Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's DNS Down
Everybody and their brother has submitted what has to be the least
interesting story in months. Microsoft's DNS server is down. I haven't visited their web site in months and I don't care
in the slightest, but if I don't post this, I'm going to spend the next 48 hours deleting 2,000 submissions about it as zillions of people somehow think that this matters. Yup. Its down. Ye haw. Do you people actually visit microsoft.com? It didn't
even render under Netscape for the longest time. I can't remember the last time I intentionally went to that site. There's just no need. (Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes ;)
whois amazon.com:U S.COMA OL.ORGH ECK-OUT.JIMPHILLIPS.ORG R K.COMJ IMPHILLIPS.ORG
AMAZON.COM.SHOULD.SELL.SEXTOYSONLINE.COM
whois yahoo.com:
YAHOO.COM.IS.TRYING.TO.STEAL.YAHOO.VU.HOW.ACIDULO
whois slashdot.org:
SLASHDOT.ORG.SUCKS.COMPARED.TO.JIMPHILLIPS.ORG
whois netscape.com:
NETSCAPE.COM.SHOULD.SHAKE.OFF.ITS.CHAINS.AND.FUCK
NETSCAPE.COM.SHOULD-DUMP.AOL-AND-REHIRE.JWZ.BUT.C
whois aol.com:
AOL.COM.IS.REGULARLY.HAX0RED.BY.INSIDE-AOL.COM
AOL.COM.HACKED.BY.PSYKOJOKO.ON.A.ROOT-NETWORK.COM
whois microsoft.com:
MICROSOFT.COM.HACKED.BY.PSYKOJOKO.ON.A.ROOT-NETWO
MICROSOFT.COM.IS.NO.MATCH.FOR.THE.UEBER-GEEKS.AT.
I don't know about anyone else, but I see a theme...
geez...is this the most blatant "I hate MS" post in a long time or what?!?
"Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes "
The normal rant about MSFT around here is that one has to wait a long time for a service pack to come out with fixes to known bugs and security holes. So which is? Do they come frequently or infrequently?
If nothing else, this should make everybody question the wisdom of using .NET
Hey, maybe they're getting ready to tell the world that this kind of thing wouldn't happen if the entire Internet ran on Active Directory (tm) instead of ordinary DNS! (Moderators: it's a joke. Put yer flamebait points away.)
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
If you find Windows in either version usefull, then please be happy and use it. Nobody will care about you using both systems, as well as nobody cares about every other guy that just uses Linux or Windows.
;) )
Out there are so many OSes, and almost every of them has something that others can't do better, simply because its designed for that. Windows for example has two or three main advantages: first, it's widely spread and therefore a lot of people know how to work with it, and second, it pretends being easy-to-use. (A third advantage is e.g. you can't hack the root acount
Others have other advantages, and everyone should use that operation system that he thinks is best for the job.
And I find it interesting that the DNS Server of microsoft crashed, interesting in the same way as the hack of www.apache.org (if those guys don't know how to setup a secure webserver, who should know then?), and also as the newsitem about some MS Services like hotmail running Unices, simply because MS's products didn't do the job.
Michael Bergbauer (michael.bergbauer@gmx.net)
Human nature. I believe the thought process goes something like "I'm no bigot. I'll show this guy how tolerant we are of alternative viewpoints by moderating him up!"
It's fairly widely known around the people who've been on /. for a while. Certainly everybody that uses the technique does - but, unfortunately, many moderators haven't realized it yet. Unfortunately, complaining about this tends to draw a bunch of people telling you to stop bitching.
Undoubtedly, or if not karma, at least a +5 so he can shout his views with a karmic megaphone (geez, I like that phrase :)
The solution? My personal moderation policy is that anybody who uses the phrase "I know I'm going to be modded down for this" or similar, gets exactly what they ask for - moderation down.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Who the hell still runs IE2? You can get IE3 for Win3.1. You can't run Asheron's Call under DOS either.
Look at microsoft.com in lynx sometime (not a framed one, try w3m for that). Now try netscape.com.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Is someone out there attacking DNS servers?
Just an irrational suspicion...
I can see the fnords!
The article said that they hadn't been cracked. So I guess this was a natural response of their own software running on their own-ed hardware.
Which is scarier, that M$ would be that vulnerable to cracking, which wasn' the case this time, or that not even M$ is capable of defending itself against its own products?
Check into access security systems which monitor traffic through doors and other entry/exit points from secure facilities. NONE are running anything by M$. They're ALL run on Unix platforms.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The Windows Internet platform defaults to so many
aspects of microsoft.com- hotmail, passport, msn,
outlook- and is mostly disabled today. You'd
think that the company that wants to become the
NET computing platform would have better reliability
and defence against hacking.
"At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (PST), a Microsoft technician made a configuration change to the routers on the edge of Microsoft's Domain Name Server network..."
More Info
Actually MS has all of their servers in the same location (Microsoft evidently believes that the world ends in Redmond) as their DNS servers, and therefore what good would Geographical Dispersity have helped when after resolving the IP you still have to goto Redmond for the web page?
I fail to see how this is an advantage - Microsoft service packs are notorious for fixing some things and breaking others. Far better to only have to upgrade things you care about. This probably brings the number of updates you have to get about on par with the number of Microsoft updates, except that you can more closely control the number of changes that you do at once.
Your grandma's running bind? She rocks! But seriously, all you have to do is get the RPM/DEB in response to the security bulletin from your distribution's security list, open up your favorite package manager front-end, click on the package, and then quit once it's installed. Doesn't sound too tough for Grandma if she could already click through a Windows upgrade. If Grandma's running Debian she can even get the updates automated and never mess with them again.
And of course Grandma can upgrade bind a couple hours after the hole is found if she's interested; who knows how long she'd wait for a Service Pack?
Actually, that was jonkatz :) I totally agree on the spelling issue, though - it's at the point where I just skip some of the good Cmdr's articles, because it's too difficult to determine what he's getting at. I've never understood why bright, motivated people don't have the same regard for the impression their words make that they have for the way that their code runs.
Oh, c'mon. Journalistic standards vary widely; although CmdrTaco's screed wasn't particularly literate or well-reasoned (I would have rated it Flamebait too) it falls within the realm of so-called journalism from the Microsoft Linux Myths page or from ZDNet et al. The sad truth is that yellow journalism is alive and well in the modern tech press on all sides of a given issue.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Actually, SSL Certificates are IP-neutral, they tie a domain name to a business. If you can steal the certificate, the corresponding private key, and hack the DNS traffic, you are now the valid site, technologically speaking.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Who gets to be the Certificate Authority? Are they going to charge as much as current commercial CAs do to verify your identity?
