Facebook is alive, DNS issues resolved after six hours of darkness

Courtesy of ZeroHedge

Update (1750 ET): Facebook is currently experiencing one of the biggest global blackouts on record, which also took down Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, according to Downdetector.

After a Domain Name System (DNS) issue that cut Facebook and other related products off the Internet for more than six hours, there is a sign of life from Facebook’s DNS servers broadcasting again, according to DNS Checker.

The Verge editor tweeted: “Facebook seems to be slowly coming back to life. I am seeing BGP ads and DNS is back.”

Even though Facebook’s DNS is backed up, that doesn’t mean everything is fixed; the social media platform is still inaccessible to some users.

As a reminder, this circus show comes a day before a Facebook whistleblower is ready to testify before Congress.

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Update (1507ET): Facebook appears to have more than DNS issues, as NYT’s Sheera Frenkel reports:

“I was just on the phone with someone who works for FB who described employees unable to enter buildings this morning to begin to assess the extent of the outage because their badges were not working to access the doors. . “

This may suggest that Facebook’s internal systems are down. DNS issues affecting the website do not prevent employees from entering buildings.

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Update (1448ET): It has been several hours and Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger are still down. According to Internet researchers, Facebook appears to be facing a Domain Name System (DNS) problem.

Internet security researcher Brian Krebs tweeted:

Confirmed: DNS records that tell systems how to find Facebook.com or Instagram.com were removed from global routing tables this morning. Can you imagine working at FB right now when your email is down and all of your internal FB based tools are failing?

To be more precise (and Geek Factor 5), BGP routes serving Facebook’s authoritative DNS have been removed, making all Facebook domains inaccessible. This is from @DougMadory, who knows a few things about BGP / DNS.

Searching for Facebook’s DNS records comes back empty-handed.

NBC News’ Kevin Collier called Facebook’s DNS problems “really bad.”

There is even a ripple effect on the Internet.

Meanwhile, everyone on Twitter …

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Downdector reports that Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger are experiencing issues and / or outages around the world. The outage comes just before a Facebook whistleblower testifies before Congress on Tuesday.

Users started reporting issues with the social media platform around 1120 ET.

Facebook users report the website won’t load with an error message that says:

“Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on it and we’ll fix it ASAP.”

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone admitted on Twitter that “some people have difficulty accessing our apps and products.”

The timing of the widespread blackouts comes as a Facebook whistleblower testifies before Congress on Tuesday. The whistleblower appeared in “60 Minutes” on Sunday, detailing the tech company’s mission to make a profit before doing “what was good for the public,” including cracking down on hate speech.

Shares of the tech company fell 6% in the early afternoon, tumbling not only due to the whistleblower, but the global blackout as well.

Facebook users complained about the outages on Twitter:

… and there is this:

Does anyone else think this Facebook outage is perfectly timed if they want to clean up the house in the face of the whistleblower interview so that more dirt isn’t found?

– Tim Palomo (@ timpalomo1) October 4, 2021

Twitter user Chad Loder tweeted: “Someone destroyed DNS A and AAA records for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp”.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responds to Loder’s tweet and asks “how much?”

Let conspiracy theorists run wild with today’s events:

“Facebook is down because the trend was for a whistleblower to testify in front of Congress today. Now they tend to be down. A smart publicity stunt,” said a Twitter user.

On the bright side, with much of social media platforms down today, maybe people will get back to work and boost global productivity as the outage is widespread.