x. Not good numbers.

Still happy about having completely untried, untested, LNP mRNA particles floating about your body? Where the cell boundary crossing mechanism for most in-vivo cells is a complete unknown.

Sorry, I'll take my vaccines the old fashioned way. Attenuated virus vaccines.

So when is something like VLA2001 going to be made available? To those of us who have actually read the f*cking published literature and know how this stuff works.

> [ ...] merely questioning ONE experimental genetic mRNA therapy pathway[ ... ]

It's NOT experimental. It is fully approved by the FDA.

[ ...] misrepresented as a traditional vaccine [ ...]

No-one misrepresented anything. You invented an incorrect association of similarity between different kinds of vaccines on your own. No-one asked you to do that.

[ ...] it's not a vaccine in any traditional sense [ ...]

Sez you. You must be an expert in immunology and vaccines. Which explains why you're posting as Anonymous Coward .

Different vaccines are made in different ways, and operate in different ways. The desired end result is always the same: artificially acquired immunity against a pathogen, which may be long-term or short-term.

If what you understand by a traditional vaccine is what was being used in the 18th Century, you are about 300 years behind, and you will be very disappointed. No-one today manufactures vaccines the way they were being made centuries ago.

You can either time travel backwards and get scratched with infected cow udder skin, or you can chose to live in the present.

Either way, please stop spouting your ignorance as if it was some demonstration of critical thinking. It is not.

Go back to Facebook when it's back up.

Correction for you "It is fully approved by the FDA."

It is approved for "emergency use" it has not gone the 3 years for "fully approved"

I think vaccines are great, when done right. This has been a disaster - proof is in the arguments about it and the blocking of discussing it at all on social media.

If they had done a good job promoting/being open about it, it wouldn't be the most controversial vaccine to date.

I agree with your sentiment of the doctors being more open, unfortunately the campaigns are run mostly by politicians and celebrities, if they let the real doctors talk about it and explain what it is, how it works, and why, maybe people wouldn't be rejecting it so much. And making it mandatory and even putting people in jail and denying basic rights doesn't make people consider it better. I think that's the kind of attitudes that make people more suspicious about it.

> It is approved for "emergency use" it has not gone the 3 years for "fully approved"

[1]https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

For Immediate Release: August 23, 2021

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnaty (koe-mir’-na-tee), for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older. The vaccine also continues to be available under emergency use authorization (EUA), including for individuals 12 through 15 years of age and for the administration of a third dose in certain immunocompromised individuals.

The booster shot was subsequently approved by the FDA the week before last.

The Moderna vaccine is currently under evaluation for full approval, which is expected to happen this month.

Do you ever read anything other than your own thoughts, Facebook or conspiracy theory sites?

[1] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

As you know, they make up the facts to support their narrative. Your post won't convince them. They'd probably say the approval is some kind of conspiracy, too

Do you really think it's controversial on its own merit, and not because it's something new that conspiracy theorists can jump on to gain clicks and political points?

Do you really think the anti vaxxers have done research on the methology various vaccines use, and determined that smallpox, chicken pox, etc. vaccines are fine?

You can’t just take an irrational dislike to something, yell loudly, and then call your own yelling a controversy.

Traffic lights cost lives! Literally dozens of people have been killed when stopped at a traffic light! Why should the government have the right to force me to stop at a traffic light, when it might endanger my life? I respect your right to stop at a traffic light if you want to, but I’ve done my research on the health benefits of not stopping, so I don’t see why you can’t respect my right not to be bound by your irrational edicts.

Why is the government suppressing the argument about traffic lights? When did you last see anything in the MSM about the dangers of traffic lights?

Teach the controversy!

You mean the mRNA-based interventions that train your immune system to recognise a pathogen and thus produce an immune response when they encounter said pathogen - like, um, vaccines? The ones which have undergone the standard testing regime for medical interventions? No... I guess you must be talking about something else. I'd check the usual reliable sources, but unfortunately Facebook is down...

A damn anti-vax troll on this site? It's like bloody Facebook is down or something ...

This is terrible. I don't know who to provide my data to anymore, does anyone want my pin code?

Just the three numbers on the back will do - now the usual API is down

5386753096969420 999 12345

It passes the check, but AFAIK it's not a real number...

Icon because...

Why is it always "some People" when millions (possibky billions) are affected?

It is always the case ever there is massive booboo, the big boys always downplay the impact.

SOME PEOPLE !!

Hate that term now, coming from the hypocrites.

Yes, "some people" as in some billionaires are affected. For millions of the pleb this is a blessing!!!

You'll only hear MILLIONS and BILLIONS being used when the subject is number of active members.

Active members? What active members?

Let's hope it will never come back up!

Such a terrible turn of events. I can almost feel the IQ levels slowly rising around the globe.

On the contrary, the sheeple are losing what is left of their tiny little minds. I've had a half dozen telephone calls asking why "the Internet is down", all from people who never call me for support anymore because I don't do Redmond or Cupertino. Seems they are so desperate for their fix that they are willing to risk getting laughed at.

In other news, the Realtor for a property I'm trying to purchase can't do business with me "because her Facebook is down". When I pointed out that I've never used Facebook when talking with her, she just looked at me blankly. Yes, we were standing talking to each other in person at the time. The mind absolutely boggles.

Nature is healing

Adguard DNS is also down (as a result of the Facebook outage according to them). Just spent way too long trying to work out why my mobile AND WiFi were randomly failing before hitting on Adguard being the issue:

https://status.adguard.com

... if Facebook is down so you can't post ...

Imagine how many phones got smashed when people went into withdrawals!

Depends. My Facebook friends are *real* *friends*, not online meat muppets.

I have phone numbers, emails, etc. There are ways for those of us who have actual FRIENDS and FAMILY to contact! :)

Suddenly browsing seemed faster, cleaner and more wholesome! Plus I just reinstalled a Pi-Hole, was it me?

@chivo243

Sadly, no, it wasn't you (it would have been cool, though, especially if you could make them disappear permanently, or at will).

I received a Telegram call from my son about an hour ago about this, and it took ages to connect. His stance is that Telegram is a bit overwhelmed/flooded with traffic, as people took to Telegram in order to communicate.

According to him it was a DNS config gone wrong (heard from someone with knowledge about it), leading to all their DNS servers falling over. And, siince the servers are now unreachable, there is a scramble to get support into data centres in order to get physical access so the servers can be individually reconfigured.

It is going to be a looooong day/night for the poor buggers!

It did not affect me, as I do not partake of FB and their products (OK - I have to confess; I had to reopen my WhatsApp account, since my siblings objected to change to Telegram or Signal. They are heavily invested in the whole FB experience, sadly. I will probably get an avalanche of messages from them once Fb teeters upright again).

According to some reports the keycard-controlled door access systems to the server farms are also down.