I am not sure if microsoft's DNS is down or just fscked up. I can't access it by http://www.microsoft.com but I can with http://microsoft.com
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
I don't know which system is hacked
/root# whois microsoft.com
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
Y BIRTH.ARTISTICCHEESE.COM
O M
R G
but that's not a normal whois-query:
dollyb
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.WILL.LIVE.FOREVER.BUT.LUNIX.SUCKS-B
IP Address: 209.191.22.24
Registrar: CORE INTERNET COUNCIL OF REGISTRARS
Whois Server: whois.corenic.net
Referral URL: www.corenic.net
Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.SHOULD.GIVE.UP.BECAUSE.LINUXISGOD.C
IP Address: 207.10.88.13
Registrar: INTERNET DOMAIN REGISTRARS
Whois Server: whois.registrars.com
Referral URL: www.registrars.com
Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.SE.FAIT.HAX0RIZER.PAR.TOUT.LE.ZOY.O
IP Address: 138.12.12.12
Registrar: GANDI
Whois Server: whois.gandi.net
Referral URL: www.gandi.net
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
No shit this is irrelevant.
...
But most of the slashdot community these days seems to be composed of 14 year old linux script kiddie hacker wannabies who think this is earth shattering news.
Maybe we need a new website. Posting stories such as "How to haxx0r" and "MS website is down for the 48924th time this week". It will be "News for kiddies. Stuff thats l337."
This will leave slashdot for the real intellects. Who knows, it might just work
D
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
> Windows 2000 is quite stable--as many others have pointed out in past postings. My Win2K system runs continuously for weeks at a time, without glitch or problem, despite my use of games and unusual hardware.
Weeks at at time!
There has been a raging argument about this in comp.os.linux.advocacy for the past few weeks, and some guy finally went and looked up all the Hot 100 sites using Netcraft's uptime counters, and the results looked pretty dismal for W2K.
I suppose someday I'll be bothered to learn how to href a usenet article, but meanwhile I'll just direct you to c.o.l.a. and tell you to look for a recent thread with "Hot 100" in the subject line.
To avoid undue suspense, I'll tip you off that the average uptime for sites based on W2K was about 19 days, or about half what the Linux sites were getting and 1/3 of what the Solaris sites had.
So. I'm sure W2K is nice for people who are in to that kind of thing, but I were trying to sell people on it I wouldn't push it on the basis of its uptimes.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That's just a bunch of perfectly legitimate host ercords at internic.
Whois doesn't return the domain registration info for a single domain, it first does a substring search for the given string.
In this case, it shows every single registered host record that has 'microsoft.com' as part of it's name.
Many domains do this.. it's not a hack, it's not even anything at all.
It's a joke. I work with some pretty smart MCSE's. It's still fun to pick on them though. :)
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I heard they shut down their DNS to prevent evil script kiddies from pounding on their site all day. They figured that kiddies aren't smart enough to find the IP somewhere and use that. Unfortunately for them, they didn't realize that anyone with an MCSE wouldn't be able to figure it out either.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I agree that Microsoft is a very important force for people to deal with in the real world. But, all that aside, here in my non-real college student world, I am *very* interested to read that MS is having DNS problems because it makes me HAPPY! I am very happy to see just about anything go wrong at the Empire, and I think a lot of /.'ers feel the same way. Their DNS problem is going to make me smile all the way through my networking class! :>
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
As the sole developer of the only GUI uptimes.net client for Windows, I spend a good bit of my time explaining to people how comparing Win2K uptimes with *NIX uptimes is comparing apples to oranges. It's gotten to the point now where I just don't even care anymore. If ya' can't figure it out fer yerself, I ain't gonna explain it.
--
--
I run several Windows 2000 servers myself, and I also use Windows 2000 as my full-time desktop OS at home and at work. At one point, I had a web server running Windows 2000 Server RC2, serving a popular dynamic (ASP/MSSQL-driven) site, on hardware that didn't meet Windows' minimum requirements. The server stayed up (and perfectly stable) for 155 days before I finally had to shut it down to move it to my new apartment. And this was on a beta version of Windows, on sub-standard hardware! My desktop installation (running a non-beta version, on hardware that surpasses the OS's requirements) has an average uptime of over 20 days, and this is a machine that I use for software development, testing, and games. Even then, I usually only reboot it to install new hardware or upgrade software. Crashes are very infrequent.
What too many Microsoft-haters fail to realize is that Windows 2000 can be every bit as stable as your favorite *NIX OS. It's not that stable right out of the box (nor is any *NIX distro), but if you tweak it just right and run things smartly, you'll have a server that could take on anything in an uptime contest.
In the interests of not getting modded down for redundancy, I won't go into detail about how retarded this bias is that so many *NIX users (especially that punk CmdrTaco) have against Microsoft.
--
Create an /etc/postfix/transport file with the contents:
microsoft.com smtp:[131.107.3.124]
.microsoft.com smtp:[131.107.3.124]
(.124 is mail2.microsoft.com; .125 is mail1, which is apparently down right now.)
Put this in your /etc/postfix/main.cf:
transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport
Reload or restart postfix and have it flush all the mail. It might take a while, especially if you have a lot of mail queued up. To speed things up, try these two settings:
default_destination_concurrency_limit = 200
qmgr_site_hog_factor = 100
Oh, I know where we would be without Microsoft. We would have cheaper, faster computers with better sound and graphics, easier to program for, easier to use, and not requireing a weekly reboot and a 6-month reinstall cycle.
Thats where we would be. Because that is the history of computers that we have.
How many times has Rob talked about Diablo II? And then on the front page he starts talking about "if you run Windows." Well, rob, you do too. Sometimes it just gets rediculous with the Linux sensationalism.
Yes I use and Love linux and it's my primary OS on all of my computers (excpet the Mac IIsi (no FPU yet)). but I have windows on my workstation to do things like play games, hard disk multi-track recording, and to view quicktime movies.
A quick whois microsoft.com shows they are running 4 dns servers all on the same /24 network. What kind of "network professional" did this. Most likely the idiot illegally claims to be an engineer as well.
What ever happened to putting your dns servers on separate networks? It used to be a requirement to register a domain. At least hotmail got it almost right... too bad they link to passport.com which didn't.
I agree that's incompetent, but it isn't the problem in this case. I can ping all of them; they're alive, and the router on the subnet is alive. Their problem appears to be that their reverse DNS tables are shagged, so the servers don't know their own identities. Mind you, that incompetent too, but it's a different kind of incompetent.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
How many times has Taco stated that he posts what he finds to be interesting, nothing less, nothing more. For the most part that happens to be "news for nerds, stuff that matters" but not always. Taco doesn't use windows so M$ having dns problems isn't important to him.
/.
Keep in mind also that this site isn't meant to be a news portal for IT professionals but a news site for Linux using geek-types in general about things that interest us outside of our professional lives (ignore for a minute that for most geek types there is a fair bit of crossover between work stuff and personal stuff.) With that in mind, I agree with Taco, that one company that makes software I don't use having dns problems is not worthy of a headline on the front page of
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ahem!:
: of or relating to them or themselves especially as possessors, agents, or objects of an action <their furniture> <their verses> <their being seen>
Main Entry: their
Pronunciation: [th]&r, '[th]er, '[th]ar
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from their, pronoun, from Old Norse theirra, genitive plural demonstrative & personal pronoun; akin to Old English thæt that
Date: 13th century
1
2 : his or her : HIS, HER, ITS-- used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent <anyone in their senses -- W. H. Auden>
usage see THEY
So if you consider "everybody" to be singular then it seems that at least Mirriam-Webster's agrees that "their" is appropriate usage.
