Twitter Offline Due To DDoS

The elusive Precision dropped a submission in my lap about a DDoS taking down Twitter running on CNet. It's been down for several hours, no doubt wreaking havoc on the latest hawtness in social networking. Won't someone please think of the tweeters? Word is that both Facebook & LiveJournal have been having problems this AM as well.

Comments

I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[bakana]

anyone else thinks this may have something to do with this: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/05/1555219/XML-Library-Flaw-mdash-Sun-Apache-GNOME-Affected

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[religious freak]

Actually, my first thought is this

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[mini me]

Normally I would use Twitter to find out why a site is inaccessible, since it is the goto place for up to the minute news. While Slashdot did eventually bring the story forward, it too far too long to be relevant. Twitter was already back online by the time this story appeared on the front page.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[commodoresloat]

What's funny is when I read this article summary I loaded up twitter in one tab and clicked on the Read More link in this tab ... Twitter loaded right away, whereas slashdot could not be found, for at least a minute anyway. It's here now, but no sign of a ddos on twitter anymore... other than the fact that it's a trending topic so there were tons of inane comments there for me to read while slashdot was slashdotted.

Can someone provide a mirror of this slashdot page in case it gets slashdotted again?

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[Jesse_vd]

9:18 PST and it is down for me in B.C.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[codeguy007]

Hmm, twitter is up is it? I don't think so.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[mini me]

It is still working fine for me, and was at the time of posting as well.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[dword]

Or with the alleged AT&T / 4chan DDoS? http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/27/054230/ATT-Blocks-Part-of-4chan

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[kristjansson]

and mine is this... think about it, every /.er that fired up the test pulled 100-ish tweets simultaneously for the sparkling dot bling on the test page. that would make the site a slashdot-effect magnifier with a factor of about 100...
then again, how many slashdotters actually RTFA?

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[haifastudent]

then again, how many slashdotters actually RTFA?

What is that A in there for? Is there some part of this whole slashdot thing that I'm missing?

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[JohnnyComeLately]

It's always ironic when these articles pop up on Slashdot. These are movements largely brought about by anti-social geeks, so they detest the technology they bore. What's the point in DDoS twitter? Did your ex- tweet what a small sausage you had? Are you angry at the technology gods or think, "A) DDoS Twitter B) Make the news C) PROFIT!!!$$$"?

Twitter works just fine for me, unlike the new format of updating /. as I scroll down the page.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[rs79]

Some people didn't like what was posted to twitter in the past 24 hours and had other people take it down. It's a distraction. Scrutinize what happened before it down and not the distraction of it going down and you'll have your answer.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[rs79]

"Hmm, twitter is up is it? I don't think so."

It's up. It's down. It's up. It's down.

At the moment (2:30 est) it's down. It came up enough to give me a page just now, and now it's back to being dead.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[zamboni1138]

You mean PDT, right? 9:18 PST = 10:18 PDT

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[rs79]

"Normally I would use Twitter to find out why a site is inaccessible,"

Try http://herdict.org/

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[sverrehu]

I don't know about the new attacks, but I researched a bit after
Gregory Steuck posted about "XXE (Xml eXternal Entity) attack" on
Bugtraq in 2002 (http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/297714).

You can easily do DoS attacks on a Java-based thing running on
e.g. Linux if you manage to trick the server into parsing one of the
following two XML documents:

        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
        <!DOCTYPE foo [
            <!ENTITY xee SYSTEM "file:/dev/tty">
        ]>
        <foo>foo: &xee;</foo>

        <?xml version="1.0"?>
        <!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM "file:/dev/tty">

Both will make the XML parser try to read from the TTY, thus blocking
"forever" waiting for input that never comes. The fun thing is that
it doesn't help to setExpandEntityReferences(false), even though the
name sounds like it would help. The only thing that works (afaik), is
to install a custom made EntityResolver that refuses to look up
external entities. Since nobody does that, this vulnerability may be
found all over the place.

Variations exist for other OS-es and other web platforms as well. I
even found that Adobe Reader was vulnerable once
(http://shh.thathost.com/secadv/adobexxe/), and I recently stumbled
across a similar thing in a commercial web-protecting security
application. (They're working on a fix.)

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[badasscat]

Its site may be down, but few people use Twitter through its web site. The service itself has been running for me all day, except for one brief period around 10AM that lasted for about 10 minutes.

I use Twitterific on my Mac.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[Jesse_vd]

I meant 9:18 AM! yes.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[religious freak]

Stands for Read The FRIENDLY* Article

* Meanings may vary

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[An ominous Cow art]

He's posting from over 2000 years in the past, and you're quibbling over a single hour?

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[JohnnyComeLately]

Ahhh, that makes sense. Unfortunately, nothing of much value goes on Twitter, so I guess I'll leave others to the analysis. Now, I'm not saying Twitter isn't useful. I use it to keep in touch with what friends are doing (e.g. riding their motorcycle on a local twisty, hitting the beach, etc) which is hard to do otherwise when you live in SoCal, where you can be doing 1000 different things any day. It's cut down on the, "Hey what'd you do yesterday?" "I hit Palomar mountain." "*SIGH* I would have gone if I'd known..."

