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.”

51 thoughts on “Facebook outage

  1. 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?

    Like

  2. 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?

    Like

  3. 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…

    Like

  4. 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…

    Like

  5. “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.

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  6. “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.

    Like

  7. Face book has been done, or unavailable for over 5 hours .. the message displayed says its maintenance

    Wonder if thats true

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  8. Face book has been done, or unavailable for over 5 hours .. the message displayed says its maintenance

    Wonder if thats true

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  9. 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.

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  10. 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.

    Like

  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

    Like

  13. 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.

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  14. 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.

    Like

  15. 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.”

    Like

  16. 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.”

    Like

  17. “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”.

    Like

  18. “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”.

    Like

  19. I love it! People are addicted to CrackBook. This just reinforces how important they have become, that everyone is blogging/reporting this outage.

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  20. I love it! People are addicted to CrackBook. This just reinforces how important they have become, that everyone is blogging/reporting this outage.

    Like

  21. @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.

    Like

  22. @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.

    Like

  23. @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.

    Like

  24. @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.

    Like

  25. 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.

    Like

  26. 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.

    Like

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