There's nothing like flaming a grammar flamer flaming another grammar flamer for grammar.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
who cares about dns, when I couldn't even upgrade an nt4 re-install. "sure", sez i to myself, "i can just update the rest over the net, using the bundled browser." big bro microsoft had other ideas.
of course, their latest websites haven't even rendered in ie2 ... this
is their own software that doesn't
display their own website. feh.
I'm picking on you, specifically, because you're convenient, but the same goes for everyone else posting this.
First of all, you are the fourth person to post the exact same thing, on page 12 of the comments...I can only imagine hoe many more times it has already been posted.
Not only this, but your post follows two explanations -- one nicely written, one a flame -- on this page alone explaining why you are wrong.
None of those entries are for microsoft.com's domain, except the last one, which is microsoft.com. The rest? "MICROSOFT.COM.GUTS.NL" is for guts.nl. "MICROSOFT.COM.MUST.STOP.TAKEDRUGS.ORG" is for takedrugs.org. See the pattern?
Anyone can buy a domain, create microsoft.sucks.mydomain.com, and get it to show up on WHOIS.
Of course you'll never be modded up. You are wrong, you have been proven wrong multiple times, and you are highly redundant.
--
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
First of all, you are the fifth person to post the exact same thing, on page 12 of the comments...I can only imagine how many more times it has already been posted.
Not only this, but your post follows two explanations -- one nicely written, one a flame -- on this page alone explaining why you are wrong.
None of those entries are for microsoft.com's domain, except the last one, which is microsoft.com. The rest? "MICROSOFT.COM.GUTS.NL" is for guts.nl. "MICROSOFT.COM.MUST.STOP.TAKEDRUGS.ORG" is for takedrugs.org. See the pattern?
Anyone can buy a domain, create microsoft.sucks.mydomain.com, and get it to show up on WHOIS.
Of course you'll never be modded up. You are wrong, you have been proven wrong multiple times, and you are highly redundant.
--
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
As of 4:50PM PST, they're back up. No apology or explanation on the home page.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
All I have to say is that MSN being down is bad. I do ISP tech support. Does anybody really want to know in this past week how many people have called thinking their internet was down, because their MSN home page didn't come up?
*twitch*
You were given bad inforamtion. There is no such piece of software as `Optiionn Pack 4'. You want the `Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack'. No wonder the MS respresentative was confused.
FYI, the Windows NT 4.0 Option pack includes IIS, Transaction Server, Certificate Server, Index server, and various other bits and pieces.
Everybody is singular? What's the plural form? Everybodies?
Everyone
I now expect to lose Karma for criticizing Slashdot. Of course, if I cared about Karma, I wouldn't post this response...
Why is it that every response that has something to the effect of "Now, I know I'll be modded down for this..." always get modded up? Am I the only guy who noticed this, or did ChaoticCoyote know it too? And if he did know it, doesnt that mean that he does care about karma?
Secondly, "excellent" and "knowledge base" have never followed each other in a sentence that I have ever seen. The knowledge base SUCKS. Which leads me to another point: people in IT tend to believe what they're told and not think for themselves, which is what pisses off most linux advocates the most, because they wont even try anything non-MS, despite the PROVEN cost/work-done ratio.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
the DNS registrar inherently knows that the person that they sold foo.com to is the person they sold foo.com to. That doesn't mean they're certifying that it's really "The Foo Corporation, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC, USA" (an issue that leads to trademark resolution court cases when "Joe Foo Widgets" says that foo.com is their trademark) - it just certifies that "the person who possesses this key can change the IP addresses that
In practice, that could work fine for new domain names, as long as the registrars want to start supporting SecureDNS for their domains, but there's more trouble in setting the keys for existing domain names. Some domain names use PGP keys to control changes to their DNS data, and those PGP keys could be used to certify any submitted keys. Some domain names use the previous traditional method for controlling DNS information "accept any syntactically correct request to change the IP address and user data, even if that allows anybody in the world to hijack the domain." You could either retain the same mechanism (:-), or use that mechanism to bootstrap setting an initial SecureDNS key, and using that key to certify future change requests, or pick some hybrid mechanism like "generate the keys and email them to the registered contact address, if it exists".
We'll probably see Secure DNS from smaller, more flexible TLDs like
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
www.theregister.co.uk reports that MS's DNS is back up. (Of course, if it had been backed up better, it would have been back up much sooner :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
or maybe he's just as sick of the ludicrous bashing of this type, and posted the story so that people would stop bugging him about it.
actually, no maybe involved, he's clearly stated that.
really. Is there anyone who DOESN'T have a login to this? I always laugh when I see Microsoft stuff on a pirate site.. why? Go download it!
Also, msdn.microsoft.com works just fine, btw...
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
The Good Taco's rant seems to me why a lot of folks now a days have preconceived notions about Linux and it's users. It's a sort of elitism of "I'm so cool that bagging on M$ and saying how rarely I visit their site makes me a better person." While I agree that a DNS failure isn't really news, Taco's little rant just reinforces stereotypes about the blind, pointless "I'm better than you" attitudes many people hold about their freakin' computer operating system. Calm down dude. It's software. We know you don't go to their site. We know you're better than that. We know, we know.
Flamebait? Probably. Do as you will.
The Good Reverend
And indeed probably these are on two subnets, judging from the addresses.
What I guess I was trying to point out is that if I were the size of Microsoft I'd have them much more distributed, on different ISPs in different class C's.
Mind you, MS do a lot of interesting stuff behind the scenes, so they may have more going on we don't know about - there's an informative whitepaper on their web site....ah.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
All four of the DNS addresses for microsoft.com and other microsoft domains are in the same Class-C range. If routing or connectivity for that one IP subnet is disrupted, those names stop resolving.
This goes against everything recommended in RFC2182.
Yes, this is a common mistake, but one of the first rules you learn when becoming a DNS admin is to have diversity in your name servers. Spread them across multiple hosts, on different networks, in physically separate datacenters.
Apparently Microsoft had to learn this the hard way.
To stop our users from complaining about the long lookup timeout on MICROSOFT,COM, MSN.COM, MSFT.NET and various other sites, I aliased those domains in our name servers to return immediately with 'no A records available'.
It's a shame management will insist that I take out those aliases tomorrow morning.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Well, I've modified my window manager (IceWM) to include a list of all the open windows when using alt-tab instead of just one, and a handful of the GNU command-line programs in one way or another. I'm also working on adding keyboard hotkey support to licq.
The point isn't that *I* necessarily need to be able to modify the source, the point is that if the source is open, *anyone can fix a bug and submit a patch*. No more waiting 6 months for Microsoft to release a service patch that MAY OR MAY NOT include your bug fix.
Granted they are SLOWLY getting better about this, but if you're using NT 4 now, you're fucked, because MS is not releasing any more patches for NT 4, so if something's broken, it's going to be broken forever.
Just because *you* don't have the time to worry about any of the code in your underlying programs (OS, window manager, etc.) doesn't mean that it's not a good thing it's available!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I must say that I contribute to the IE stats, but in my own defense, my company makes me use it; but I take a shower when I get home from work. ;-)
âoeIn theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." â Albert Einstein
I like to go there at least once or twice a day so their server can log one more Linux user.