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[rs79]

"and mine is this... think about it, every /.er that fired up the test pulled 100-ish tweets simultaneously for the sparkling dot bling on the test page. that would make the site a slashdot-effect magnifier with a factor of about 100...
then again, how many slashdotters actually RTFA?"

You know you might not be wrong about this. For every slashdotter that didn't RTFA there was one that did. And the visual is SO cool it gets passed around to everybody they know - plus each person probably ran it a dozen times in the first day.

Twitter runs on the edge anyway - on a busy day expect the fail whale to put in an appearance, so if it's that close this might be the straw that broke the camels back.

Shut it down for an hour and see what happens.

Re:I Only Use Slashdot Anyway

[rs79]

"Its site may be down, but few people use Twitter through its web site. The service itself has been running for me all day, except for one brief period around 10AM that lasted for about 10 minutes." "

True, messages from Twitter are leaking into facebook. But, the Twitter site is still unreachable here, at least by me, 12 hours later.

I just *know* it's something I said, I just *know* it.

Nelson -------

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be the one to say it, but "Ha Ha"

Re:Nelson -------

[iamapizza]

The blogosphere is buzzing about this. The amount of crap being spouted related to this incident is now causing blogal warming.

Re:Nelson -------

[Anonymous Coward]

The Blogal Warmings would be a good name for a rock band.

Re:Nelson -------

[eln]

I expect bloggers to go nuts about this sort of thing. What's truly disheartening to me is that a formerly relevant news site like cnn.com has it on their front page. Oh CNN, I remember when you used to report actual news...now look what you've become.

Re:Nelson -------

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, it's more interesting news than another road accident somewhere.

Re:Nelson -------

[AdmiralXyz]

Apparently so many people were checking downforeveryoneorjustme.com in a panic that it crashed too. Ah, Twitterers.

Re:Nelson -------

[TomHandy]

No it wouldn't.

Re:Nelson -------

[Verdatum]

Mod parent up.

Re:Nelson -------

[Dragonslicer]

What's truly disheartening to me is that a formerly relevant news site like cnn.com has it on their front page. Oh CNN, I remember when you used to report actual news...now look what you've become.

Obviously you haven't watched CNN lately, otherwise you would know how dependent they are on Twitter now. Seems like all they do these days is read Twitter messages from viewers.

Re:Nelson -------

[daspring]

Ah, modern American journalism at its finest. Why try to find actual facts when you can say the word "Twitter" and sound cool?

Re:Nelson -------

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like cats stuck in trees and some random missing girl out of the 100s or thousands missing just because this one happens to be rich (and/or) pretty?

Re:Nelson -------

[dimension6]

If it's any consolation, both BBC and the Wall Street Journal also feature Twitter's fortunate demise on their front pages...

Re:Nelson -------

[Jawn98685]

I expect bloggers to go nuts about this sort of thing. What's truly disheartening to me is that a formerly relevant news site like cnn.com has it on their front page. Oh CNN, I remember when you used to report actual news...now look what you've become.

Waxing all a-twitter over twitter is beneath a real news organization (like CNN once was) but giving air every day to a mentally unstable tool like Lou Dobbs is much more troubling.

Re:Nelson -------

[IronChef]

Here in Seattle, the Twitter outage has LED the all of the news segments on morning radio. At least on the station I listen to.

It almost made me miss the OJ Simpson news overload. At leas that was _kind of_ interesting, it was a murder trial.

For my own sanity, I wish Twitter a speedy recovery, or an atomic strike to get rid of it forever.

Re:Nelson -------

[recharged95]

Could it be because they can't twitter about what they're doing? So it's back to the good 'ol blog... to blog about why they can't twitter about twitter.

With blogs (i.e. facebook) and twitter and a DDoS, I think we've just experience the 1st internet infinite loop.

sweet.

Re:Nelson -------

[citylivin]

Another way to look at it as these organizations have all bought into the "cloud" idea. Anything that they themselves buy into, when it goes down, is a big deal. They are probably highlighting the vulnerability (with scare and hyperbole no doubt) of the information age. You see it all the time from technophobes, making things that are routene (ddos) into a big deal because they dont understand it. All they know is that they cant "twitter" whatever it is that cnn twitters, and for them that is a big deal.

After all, their POTS service probably never goes down.

Re:Nelson -------

[badasscat]

Except often they don't even say the word "twitter", they just steal people's quotes and don't credit them at all. When the Iranian election thing was front page news, they quoted "a source" or "a student inside Iran", which people easily figured out by searching on twitter for the quotes themselves were just twitterers. And of course, this is pretty annoying for a news site to do because you kind of expect them to do some actual work in reporting their stories, and if they don't, you would at least expect full disclosure. (No, it's not a lie to say "a source", but it is the omission of the full truth, e.g. "a source on microblogging site twitter who claims to be in Iran").

