What's up with WhatsApp? Messaging platform suffers outage in the UK
- Reference: 1666692913
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/10/25/whatsapp_down_in_uk/
- Source link:
Owned by social media giant Meta, the mobile instant messaging platform saw users begin to report service outages from around 09:00 UTC. More than 12,000 reports were posted within half an hour, according to the service status website [1]Down Detector . Users are still reporting issues, although the rate appears to be slowing.
It is unclear how many of WhatsApp's 2 billion worldwide users are still struggling to access the service. Some services had recovered in parts of the UK by 11am UTC.
[2]
The Register has asked WhatsApp parent Meta for comment.
[3]
[4]
Jake Moore, global cyber security advisor at infosec vendor ESET, said: "Whether it be malicious or otherwise, this highlights the significance of vast hosting companies directing data around the internet along with companies and individuals relying on single points of communication.
[5]Financial watchdogs want to know what traders are talking about on WhatsApp
[6]Ever suspected bankers could just use WhatsApp comms? $1.8b says you're right
[7]Iran blocks Whatsapp, Instagram as citizens protest death of Mahsa Amini
[8]Meta picks India for WhatsApp's first e-commerce service
"It would be difficult to point the finger at an attack at this early development stage, but it cannot be ruled out due to the impact a potential attack could have. Suppliers which bottleneck data for billions of devices and networks are an obvious target and should they ever be hit with the perfect attack and last for days it could be catastrophic."
In a pitch for business, Amandine Le Pape, co-founder of decentralized messaging app Element, said the ongoing blackout at WhatsApp "highlights that global outages are one of the major downsides of a centralized system."
"Centralized apps mean that all the eggs are in one basket. When that basket breaks, all the eggs gets smashed. Decentralized systems are far more reliable. There's no single point of failure so they can withstand significant disruption and still keep people and businesses communicating."
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Instagram, also owned by Meta, suffered 106 outages in 2021, [10]according to UK price comparison site Uswitch . Facebook went down 95 times.
With all the problems at Meta, today's WhatsApp outage is perhaps a minor blemish. A shareholder that owns a 0.1 percent stake in Meta [11]yesterday called for the group to layoff one in five staff and lop $5 billion in annual capital expenses to "get fit and focused."
Updated at 11.47 UTC on 25 October 2022 to add:
[12]
WhatApp says it has "fixed the issue and apologize for any inconvenience". ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://downdetector.co.uk/status/whatsapp/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y1gIGHAtmJakImTAokP@-AAAABM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y1gIGHAtmJakImTAokP@-AAAABM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y1gIGHAtmJakImTAokP@-AAAABM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/whatsapp_trader_comms_regulation/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/28/shadow_it_hedge_funds_wall_street/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/whatsapp_and_instagram_now_restricted/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/whatsapp_getting_ecommerce_functionality_in/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y1gIGHAtmJakImTAokP@-AAAABM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/11/uswitch_outage_champions/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/shareholders_to_meta_cut_staff/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y1gIGHAtmJakImTAokP@-AAAABM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Back to the future
As it uses the signal protocol as does signal i don't see why we can't have a decentralised messaging service as this sort of thing shouldn't be under the ownership of a single company especially Meta.
Re: Back to the future
The problem is not alternate services. The problem is persuading people to use them instead... most of them don't seem to believe there *are* any alternatives to WhatsApp any more than they believe there are alternatives to Google or Microsoft.
Re: Back to the future
The great thing though is that Whatsapp isn't a monopoly - there are many different messaging platforms about, and it's entirely possible to not use one at all and still communicate with people. The only way I ever find out that Farcebook or any other of these sites is down is by seeing a news article about it.
Never heard of it
-> decentralized messaging app Element
I'm struggling to understand why anything owned by "Meta" being inaccessible is a problem.
You are wrong. I suggested to everyone I know that uses Whattzapp to move to Signal instead but the responses have been underwhelming to say the least.
The problem is the massive inertia of the shift. If I want to shift to Signal I have to consider either keeping Whatsapp anyway to keep in contact with all others on my list or convince all of my contacts to then make the same consideration. In the end you end up with too many people that go: "eh, can't be bothered" and you have to either stick with existing apps to keep contact with them or lose contact over this. I've long since decided convincing others to put in the effort to convince others that then have to put in the effort to convince yet others is too much effort. I've objected to Meta gobbling my data in time, so theoretically they shouldn't be slurping my data to the Zuckership, I'll live with it for now.
xkcd - of course Randall covered it
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1810:_Chat_Systems
I managed many of my friends' move to Signal. I have to say, it was a good uptake. I only have one cousin that has yet to connect. But these are users from many parts of the world, some, believe it or not, don't have What's APP or it's not popular... so that was a big factor in adoption of Signal.
No issues as of 1145hrs here.
Element
Metadata nightmare. Use XMPP.
I'm taking a guess:
Decrypting messages and archiving everybody's personal data probably strained the back end server capacity so incoming data analysis was delayed. Or maybe the NSA link was down.
Re: I'm taking a guess:
The NSA disk was full. It took some time to add extra drives to the NAS running on the SNA network with controlled SAN mode. The ASN .1 identifier was not accepted by ANS.
Re: I'm taking a guess:
Apparently the NSA use GCHQ as a swap partition...
Re: I'm taking a guess:
You didn't miss any permutation.....and is even in ANSi coding
Oh No!
How am I going to communicate with only seven other messaging apps on my phone?
-mobailey
Sign of things to come
WhatsApp has a hiccup and half of Europe is standing on its back feet.
This is merely a shot across the bow for what will ensue when WhatsApp terminates service in the UK after the government demands backdoors to be installed. Mayhem and chaos as angry Brits demand their MP's to restore service.
Re: Sign of things to come
Not going to happen
They'll capitulate and install backdoors. Screw the users.
Re: Sign of things to come
To curry favor with the UK government? You must be joking!
WhatsApp doesn't give a rat's ass about the UK and would pull the plug without even blinking.
God’s Grace, it’s down!
A least people will stop sending me stupid and “funny” messages for a few hours. People don’t use WhatsApp for serious communication and everyone can fallback to old, simple and as unsecured as WhatsApp SMS messaging for anything life or death and to email for anything that have multimedia. Jake Moore, global cyber security advisor at infosec vendor ESET, and anyone else telling you that an outage in WhatsApp is a catastrophe, is just lying thru their teeth.
Zscalar also went TITSUP today!
Great day for tech all round, we lots access to a lot of our cloudy based apps for 2 hours while Zscalar lost control of its kit and screwed loads of companies!
Back to the future
It is the monopoly biting us again. If whatsapp was like the phone system, then we would have gobally dozens of companies running the whatsapp network, not just Z limited liability.
This time will be in the history books as the time of the monopolies, whatever tech or services ones buys, in many cases there are 2 alternatives and at best 5.
The cherry on the cake is that these monopolists have the same incestuous relationship with governments as the church used to have in the middle ages.