âoeIn theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." â Albert Einstein
Agh!...If lose the items on my corpse on HG, I will be quite pissed. BTW, AC servers were taken off line for a bug hotfix. And, like 8hrs. later when they were finally put back up, right then MS's DNS dies!...egh!
http://207.46.230.218/ms.htm
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Coming from an environment where we use Microsoft product across the board (basically because it is free), I find Microsoft's sites quite useful. WindwsUpdate is good fro security patches and Service Packs; the Knowledge Base, although hard to search through, is quite extensive; and there are countless other areas of great use to the MS Enterprise administrators of the world, like Technet, and MSDN. So people like myself would definitely notice if their site was down, and be in a world of hurt if it was permanent.
2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2
Linux rocks.
solves the problems of the user with insightful advice (did you reboot your computer today?.
You just proved my point -- and contradicted yourself -- quite nicely.
--
hotmail.com's ip address is 64.4.11.7. I think the problem is that hotmail.com is actually down. I could ping them and resolve the IP address, but I cannot get a response from the site. So try it yourself I guess -> 64.4.11.7
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
This is why I just memorize the IP numbers (in 32-bit hexadecimal format, of course...what's up with all those dots anyhow?) of all the sites I ever go to, and avoid any reliance on DNS at all.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The closest thing to a home directory in Win32 would be the user profile directory (see the USERPROFILE environment variable). I've used this to substitute for $HOME when porting Unix programs to Win32 (don't ask, I might puke again).
---
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
#include obvious MS joke here
But seriously, what's the big deal? Do you really find this so amusing, and sit there snickering to yourself? What if the DNS boxes are actually the rumoured Unix boxes the MS uses? Is it less funny then?
I thought so..
it's spelled "their". maybe we should have a slashdot article "Slashdot makes a grammatical error".
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Ha ha! Microsoft's DNS is down! That never ever happens to anyone else. Those big jerks... they must suck because their DNS is down.
Come on guys... has this never happened to us?
PDHoss
======================================
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
The above poser was talking about msdn.microsoft.com, which really is an excellent site, I use it even when I'm not doing microsoft-spesifc stuff (as a general C++ reference). And, as another poster mentioned, there is no such thing as "Option Pack 4" according to Microsoft, and that may be why you had trouble finding it on their page.
Finally, believing that you are qualified to comment on a website because you put a lot of fait in Jakob Nielsen is ludicrous. This is the man behind CDE for god sakes. And the father of the "click here for the next page" links on long stories online. Goddamn that is annoying
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
You're system may have cashed the DNS names.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Sorry, my bad, I was never good with the more eccentric rules of English.
Everybody is singular? What's the plural form? Everybodies?
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Thanks! That's really cool, Google is the shit. :)
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Why? Because, unfortunately, the average user cannot click on anything, they don't know where the Start button is, they don't know what a checkbox is. Ever read userfriendly? Do you have any idea how TRUE some of those tech support calls? I used to do some tech support, and I've taken quite a few calls that are unbelievable.
I try to make the installation require as LITTLE user interaction as possible. The more automated the setup process is, the better. It leads to less call volume.
If you call us up and you need just a phone number or the DNS server IPs or the mail server hostname, we'll gladly give it to you. We don't force you to take a cd with the software on it, but we HAVE to have it because of the people that have no idea how to use a computer.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
You could probably get around hacking some high level stuff with a reasonable expectation of non-bsoding, but thats not what im talking about :)
And they still havent fixed the problem of window management being crappy. Its a pain to minmize windows with modal dialog boxes up. The only option is the "show desktop" command- which minimizes everything and sometimes causes programs to freeze up- which causes the os to freeze up. And there is still no decent multiple desktop option that comes with the OS. This is an area where windows lags behind unices.
And as a server OS, well its riddled with problems. Its still a moot option to run your database and webserver and DNS server from the same machine.
As a desktop OS- you said it. You still have to do an astonishing number of reboots to do the simplest things- like installing software. And if you forget to become administrator- most software will still install without warning but will be flaky when you try to run it. It still has suspect utility as a multi-user desktop- because any user can mess things up for any other user. Also, there is no good paradigm equivalent to the home directory. Each application has a different and conflicting idea where a user should keep his files- which leads to clusterfuck for the unwary. 20 days uptime sounds reasonable- assuming you dont do any heavy development. (My linux box at home only goes down for kernel upgrades.)
I wouldnt say that *nix users are biased againt Microsoft. They are merely expressing common sense in a world driven my marketroids and mob opinion.
notext
Why does Commander Taco constantly put down Microsoft? Ok, does Windows 2000 REALLY suck that bad? Granted, it is a bit overrated and I use Linux for development for most of the time, but c'mon guys, Windows has its place in the computing community. For one, it is easy to use, there's plenty of sfotware available for it, and it's plug and play pretty much with everything (unlike Linux which I had to spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to install Quake). I just don't want to install Linux for my dad and have to take time to explain him how to use it (the guy has trouble programming his VCR, ok?)
But yes, Linux is better for servers and it also makes a better development environment. But Commander Taco has trouble realizing that not EVERYONE is a developer. Most people jsut want to get on the 'net and type a word processing document or two.
That guy annoys me sometimes.
-Steve
But how many of those are people who browse the internet at work due to NT being imposed from above, like me. I only use Windows for DVD playing and viewing QT clips at home.
It's all part of the my toy's better than yours mentality. Microsoft does have the slight advantage of a huge PR budget to be snidey with - see the recent Linux mutant ad in Germany or the Linux Myths webpage, a great deal of snide and outright lies.
On another note I go to microsoft.com all the time in fact (though usually msdn.microsoft.com). Excellent site. In fact I believe it's among the top 3 most visited sites on the planet, so to proclaim it not to matter seems rather goofy.
Oh my god. You must be kidding. "Excellent site"? Whatever you think about Microsoft (I actually like Win2K) their website has to be among the worst on the planet. It's impossible to find anything on there. I have never seen such a poorly-organized site. And the interface changes all the time. They move stuff around just for the hell of it, apparently, because they move stuff around and it doesn't seem any more organized than it was before. I'm a professional web page designer who spends a lot of time studying UI's and I put a lot of faith in Jakob Neilsen, so hopefully I'm at least somewhat qualified to say this.
Case in point: last week I needed to D/L "Option Pack 4" for WinNT. Not to be confused with ServicePack 4. I searched their site for about 20 minutes and could not find it. When I went to their downloads area and searched for it, the search results were so meaningless as to render them useless. The #1 search result was "Service Pack 4, Simplified Chinese Edition". I kid you not. Out of the first 50 search results for "Option Pack 4", not ONE of them was actually option Pack 4. So I went to www.download.com and found it on the first try, and it was the ONLY search result when I searched for "Option Pack 4".
I wrote Microsoft and told them about this. Their response? One week later they apologized for the inconvenience and sent me a link to download Service Pack 4. Service Pack 4. Not Option Pack 4, which is what I was looking for and what I wrote them about, but Service Pack 4. Sigh. I guess their reading comprehension is about as good as their interface design. Pathetic!
http://www.bootyproject.org
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
99.999% uptime ?