So it's front page news on CNN for twitter to be down, because that is apparently their source for all major news stories these days. Without twitter, what else are they going to report on?

Re:Nelson -------

[ichimunki]

OTOH, Mod parent up would be a good name for a rock band.

Re:Nelson -------

[MrCrassic]

No it wouldn't.

Re:Nelson -------

[MrCrassic]

Don't forget the Pulitzer-worthy YouTube coverage!

On another note, when will they let Michael Jackson rest in peace? They are STILL covering him.

Re:Nelson -------

[DaemonDazz]

Funny? Should be Informative!

Re:Nelson -------

[Anonymous Coward]

Rock bands are all about rebellion, man. Naming yourselves "Mod parent up" would be giving a totally inappropriate message.

Re:Nelson -------

[ILuvRamen]

you're right and I bet as soon as Twitter is back online, it'll crash again on its own when every single person tweets at once "OMG Twitter wuz just down!!!!!!1"

Re:Nelson -------

[wooferhound]

All the news is about Twitter because Twitter is the source of the news now. So, without a working Twitter...it has become the news.

Re:Nelson -------

[Mozk]

I like that "blogal" is also an anagram of "global".

Re:Nelson -------

[Meski]

You mean Twitter isn't a DDOS? :^)

And nothing of value was lost

[AuMatar]

If any story deserves that tag, its this.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wilsoniya]

Zomg, how will corporations do their grassroots marketing now?!?!?!

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MozeeToby]

I know you're joking, but Twitter does have a nearly unique architecture that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to block without blocking the entire Internet. Now, say what you will about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of using it as a protest or organization tool, but at least it keeps the lines of communication open in spite of government interference.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Zantac69]

Maybe Twitter can have a new slogan: "You never knew how much you didnt need us until we were not there."

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ByOhTek]

That, and correcting them for using "tweeters", people who use twitter are called "twits", I thought everyone knew that.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[betterunixthanunix]

Actually, just the fact that Twitter is a centralized service makes it easier to block. If I were looking for a channel that was "unblockable," the first thing I would look at is P2P networking, followed by Usenet, followed by email. Only if all else failed would I start looking at the Web or SMS.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

You're referring to the fact that, even without internet access, messages can be posted to and read from twitter via SMS text message?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Culture20]

The only reason I need twitter to remain up is to prevent people from flooding other communication channels with "Twitter's down! Fail Whale!"

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ICLKennyG]

It should blink, flash and rotate through colors - this is what this tag was made for!

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Allicorn]

I thought it was "twats".

So did David Cameron apparently.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Opportunist]

I'll file that under "useless facts".

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[FudRucker]

Toritter, the new Tor based twitter

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[asdf7890]

I think you'll find that is spelt with an "a".

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

The only good thing to come from Twitter is Twitter Tracker.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ByOhTek]

Nope, twit. Twat shares less letters with twitter, and can be construed as unnecessarily vulgar. Twit gets the point across quite nicely.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Evil Shabazz]

I like that. It's right up there with my favorite customer service motto: "We're not happy until you're not happy."

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Twittor

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Lumpy]

Nope. a Twit is a person that listens to Leo Laportes's newcasts. Being a part of the TWIT nation by listening to THIS WEEK in TECH.

He held that name long before twitter was a gleam in the eye of anyone.

yor source of "nicknames" is either corrupted or bad, I suggest reloading from a different source.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[godrik]

yes. People are building centralized services instead of distributed ones. This is not internet anymore...

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[tdobson]

Indeed twitter's centralised service is what makes it such a problem.
Personally I use http://identi.ca/

It's based on laconica, is free software and is federated. eg. http://army.twit.tv/

I'm at http://identi.ca/tdobson and this downtime is not causing me any problems! :)

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you talking about? How is it 'unique'?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Darth_brooks]

...Twitter does have a nearly unique architecture that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to block without blocking the entire Internet...

so then.....it's not really down right now, and this "outage" nonsense is all just a fabrication of the liberal media?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear that whooshing sound above your head? Nevermind....

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Zalbik]

I know you're joking, but Twitter does have a nearly unique architecture that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to block without blocking the entire Internet.

Well that's good. I'd hate to see an article on Slashdot about Twitter being down due to a DDoS attack.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[lisaparratt]

You say vulgar, I say vital.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MichaelJ]

I thought that feature was "temporarily unavailable" for the past year or so? Or am I thinking of the IM integration?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[the_B0fh]

And just want is this "unique" architecture?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[njfuzzy]

You're also not hampered by having lot of people to follow, since everyone else is using Twitter. Social networking doesn't really work if you choose the smaller community.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Brigadier]

How could you not include IRC. Multitude of privately run servers world wide.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Bragador]

Also, I'd like to point out that people who are concerned about privacy and security should consider using
Riseup's Crabgrass social networking system at http://we.riseup.net/ instead of the more popular networks.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[p.harshal]

You make sense. But wondering why the people in Iran used P2P, Usenet, email instead of Twitter?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[p.harshal]

http://identi.ca/ seems to be a centralized service too, which can be easily blocked. What's point someone switching from twitter here?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

"Twitter: absence makes the heart grow f

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[chapman]

Say what you like about Fidonet, but you can't DDOS it. Here's to web 0.2!