:)
For a single server that equates to about 300 seconds of downtime assuming you've been running constantly since Win2K was released.
Since you made this easily we can assume that you've had a maximum of 1 or maybe 2 reboots in the whole time you've had your server.
Guess you don't install many security patches / service packs then
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
In case you haven't noticed, Microsoft IS the largest software company with the largest user base, 3rd-party software library, and makes tools used by more developers than any other company. YES WE ACTUALLY VISIT MICROSOFT.COM.
Anti-Microsoft bigotry is cute up to a point. You're way past that point.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
__________________
I'm particularly impatient this week, 'cause I just finished reading The Turner Diaries, a book that takes this argument to the ultimate extreme.
__________________
Not quite. To be a Linux wonk, you have to be a Linux advocate. That means you have to deal with people who insist that NT is the "standard" technology, that NT is "more powerful" than Linux, etc., etc.
So you better educate yourself about NT. Most of microsoft.com's woes stem from the use of NT-based servers. These are hyper-complex, kludgy, inefficient, insecure systems. They do have lots of whiz-bang features, but these features are poorly integrated and abysmally documented. So in microsoft.com, servers break, database engines go psychotic, access slows to a crawl.
Linux will prosper only as NT screws up. This is where you want to go today.
__________________
While I prefer the content of FOX News; MSNBC is better organized and has more material than most of the other major news sites. When you consider their content sharing with the Washington Post, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and Space.com (just to name a few), they are one of the top information sites on the web. I'm no MS fan, but when a site like this is down along with the others that have been listed, it's a big story.
Nick http://www.nickspace.com
I wonder if any of them mention a DNS DoS attack?
"(Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes ;)" I do apt-get dist-upgrade every couple of days, which is much more often than service packs come out. But then again I do run testing and the Helixcode (Ximian) stuff and when I ran stable I only got stuff every couple of weeks. On second thought maybe it was not unfair. :)
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I admit, he was trolling in his comment by asking if anyone actually visits microsoft.com. But, I think he was also being completely honest when he said it's the "least interesting story in months." For him, this is probably true. Remember, interest depends on the individual, just because you find something interesting doesn't mean CmdrTaco does (or should for that matter). And other than the troll comments about others visiting microsoft.com and the service packs every few minutes, he was just telling his personal usage of microsoft.com. So to him, it's not important.
On a side note, notice that he did post it anyway, even though he didn't find it interesting. And he did it because enough readers considered it to be important. So I'm not exactly sure what you're all criticizing.
CmdrTaco being lame enough to shoot this down... or softies keep posting it. So they lost their DNS for a few hours. Big fat hairy deal.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Um, DUH. If Slashdot is down, how will anyone get to Slashdot to submit the story about Slashdot being down? And who will read it?
I do not have a signature
Umm, last time I checked, Fortune One was General Motors, not Microsoft. It looks like Wal-Mart may overtake GM in 2001... but Microsoft is down at number 84.
Not to take away from your comment - I do think the headline was flamebait and an obvious troll (just look at the comment id - it worked!) but MS isn't that huge.
sulli
RTFJ.
What about dns1, dns2, dns3, and possibly dns(x>8) ?
I suppose they might existor why would their names start from 4 ?
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Instead of the regular Linux/Microsoft wars, or commenting on CmdrTaco's extreme editorial stance (if two thousand people are submitting it, then how can you say it isn't news?), how about some useful info?
If you have the IP addresses for these sites, you can still reach them.
That being said, anyone have the IP address for msn.zone.com? I'm having Bejeweled withdrawl!!!
This is a bit of an inside joke, but a very funny one. If you are on the outside, check this out.
And if so, what kind of standards would allow a 250 million gallon coal sludge spill in Martin County, KY (Oct 11, 2000) be blacked out from the media? This is at least an order of magnitude greater than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, and the clean-up is significantly more difficult because the sludge sinks to the bottom of the streams and rivers. (It can't be skimmed off the top.)
What about the Election 2000 fiasco with the major networks calling FL before the people in CA had finished voting?
How about the absence of news regarding civilian conditions in Iraq? If you think the NATO vets are suffering from a bad case of Gulf War Syndrome, think about the people that were continuosly bombed with depleted (though still radioactive) Uranium munitions.)
On the brighter side, the internet at least allows people to search and find alternative views on most events. John Q. Public doesn't have to swallow the official media stance on any issue anymore.
We need to wake up.
peace
Your DNS probably has the others cached... They most assuredly are down.
Ranessin
Obviously you forget about that little hacking incident a while back where microsoft source was gained. Those poor devels, died of laughter before the CIA got there :(
http://207.46.230.218/
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Still, when it comes down to it, messages like this do nothing except let you give off a little steam. It's sad to realize it, but they don't care, and given that the way we react to these offenses, it's almost surprising that we expect them to care in the first place.
All Slashdot has to do is generate ad revenue. That's it. It's nice to dream that a site that calls itself "news for nerds" would exhibit some degree of journalistic professionalism, but the users don't really demand it, so who cares? Sure, we may post messages complaining about how much it sucks, but I'll be back tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure you will be, too.
We put up with a lot. Look in any discussion and you'll find references to very interesting stories that don't make the Slashdot cut while the same tired stories are posted again and again. Recently, the Slashdot editors proved that they don't even check the links of submitted stories. Today, as someone else in this thread pointed out, CmdrTaco mocked the interests of the readers by saying, in a nutshell, "thousands of our readers are going to submit this story. How stupid our readers are."
Will the Slashdot powers-that-be change anything because of these messages? Of course not. But I'd wager that they are reading this thread, and probably enjoying it, since this front story post was so obviously an absolute troll.
First, the "holy war" stance is adopted by someone who lists their Web site as "www.ihateapple.com"? Pardon me for saying this, but, "Pot, meet kettle."
Does Taco want /. to be print media? I doubt it. That means a lot of things, and I think Taco doesn't want to meet those "standards", if you call them that. I know that I don't consider TOTK.com Sports, which I run, or NASA Watch, which I really enjoy reading, to be "print media", but it doesn't hurt either in my opinion.
But the best thing is that Taco's comments made me read this blurb, and in reading it, I've come to realize more clearly the problems with DNS. That's enough for me.
We're not all mindless Taco ditto-heads, ya know.
--
-- Geof F. Morris
I don't know what you are talking about. I learned as part of my MCSE training that the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 :)
I think a lot of that results from people who are used to NT4 and having to reboot regularly.... or crappily written components being run in-process instead of pooled or out-of-process.
Personally, our one current Windows 2000 server has had 99.999% uptime easily. We are getting ready to deploy it to our webserver, so we'll see how it goes.
We are also deploying it to our whole enterprise to replace Netware 4.11; we looked at Linux, but it doesn't have a real enterprise directory service or the type of ACL control that we need. Running NDS for Linux wasn't an option, because we wanted to get the bastardized crappy Novell client off our workstations.
-
The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
This website never ceases to amaze me. For those of us that actually have jobs, you rapidly find out that companies rarely choose the best product for the job. If your boss says "Let's get Microsoft because it is the company standard", or "Let's go MS cause I like the rolling stones and MS used their song in a commercial" you don't have much of a choice.
I am sure that the argument to this is "I would never work at a place that wouldn't run everything opensource and let me run anything I want on the network where I have total and absoulte control, and when it all blows up I just blame the other guy". Well, in the real world, thing's don't work that way. I get a paycheck, and my job involves several windows-based products. The fact that the people here consider the vastly dominant (market-wise) operating system to be irrelivant is always amusing.
mfkap
Luckily Taco only made fun of Microsoft's pages and products and not the fact that their DNS was down. Because I was unable to get to /. from about 2:00 on yesterday afternoon--no DNS entries.
--
MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
"Are other users experiencing this?"
/. goes down for equal treatment."
Yes. Every few weeks I'll have a little downtime. Yesterday was the worst in several months, though.
"Think Taco should do a front page post everytime
He used to. Back when he still cared about readers (and when he was a reader himself). Now Slashdot is just a "revenue stream" or "eyeball attractor" or whatever the current catch-phrase is.
--
MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
(sarcasm on)
I guess Microsoft should have implemented the clustering feature available for Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Therefore they would be almost assured of 100% uptime.
(sarcasm off)
I thought with W2K advanced server, downtime was a thing of the past?
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes
I just installed Mandrake 7.2. Their biggest claim to fame? The Windows-like OS update feature that grabs and installs the packages automatically. Having recently installed the latest version of Windows (Me) and Mandrake 7.2, I can tell you that there were more updates for Mandrake than Windows.
I will say that Mandrake is the closest thing I've seen yet for an end-user-desktop version of Linux. But, even ignoring the need most businesses have for Windows apps, Linux is still too hard for most users. There are 4 different icons to start various terminal windows and not a single one to start Samba. Instead of "notepad", there is a confusing array of text editors. (Digression: Pick one app of a given type for the "recommended" or "standard" installation. Let the experienced users hunt down add their own as they see fit.) Choosing what daemons should run at startup is hell for someone who is not a Unix guru. Many have no descriptions accessible during install and those descriptions that are provided are often cryptic. There is no consistency to the look & feel of most of the GUI apps. Apps are typically delivered from the web with no installation utility and cryptic (or no) instructions. And all too often, apps are command-line based things with an incomprehensible set of options one types to make them run. Can I get things to work? Sure, if I don't mind spending way too much time to do something that would, under Windows, be easy.
In closing, I use Linux and Microsoft (and BeOS and FreeBSD and Solaris). Each has its place, but Microsoft Windows is the OS that I use the most because of the wealth of software and level of productivity I get with it. YMMV.
I realize this is off-topic, going on a tangent, but I have to ask: how do you find Win2K to be stable? Two of my co-workers swear by it, but for me it blue-screens all the time, and on a relatively new machine. It's completely random. I can have the machine up for a month, then sitting in front of it one day, browsing the net, and poof. Some driver is probably failing, but that should never ever crash an OS, especially a server OS. It's even blue-screened while shutting down! I went back to Win98 on that pc and it's much more stable. No problems with their older OS which has had 5,000,000 patches put out over the years.
W2K is the least stable OS I've ever used. Point being, I can't trust an OS that was out for less than a month when it had to get a major "service pack" in order to function at all.
Developers: We can use your help.
He's not a reporter so he doesn't have to live up to any moral or ethical standard.
What's forcing "real" reporters from living up to any moral or ethical standards? Do they take an oath? Are they part of a religious faction? Everyone has to live up to moral and ethical standards within their own mind.
You don't have to come here if you don't like it.
And you don't have to read the news of "real" reporters either. It's silly to think they have some ethical obligation higher than anyone else.
Developers: We can use your help.
And I'm sure Microsoft would be happy to set up a linux router with SecureDNS. If they wait for it to be added to their server software they'll have this problem for at least a few more years...
Developers: We can use your help.
Who is being narrow minded now? Winblows is NOT always the right choice. Nor is it always the wrong choice. But as always - your milage may vary depending on what you do!
I used to work for a large North American telecom/network company (hint: the one that is still making money) THe CEO was looking to partner with Micro$oft and was forcing Microsoft onto a company whose R&D was almost exclusively Unix (Solaris and HPUX) THeir feeling was it had to be better because of market dominance, etc. I almost lost my job by putting together a presentation showing the costs of moving to an Exchange based email system was almost 10 times as expensive as going with a commercial Unix solution (they were deploying $80,000 Alpha RAID boxes for every 200 users or so and only running POP3, not IMAP) it was unreal.
As thousands of Unix workstations got swapped out for WIndows machines, our support costs SKYROCKETED (trust me - I managed x86 server & desktop support for one of their large R&D labs) We had rock solid Unix file and print servers. Yet when we deployed Dell Poweredge clusters running Win NT for file and print serving, it was a nightmare! The clusters locked up often, you couldn't swap nodes without hard booting the hung one which killed all sessions. It was a nightmare. Sure, Win2K is better - I agree. But, at the time it was awful. It got so bad we were ready to plunk down SERIOUS money for our mega Unix file servers to add SMB.
Any IT Director worth his or her salt goes with teh solution that WORKS reliably and also is cost effective because all IT employees know IT is looked at as a necessary evil. That gives OSS an advantage, but only if its reliable. Contrary to popular belief you CAN integrate Unix & Windoze boxes if necessary. The world ain't B/W!!
But that said, I'll deploy an stable OSS solution over Micro$oft anyday! :)
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Are other users experiencing this? Think Taco should do a front page post everytime /. goes down for equal treatment
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
... just slashdotted ;-)
--
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
I do have to access Microsoft's web site as part of my work responsibilities. Although I don't personally like many things M$ does, I can put up with them as with any other vendor. The thing that really annoys me, though, is that searching M$'s tech support sites will produce different results when using IE than when using Netscape Navigator (IE results being more complete, natch).
That doesn't surprise me, and I guess it isn't really worse than any trick organizations play to gain competitive advantage, but it does irritate me a lot for some reason.
sPh
And all the swedish online papers have small articles, complete with rumors of hackers having brought the DNS down and replies from Microsoft representatives saying that they "have no information about that, just that the DNS is to blame".
Altough some of us occasionally degrade ourselves by Microsoft-bashing, I don't think that anybody in the computer industry could close their eyes to the fact that if microsoft.com and hotmail.com are wiped from the face of the net, its big news.
And we don't even have to tell people that evil Linux-activists brought it down or that Microsoft has incompetent staff, or that the moon is in the phase where these things happen, we could just plainly say that Microsoft's DNS is down, and that it has some significance in the world of today.
There's nothing like flaming a grammar flame for grammar.
--
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
This has NOTHING to do with the DNS problem.
Anyone can register a server with multiple sub-domains (such as the ones criticizing M$).
You could register a server called microsoft.sucks.slashdot.org and that has nothing to do with Microsoft.com.
The only part that matters is the last two parts.... i.e. slashdot.org.
So why is that post informative? It's idiotic.
--
So far I've only heard about DoS attacks on websites and IRC servers. Could this be the beginning of a script kiddie actually using that grey blob of his a bit more then is reasonable?