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

And in an instant, billions of tweets were suddenly silenced.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Gizmodo and its sister sites were the target of a DDOS the other day, too. Coincidence? (???)

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

ZOMG! This is why I see pale, screaming people roaming the street. I thought it was just a zombie walk.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[syousef]

Actually, just the fact that Twitter is a centralized service makes it easier to block. If I were looking for a channel that was "unblockable," the first thing I would look at is P2P networking, followed by Usenet, followed by email.

At work they manage to block all of the above just fine.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

like i said, http://twitter.eatspoop.com/

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

But there is no reason for Twitter to be a closed community. identi.ca has developed protocols for multiple microblogging services to be interconnected. Unfortunately, that does not really solve the problem. It would be better if the entire service were P2P to start with... the entity Twitter does not need to exist. There just needs to be a protocol.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[guy5000]

IRC?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

what a bunch off snobs, twitter gets DDoS'd and you all feel superior. I've met your type before, stuck using linux and open source because you or your organization can't afford the real thing. anyone that uses anything else or moves on is a luser.
BTW why does the more linux you are have a corollary to B.O.?

Bill Gates

p.s. facebook and live journal were down also

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Magic5Ball]

Eh? Any economical DoS attack on Fidonet would have had to have been distributed, since dialing between and within zones would have been rather expensive (unless you were also a fan of JR or AC). Also, given that all of the LD sites were clearly marked in the nodelist, and that they numbered in the single to double digits for most cities in the world, and that inter-city traffic was sent mostly at local night, you would need 10 friends or operator on any corporate PBX to deny outbound non-local traffic (a slightly modified attack would simultaneously be able to deny all non-local inbound traffic as well).

To take out communication between all the nodes of a city, you would need at most the same number of phone lines as there were listed for that city (typically dozens to low hundreds at most). With some creativity around DID spoofing, abuse of the callback verification systems, faxback systems, etc., an effective attack could be mounted with access to somewhat fewer lines.

and the botnets are back

[Anonymous Cowar]

Now that nefarious deeds are affecting the average net user, I wonder how long until the news agencies slog through and dust off their old virus/trojan/worm/botnet/haxx0rz stories?

Re:and the botnets are back

[N3Roaster]

It seems to be back on here, so this doesn't really seem all that distinguishable from normal twitter down time.

Re:and the botnets are back

[Anonymous Cowar]

people can't update facebook. They get ajax errors.

Re:and the botnets are back

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

THey're already tossing unsupported ideas out there, so I'm sure it won't be long. The closing line of the article:

There has been no indication that any of these various attacks are connected. But it's probably not a coincidence that they all coincide with the annual Defcon hacker convention.

(Yes, that would be the convention that's been over for four days now anyway...)

Confirmed by Twitter

[ScotlynHatt]

http://status.twitter.com/post/157160617/site-is-down

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[hansamurai]

I know we don't RTFA around here, but its only sources are the Twitter blog itself.

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[Big Hairy Ian]

And now you've /.ed them just for fun :)

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[j0se_p0inter0]

I haven't been able to access the site since 7AM CST, but as of now (11AM) I can get to my page. It took 3 tries but I made a tweet. Thank goodness, I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to post useless information to a useless site today!

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[apoc.famine]

Any chance that the DDoS attack comes from 4.78.10.14?

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[babblefrog]

Hey! You made it here, didn't you?

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually read it first on PC Mag and the only reference they had was the Twitter blog. I posted to /. but this story came in on top so I just added the link here for those who are skimming.

Re:Confirmed by Twitter

[fibrewire]

slashdotters please click the above link many times to increase the /. entropy - the twitter admins will thank you someday.

And adding ...

[Kong the Medium]

a slashdot effect will certainly help in resolving the troubles.

Re:And adding ...

[pdboddy]

LOL :D

Re:And adding ...

[deadkennedy]

Perhaps this should be known as the twitter effect.

Re:And adding ...

[jayme0227]

The irony with the DDoS is that all of the people constantly attempting to access twitter just to see if it is back up are actually making the process worse. Kind of funny, if you ask me.

The Dark Side.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you anger the googles.

Status page confirms its a DDOS

[Anonymous Coward]

http://status.twitter.com/

twits

[Anonymous Coward]

so twitter got twatted?

Quick!

[erKURITA]

I've got to re-tweet this!!


... oh wait

It's kinda back...

[pdboddy]

My tweets are getting through, albeit slower than usual.

Re:It's kinda back...

[Verdatum]

twwweeeeeeeeeee...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...eeeeee...eet!

Re:It's kinda back...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tweee ... tweerrrr ... twooooooo ...t.

Re:It's kinda back...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can sign in and tweet, but its slow, and loading my twits on twitteriffic on the iPhone keeps timing out. But the web is working, albeit slow

Re:It's kinda back...

[Threni]

Well thank god for that.

what is twitter?

[tritonman]

What is twitter? Is that some new web site or something?

Re:what is twitter?

[cheftw]

I lost my ability to metamoderate but parent is hardly a troll.

Re:what is twitter?

[PumpkinDog]

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=twitter

Re:what is twitter?

[selven]

It's a cool new website that allows people from all around the world to talk to their friends and do many useful and interesting things like

Parent is insightful, not funny

[betterunixthanunix]

Who the hell modded that "funny?" Nothing of value was lost -- social networking is about as important as celebrity gossip. The only actual loss to social is the lost revenue that these websites will experience, which will hardly be a blip on the radar.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[lymond01]

Nothing of value was lost -- social networking is about as important as celebrity gossip.

Cue James Earl Jones:

I find your lack of faith disturbing. The ramifications of social networking have yet to be truly felt in the outer colonies. Communication is key to productivity and morale of the people. The Emperor is a fool to take it away and not realize it for the tool that it is. It is also quite helpful to keep tabs on the new T-17. Hot little number there. If the rebel alliance is to be deterred we must know where they are, what they're doing at all times, what they're currently dining on, when they've returned from the bathroom, and how they're wearing their hair today. Twitter is the key.

Do not fail me again.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Verdatum]

T-17? Jeez, you'd think eventually Skynet would manage to prevent John Conner's existence by sheer dumb luck!

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[commodoresloat]

This is mostly true, but let's keep in mind that twitter has been significant in the Iranian uprising. Like any social networking tool, or like the web itself, 99% of what's out there is going to be crap. But that doesn't mean it's completely worthless.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[GreggBz]

For people that actually socialize it provides benefits. I've reconnected with old friends, made dates, organized parties, laughed (at someones silly pictures) and learned (from someones interesting post) countless times on facebook. I've found a few people that meant a lot to me, and have restarted some kind of relationship with them. I've joined groups that share like interests and attended events that I would have otherwise missed. It has value. I don't know of any other thing that does this stuff quite as well. In short, it's a useful way to communicate with most everyone you know.

I can't speak for twitter, but millions of other people find use in it.

The whole "I'm to cool for the popular social networking sites" crowd gets on my nerves.

Because here we sit, sharing opines with like minded individuals on a public website.
Does that make us elite?
Pot-kettle-black as they say.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[FireFury03]

Twitter isn't completely worthless. Like MySpace is serves a very good purpose - it keeps the idiots occupied on a very small chunk of the web so the rest of us can easily avoid them and get on with out lives.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[LanMan04]

Who the hell modded that "funny?" Nothing of value was lost -- social networking is about as important as celebrity gossip. The only actual loss to social is the lost revenue that these websites will experience, which will hardly be a blip on the radar.

For now. You could have said the same thing about e-mail 25 years ago, or IM 15 years ago.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[hondo77]

I think I saw that same comment on Facebook, except they were talking about Slashdot instead of Twitter.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[betterunixthanunix]

I am just going to take a shot in the dark here, and guess that a typical exchange with an old friend you find on Facebook goes something like this:

1. Add the person to your friends list
2. Send message to the person, catch up with a quick exchange of 3-4 messages
3. Never speak to the person again

Maybe it is different for you, but that seems to be the general trend that I have noticed. People find these old friends on Facebook, but never seem to really communicate with then for very long. I would guess that if it really was so important to talk to someone, you could have called or emailed them; there are a few exceptional cases where a person really did vanish for a few years and nobody knew how to get in touch with them, but that is not as common as people seem to think it is.

As a case-in-point, a friend of mine from high school who had been unreachable for 4 years because of her drug problems contacted me on AIM a few months ago; we reconnected with no social networking site, just using the same communication system we had been using before. I still have hundreds of email addresses, phone numbers, and screen names of people I was friends with at one point or another, most of whom are still reachable through those channels, who I simply do not talk to. Social networking websites do not solve this problem.

With regard to events that you would not have known about...well, unless those events were not happening before the advent of social networking services, I strongly doubt that Facebook really made you more aware of the events or more able to find them. I still manage to find out about relevant events by email, phone calls, and word of mouth, just like people did 10, 50, and 100 years ago. Can you honestly say that you go to events that you would not have heard about except over Facebook? That you did not receive any emails, phone calls, or hear any of your friends (in real life) talking about? Maybe you can; that would make you an exceptional case, at least from what I have encountered over the past few years.

It's not that I am too cool for social networking sites; I just do not use them, and that has not been a problem for me.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[93 Escort Wagon]

I am just going to take a shot in the dark here, and guess that a typical exchange with an old friend you find on Facebook goes something like this:

1. Add the person to your friends list
2. Send message to the person, catch up with a quick exchange of 3-4 messages
3. Never speak to the person again

Wow, so you're the one who's been stalking me!