This is why I just memorize the IP numbers (in 32-bit hexadecimal format, of course...what's up with all those dots anyhow?) of all the sites I ever go to, and avoid any reliance on DNS at all. It also makes thinking of hostnames for my new boxes a lot less complicated...just name them box3C if its last 8 bits are 3C, for example. Why should anything be any more complicated than that?
Why would you put all of your domain servers in the same subnet? Same state for that matter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I haven't been able to access hotmail for the last 11 hours. That's by far the longest outage I've seen in my 3 years of using it, checking it several times a day. I've never seen it down for more than a couple of hours. THIS IS A STORY, GUYS. There are MILLIONS of us Hotmail users.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
You know...some of us actually have to give a damn about microsoft. I am employeed as an NT admin at a small software company. I need patches and the like today from said site. Just because most of the readers like to bash Microsoft, and/or use Linux personally (myself included), doesn't mean that it's not a topic of importance to the computer-using world. Don't let your personal dislike or bias interfere with important converage of an article of news!
Always value the individual over the system. --Bruce Lee "I don't need a Sig - I have a custom 191" - me
The only reason their site is down is because of engineering incompetence on the first order.
Never ever ever put all of your nameservers on one network segment! How stupid could you be, Microsoft?
What's wrong with this picture?!
DNS4.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.11DNS5.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.12
DNS7.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.21
DNS6.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.20
SecureDNS (available in bind 9) allows you to sign your zone, so this kind of DNS cache poisoning can not happen.
1. This wasn't DNS cache poisoning. The nameservers just weren't reachable.
2. DNS cache poisoning is easily solved: just use good resolvers that don't automatically trust all answers. Try dnscache, and the mydomain.com incident wouldn't have affected you.
and of course Slashdot is the pinnacle of reliability. Wasn't there just an outage yesterday?
BilldaCat
This affects all Microsoft sites. Because of this I can't:
Yeah, it's a good thing Windows 2000 is also available free of charge, and that if there's something I don't like about it, I have the source code to W2K so I can change whatever I want!
Hey, wait a minute...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Yes, believe it or not, some people actually have paying jobs that require the use of commercial software which often involves visiting the vendors' websites. In case you've been living under a rock since the 70's, Microsoft is a major software vendor with products installed in a majority of companies worldwide. Is it really so strange to think that people might find it significant when Microsoft's sites become unavailable?
Even your stats indicate that MORE than half of your viewers use Internet Explorer!
The biggest software company, one that prides itself on supposedly "enterprise level" server software has it's DNS down. It dosn't matter if you don't like them or not, many people visit them daily!
I visit them in order to obtain the latest patches for my clients, and to find out if the problem I'm fixing is one that MS is aware of.
I've kept out of it so far, but jeez Taco, don't you think you should try to REDUCE the trolling in your forums?
---
Desperation is a stinky cologne
Yes they did, and Herbert Kornfeld is on his way over in the Nite Rida right now. Now they really got problems.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Did they forget to pay their bill again?
The authorative DNS servers (do a whois -h whois.networksolutions.com microsoft.com to find them out) don't know the hostnames so they cannot be looked up.
Also Hotmail and MSN suffer from this.
--
Rogier
Taco, get your head out of your ass. Microsoft is a major player in this industry. You're a journalist. Go figure.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
SecureDNS (available in bind 9) allows you to sign your zone, so this kind of DNS cache poisoning can not happen. Lets roll it out and use it sooner rather than later.
(b) you're going to have to learn about journalistic standards. If you expect to be taken seriously, you can't write like that - you can't show such prejudice, and you can't show such a casual dismissal of America's biggest company.
On this point, there's something even more important to point out. Taco pretty much slammed his own readers for posting this supposedly insignificant story... when the very fact that he received a bazillion submissions on this shows that they do indeed read this site and that it is important for many of those who submitted the story.
Journalists who insult their own readers don't have readers for very long.
woof!
> set type=soa
> microsoft.com
Server: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
Non-authoritative answer:
microsoft.com
primary name server = dns.cp.msft.net
responsible mail addr = msnhst.microsoft.com
serial = 2001012306
refresh = 900 (15 mins)
retry = 600 (10 mins)
expire = 7200000 (83 days 8 hours)
default TTL = 7200 (2 hours)
microsoft.com nameserver = DNS7.cp.msft.net
microsoft.com nameserver = DNS6.cp.msft.net
microsoft.com nameserver = DNS4.cp.msft.net
microsoft.com nameserver = DNS5.cp.msft.net
DNS7.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.21
DNS6.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.20
DNS4.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.11
DNS5.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.12
> server dns7.cp.msft.net
Default Server: dns7.cp.msft.net
Address: 207.46.138.21
> set type=a
> www.microsoft.com
Server: dns7.cp.msft.net
Address: 207.46.138.21
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to dns7.cp.msft.net timed-out
> server dns6.cp.msft.net
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Can't find address for server dns6.cp.msft.net: Timed out
> server dns4.cp.msft.net
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Can't find address for server dns4.cp.msft.net: Timed out
> server dns5.cp.msft.net
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Can't find address for server dns5.cp.msft.net: Timed out
>
The sad thing is, the way DNS info is cached, is that it takes a fairly long outage for anyone to even notice.
Anyway, the above says: dns4,5,6 and 7
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
Are any of you network admins? What was your worst day on the job? Probably, it was a day when things really didn't go well after an upgrade or equipment change. You probably had people coming in to the equipment room every five minutes to ask two things: 1) do you need any help? and 2) when will it be fixed? You got sick of both questions, because you were stressed out enough already.
This is part of the Internet, though: we forget that real people do work for Microsoft. We forget that MS isn't just an evil force, but has people who have emotions working for it. It is an irony that people on Slashdot - technically literate people - who claim that email is an equalizer (no respector of race, disabilities, age, etc) - these same peple forget about the human faces behind a large website.
I wouldn't want to be in those network admin's shoes right now. I've had DNS outages, and I know what it is like to have corporate headquarters yelling, "Why aren't we up?"
So, before you criticize how "dumb" their admins are, and whatever else, remember two things: 1) This same problem (DNS outage) has happened to any real admin on Slashdot, and 2) the MS network admins are having a very bad day.
Believe it or not, there are some of us that actually don't spend the entire day bashing Microsoft and boasting that we don't go to their website. Do you think we care if you haven't been there in months? Do you believe that the entire slashdot community is together in your anti-Microsoft holy war? I'm no Microsoft fan, but there are those of us that actually rely on Microsoft. Like it or not, Microsoft IS an important part of the industry. Do you have any idea where we'd be without Microsoft?
I myself probably visit microsoft.com at least once every day or so. Their Knowledge Base is a great place to find out loads of information on just about any product they make. MSDN Online is a great resource for developers!
I'm a sysad for an ISP. Most all of our users use Windows (we've got a few Mac users, a few Win3.1 users, and a few Linux users). I wrote our installation software in VC. I actually was going to write a utility today that uninstalls DUN, all of the Network components, and deleted all of the network-related files, and then forced a reinstallation from CD. To do this, I was going to refer to KB article Q181599, which details all of the network-related files to remove and which cab files to find them in to put them back. And now I can't do that because microsoft's site (one of the most reliable sites I've ever frequented, I might add) is down.