Seriously - your description matches my Facebook experiences pretty much spot-on. Almost all of my "friends" on there are real friends and co-workers. The one Facebook friend I have from long ago isn't anyone I was looking for in particular; plus you've pretty much nailed the level of our interaction.

I more or less expected this, though - I joined mainly because I got tired of the "why aren't you on Facebook yet?" questions... from my current friends and co-workers. It's not like the stuff they post to Facebook is any different than the stuff we talk about face to face, so I've now hidden most of them from my wall. But hey, I can say "yeah I'm on Facebook too" now...

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Social networking sites don't contribute much to social networking. All social networking does is two things that I hate.

First, they add superficiality to relationships. You can pretend that somebody is your friend, but if you don't take that relationship to other mediums, it's superficial and and a weak attempt to make yourself feel important.

Second, they turn you into a product that can be sold to marketers. I don't take kindly to somebody thinking they can make a business out of my identity and personal information.

All I see are downsides with social networking sites. They only get in the way in a relationship. They don't do anything that email can't do.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

not really. e.g. day traders are using twitter to exchange information and move the swarm of money... potential loses can be huge :)

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Can you honestly say that you go to events that you would not have heard about except over Facebook? That you did not receive any emails, phone calls, or hear any of your friends (in real life) talking about?

Yeah actually that's how I hear about most things first. Then when I see people we might talk about the event,but its a great casual way to organize an event amongst groups of friends. Less intrusive than a phone call or aim. Email could be sort of an alternative, but not as rich.

For most catching up of friends you are right, but you can also discover more common interests than what was possible before through a quick aim chat. You get to listen in on their conversations with other people and see how they interact with their friends and how they react to the days events. I can honestly say that I am now a much closer fired to some people I went through high school with, than when we were in high school.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[mdarksbane]

Social networking sites provide a useful tool for people to organize events and keep in touch.

That does not mean it can't be done without them, but it also doesn't mean that they haven't improved the process for doing it.

Similarly with twitter - it provides a useful and easy to disseminate information, whether it is gossip, jokes, funny links, football updates (there have been some very good football feeds where people give more information than you would ever normally have about different pro team practices) or something more substantive like world news or local police reports. There is a place in this world for information that can be summarized in a short paragraph instead of requiring to read an entire article - it's like looking at today's headlines in the paper and then deciding which ones you want to follow up on.

They're useful tools for a specific purpose. Those who hate on them and those who gush on them on the front page of CNN both seem to be missing this fact.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharing your opinion on Slashdot...
OR
Posting pictures of yourself, where you work, your friends and all your personal details.
Half the time you can reset someone's e-mail password just by looking at their Myspace page.

Yeah it makes us elite. There is a huge difference.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[KimJSCP]

Wow - my experience has been almost the complete opposite of yours. Your first and second steps of a typical Facebook exchange mirror mine, but as for the third one? Not at all. I have many friends that I have reconnected with (originally disappeared for many reasons) that I now spend a lot of time with and my life is richer for it and I had a busy and active social life before Facebook. As for events that I would not have know about? Most big things in my life are planned and while that can be done without Facebook, it is more efficient using Facebook. But, I would still know of these events without Facebook. Of course, because of the reconnections I have made with Facebook, there are many events I only know about because they involve those people. However, it is really with the spur of the moment events where Facebook shines. For example I suddenly found myself (because of a cancelled appointment) with most of a weekday free. It was an absolutely beautiful early summer day and it seemed perfect for a bike ride. I wanted to ride with people and did and had a fantastic time. However, if I had to call 350 of my closest friends first to find a few that happened to be free on a weekday and up for a bike ride, the spontaneity would have flown out the window and it is unlikely I would have had nearly as much fun that day as I did. A couple of weeks ago I found that a friend's band was booked to play at a club last minute (learned that through Facebook), so I posted my status that I was going and asked who wanted to go. I really wanted to go, but knew my husband couldn't and wasn't too hot about going to a club by myself in a sketchy part of town at 11 PM. Within minutes had a few friends line up to go with me. We had a wonderful time, but neither of these friends are people I would have thought to ask (one has 3 little kids and another on the way). The best thing about Facebook though is the passivity of it. I don't think all of my friends want a phone call or an email every time it pops into my head to go hear a band or take a bike ride. Also, while it is hard for me to grasp, there may be some of my brother's friends who do not want to see a picture of every cute thing my 1 year old nephew does. I don't necessarily want all of those photos clogging up my inbox, but I sure love the frequent posts and and the chance I have to see pictures of my nephew's first trip to the zoo or what he looked like this morning in big goofy sunglasses, that I likely would not have seen otherwise. I would be willing to guess that while you think you find out about all of the events, I'll bet there are plenty of the more spontaneous "Hey who wants to come over for some BBQ this afternoon?" events that you never know about. Events that are just too spontaneous for someone to make the special consideration for you to pick up the phone (remember the whole BBQ was conceived and planned in just 5 minutes on Facebook). Events where your friends are saying "Where is better unix than unix?" and the response is "Oh, Better is not on Facebook."

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[lymond01]

Alright, bub. Don't cross movie plots in a single thread! It's practically like crossing the streams!

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[KimJSCP]

If all of your friends and family are close by you and you see them often, then Facebook probably isn't that helpful to you (but you might want to read my reply to betterunixthanunix above). However, I have friends and family spread all over the world and that is the case for pretty much everyone I know. Additionally, even among those that live close, many of them travel all over the world - both for business and pleasure and myself included. Facebook has been wonderful for keeping in touch with those I do not see often. Heck, my brother, his wife and my 1-year-old nephew live 5 minutes away, but I don't see them everyday (or even every week). I also don't want the thousands of pictures they take clogging up my inbox or demanding my attention at an inconvenient time, but I really do love to see those pictures and am grateful to be able to witness all of those firsts (like petting a cat or eating cotton candy), that I probably wouldn't see otherwise.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of a site like Facebook is centralizing all of these different streams on information you rely on (email, phone calls, word of mouth.)

And yes, I have gone to at least one event I would not have heard about if not for Facebook, for a Congressional candidate in my district.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Zancarius]

Events where your friends are saying "Where is better unix than unix?" and the response is "Oh, Better is not on Facebook."

I don't really think betterunixthanunix would care; I can't speak for him, but I can speak for myself. I don't use Facebook because it's largely a waste of my time. I have a blog, a small message board, and keep in touch with most of my friends via IM, e-mail, or telephone. I think many of the original points betterunixthanunix raised are correct. Most people probably don't bother keeping in touch with various people they have known over the years. I certainly know I'm one of them. Your particular situation is probably more of an exception than a rule.

The other issue is that most Slashdotters are of an MBTI (personality type) called INTJ. I suspect we're alien to you, and here's why:

[I]f I had to call 350 of my closest friends...

I don't understand that. I'm an INTJ, and "closest friends" to me are limited to about three people. It is honestly impossible for me to understand how someone can have 30 close friends much less 350 of them. Likewise, I imagine it is impossible for you to understand the case of the INTJ; how can he possible have only 3 close friends? It's easy when you're of one particular personality type to assume anyone else can be exactly like you (I've certainly fallen into that trap before!). The MBTI exists for a reason, and I think it's an excellent means of quantifying differences and similarities among the various type traits people exhibit.

Back to Slashdot, it is no surprise then that a significant number of posters agree that Facebook is a waste of time. According to Eric Raymond, a majority of "hacker" types tend toward the INTJ and INTP MBTI types. That means we tend to be antisocial (that's not a bad thing, no matter how the media portrays it) and we prefer our own company over that of others. It doesn't mean we're weird. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with us. We'd rather curl up with a good book or sit in front of a screen writing code than goplacesdothingskeepbusy.

Then again, social networking wasn't written for people like us, and that's fine. We don't really care whether someone uses it--most of us won't--but when pressed for an opinion, we'll be more than happy to share. I think that was betterunixthanunix's point. Then there's the obvious point that a majority of people may simply contact old friends and acquaintances for the novelty alone. Once the novelty has evaporated, it's back to the vacuum of normal life. There's nothing wrong with that, either. Most socialites tend to enjoy novelty. It's just that the novelty of rediscovering old friendships seldom lasts. This doesn't mirror your case, of course, but it is a pretty good parallel to what I think is the norm.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[bertoelcon]

I think I saw that same comment on Facebook, except they were talking about Slashdot instead of Twitter.

I say it about the chans daily.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I complete agree with you about Facebook - I never made it to my high school reunions. Catching up with people on Facebook was basically like having multiple 1-on-1 reunions:
      1. Hey [insert name], nice to see you - what's going on?
      2. Here are some pictures of my family too...
      3. We'll have to keep in touch/get together.
And then never talk to them again.

At most, 10% of my Facebook friends post status updates, which I generally don't care about. To be honest, I only login to Facebook to play Mafia Wars - it's just a "game" platform to me now.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[lennier]

I understand Facebook. The combination of real names, 'mutual friends' display, automatic friend suggestion, status updates, and events means that you can easily identify the real people you know and find out about happenings in their life and events you want to go to.

I understand Livejournal. Simple blogging and commenting.

I don't understand Twitter. Isn't it just doing what RSS was already invented to do?

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[lennier]

Hmm. I'm very much INTP and I agree with your personality reading - but the opposite is true for me.To me Facebook is a godsend BECAUSE I have difficulty otherwise keeping in touch with my friends - if I don't make conscious effort, they just drift out of my life because I'm not constantly going places and doing things, so I need an automated system to be a social prosthetic.