And all you have to do is sit over there and say "do you people actually visit microsoft.com?" like it's some sort of unholy act to go there.
I knew there was a reason I stopped going to slashdot recently. I actually hit the wrong button on my IE (yup, i'm using Win98!) Links bar and caught the "Microsoft DNS is down" line, so I thought I'd read it, but all I got was disgusted.
Mike
P.S. The correct phrase is "everybody and their brother."
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Basically, it appears as if the entire subnet the Microsoft DNS servers were hosted on has just 'disappeared' making microsoft.com, msn.com, hotmail.com, passport.com et al unavailable. Sites hosted on other domains (such as microsoft.co.uk are still available). Direct IP addresses are stated in the article if you _have_ to visit Microsoft.com
Microsoft and Yahoo were suffering DNS problems earlier this week as well, and microsoft new zealand was recently hacked.
Beebware.com also has a list of consumer information on Microsoft, MS Humor as well as many other categories about 'that' software company.
Richy C.
Maybe M$ was running Java-based DNS servers, and their settlement with Sun forced them to take them offline..
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Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
This IS his forum. I don't remember reading anything that says he HAS to be fair and impartial. Yes he claims this is a "News for Nerds" site. But this isn't a REAL(tm) news site. He's not a reporter so he doesn't have to live up to any moral or ethical standard. You don't have to come here if you don't like it.
Army of One!
I now expect to lose Karma for criticizing Slashdot. Of course, if I cared about Karma, I wouldn't post this response... :)
I run and program both Linux and Win2K; Windows 2000 is quite stable--as many others have pointed out in past postings. My Win2K system runs continuously for weeks at a time, without glitch or problem, despite my use of games and unusual hardware. It might surpise CmdrTaco to know that quite a few "nerds" think that Windows matters.
I find many reasons to visit Microsoft's web site: to pick up development kits, to read articles, and for the excellent knowledge base that Linux can only dream of emulating. Win2K has bugs, but so does Linux. I suggest Slashdot spend less time making snide comment about MS, and work on fixing the leaks in its own ship of state. Linux ain't perfect, ya know.
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Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
Just this sort of thing happened the other day where an ISP released DNS entries for yahoo.com, and some other sites, uh...accidentally. The problem is that people don't talk to the authoratative DNS servers : They just trust anyone. This is leading to all sorts of shit and I'm sure after the ruckous about that guy overriding commercial sites DNS entries some script kiddies got some ideas. THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ANY SITE, INCLUDING SLASHDOT. To think this isn't news is just bizarre. It isn't that MS' DNS server was hacked : Rather DNS is showing it's cracks and they are absolutely massive. What if someone redirected a banks page to a dupe that logged everyones login info? Of course theoretically SSL ties a site to an IP, but most people ignore little warnings like that.
On another note I go to microsoft.com all the time in fact (though usually msdn.microsoft.com). Excellent site. In fact I believe it's among the top 3 most visited sites on the planet, so to proclaim it not to matter seems rather goofy.
If you want Slashdot to be taken as seriously as print media, you are going to have to drop the "holy war" stance. Microsoft plays a very important part in the computing industry, and they have the 3rd largest website in the world.
/. staff that they only use Linux to spite Microsoft. I say use what works best for you.
Perhaps even more important is the fact that if some fool can corrupt DNS and take Yahoo and Microsoft offline, they can take anybody offline. The DNS system needs to be fixed, but with your snide comments about Microsoft the focus of that issue is lost.
I might add that I do in fact use Windows 2000 because it is stable (2 BSODs since Dec. 1999) and supports everything I need. Many people that use Linux do so because it fits their specific needs, and that's great. But I get the feeling from some of the
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The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I don't normally respond to illiterate flamebait, but in this case I'll make an exception:
;)
> Everybody and there brother
I'll just pick this up before someone else does.
'There'!= 'their', the possessive pronoun Taco is looking for.
> has submitted what has to be the least interesting story in months. Microsoft's DNS server is down.
Ok fine. End of story. No need for irrelevant flamebait designed to get thousands of posts about how Windows/Linux sucks.
Let's address the news: MS' dns is down.
Ok wow. Have you been to uptime.netcraft.com? I think you'll find *all* servers go down, especially ones under the consistently heavy load of ddos, millions of hits a day, etc like MS. Redhat goes down, MS goes down, big wow. Every big site goes down more often than a presedential intern on heat. Ok. [It's just that people don't gloat when Linux companies go down, probably because they aren't successful like MS so people aren't jealous of their success.]
> I haven't visited their web site in months and I don't care in the slightest, but if I don't post this, I'm going to spend the next 48 hours deleting 2,000 submissions about it as zillions of people somehow think that this matters.
It does to the millions of daily visitors, yes.
> Yup. Its down. Ye haw. Do you people actually visit microsoft.com?
It's actually in the top 10 of most visited websites in the world. It has free software, updates, one of the best developers' sites anywhere, etc..
> I can't remember the last time I intentionally went to that site. There's just no need.
You might as well say you have no need to upgrade Slashcode when that gets holes in it. If you use Windows there is a need, because all software is insecure and Windows is no exception. It's no different with Linux. It's not just that either. Microsoft's website has a whole bunch of other interesting and free stuff there too. In fact, Microsoft's site became, in about 1997 (I remember reading) the largest website in the world, with several terabytes of content. So yes, there is a need.
If you actually took your blinkers off you might realize that - I don't just crap about Linux like you seem to about Windows. I haven't got an irrational fear/jealousy about Linux.
Hell I use linux. I install and maintain it as a web server. And I don't say that no-one needs to visit redhat.com, even though it's clearly not as good a site.
> (Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes
Nice casual aside there, guaranteed to pick up a few hundred replies. Nice one. But it's not true.
There is *one* service pack for Windows 2000 since release.
Let's look at the Linux equivalent shall we?
Have you ever tried installing Redhat?
I have, and I spent 3 hours downloading things from http://updates.redhat.com and upgrading them.
This stuff about Windows needing service packs often is bull. Linux has far more service packs, because Microsft updates things all at once whereas with Linux you have to update individually.
Hell my grandmother could install a Windows service pack, but I can't see her upgrading bind when a security hole's found in that.
I don't mean to respond in such flameish terms, but I had no choice in this case. In one breath you say the story sucks, and then you throw in some highly childish and unprofessional insults against a site which represents a considerable portion of many people's lives.
We keep hearing from you how Slashdot is becoming the newspaper for the new millennium, how people are taking notice of it, and how it ranks alongside traditional media, but if you expect the kind of respect this implies, you are going to:
(a) learn how to spell. I'm not normally a spelling flamer (i.e. not for posters), but how can you expect people to take the site seriously when you can't even be bothered to read the post twice or put it through a spellchecker to find that 'its' is a possessive pronoun, whereas 'it's' is the contraction of 'it is' you where looking for.
(b) you're going to have to learn about journalistic standards. If you expect to be taken seriously, you can't write like that - you can't show such prejudice, and you can't show such a casual dismissal of America's biggest company.
You're not just a Perl hacker sitting around eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew any more Rob - you're responsible for an important and valuable institution, and it's time you behaved like it.