I don't actually enjoy being alone, but I need it for my mental health and recovery; I have a fairly active social life, but it gets draining when I push it too much. The biggest problem for me of being INTP is that my sleep and attention cycle tends to desynchronise, so getting access to people via phone in the 'prime time' hours of 6pm-9pm is really hard; I'm likely to be reading the web at home and then suddenly wake up around 11pm going 'hey I should have contacted X'.

If I was only limited to real-time voice or face contact, they're not going to like me phoning them at odd hours; but if I can flick them a Facebook message, that's perfectly fine.

Oh, and I have over 200 Facebook connections; mostly people I've met in other venues. I only friend people I actually know.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[BitZtream]

I hear the same bullshit about facebook and myspace as you just spewed, and I've yet to hear anyone give me any particular reason the same isn't true of email and the telephone.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[mdarksbane]

Twitter only makes sense when you combine it with the mobile phone community. You're right, it's exactly like RSS, except for built entirely around texting.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Zancarius]

Hmm. I'm very much INTP and I agree with your personality reading - but the opposite is true for me.To me Facebook is a godsend BECAUSE I have difficulty otherwise keeping in touch with my friends - if I don't make conscious effort, they just drift out of my life because I'm not constantly going places and doing things, so I need an automated system to be a social prosthetic.

That use of Facebook I can understand--and it really does make sense. I do wonder if it has anything at all to do with your INTP nature. I know of one INTP who just took his bar exam; you wouldn't know he's an INTP because he does have some social leanings, so it's important to consider that the MBTI is fairly generic and not apt to explain how everyone works.

Since I'm an INTJ, I think that's something of a hurdle. Maybe this isn't necessarily true for all INTJs, but a majority of the ones I know tend to find social networking and small talk to be a complete waste of time (for us). That isn't to say small talk is wrong nor that we're particularly brain damaged (some types might think so!); we just don't get it.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[e2d2]

But what about all those Iranians? We gotta keep it up! Get General Killemall on the horn!

Kids the moral of this story is to post something sensational on slashdot about twitter once a week. Then we can al get a good laugh.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

here, be my guest
<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[voogzy]

You get to listen in on their conversations with other people and see how they interact with their friends and how they react to the days events.

Am I the onl one that finds this disturbing? it's like you cant get good friends without stalking them first...

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[KimJSCP]

RE: 350 closets friends = sarcasm. But who knows how many people I would have had to call to find a biking partner. However, as far as close friends go, while difficult for me to quantify, the number would not be 3. Heck, I have 2 parents, 3 siblings and 1 husband and that right there doubles it. And yes, they are all "close" friends. I think that regardless of how social you are, Facebook can be a very efficient way to communicate. I know many INTP/Jers (married to one) who prefer the efficiency of Facebook because they can communicate what they need to and be less social while doing so.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

No, not really. Its like going out with a group of friends. You don't just hear the things they say to you, you also hear other people communicate with them. If you really want a communication to be private you do it via private messaging.

I agree though that this is one area that Facebook and all other social network sites could improve themselves by having finer grained control of who could see what wall posts.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[jjoelc]

If I wanted to socialize... I wouldn't be sitting in front of a computer.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Zancarius]

However, as far as close friends go, while difficult for me to quantify, the number would not be 3. Heck, I have 2 parents, 3 siblings and 1 husband and that right there doubles it. And yes, they are all "close" friends

That's really more of a linguistic difference in my mind. I don't classify family as friends--they're family. So yes, I could see how it's possible to surmise that one might have in excess of 15 "close friends" by default (including family), but not everyone does. It isn't to suggest that I don't consider family friends, but I place them in an entirely different category. As such, there is close family and regular family. :)

I know many INTP/Jers (married to one) who prefer the efficiency of Facebook because they can communicate what they need to and be less social while doing so.

It could be a regional thing and might make for a worthwhile study. My experience is quite the opposite; I know of many INTJs (while not social, we can be clannish) who don't use the likes of Facebook because of their perception of it as a waste of time. I do know of some who have even tried to use it but gave up.

Facebook has a great deal of utility to a lot of people (you included). Some of us think it's pointless. That alone was the essence of my point, and I would still wager that a majority of those who find it pointless are INT(P|J) types. Of course, it's pure speculation--until there's a study done, we have no proof either way. My intuition tells me I'm right.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[voogzy]

It's more like going out with everyone anyone you know knows and listening to all the conversations of about 200+ people at once. if that's not cyber stalking then i don't know what is.

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I still manage to find out about relevant events by email, phone calls, and word of mouth, just like people did 10, 50, and 100 years ago.

Dude?! Where are these a$$holes that had e-mail 100 years ago and didn't bother sharing the technology?!

Re:Parent is insightful, not funny

[geekoid]

Maybe that's becasue after 3 or 4 exchanges people remember what an asshole you are?

I am in regular contact with people I lost touch with 20 years ago.

All due to facebook.

Believe me, we know you are not too cool for social network sites. I mean, you have to understand how to be social first.

Whoops.

[BigglesZX]

Might it have had something to do with the Twitter-based HTML demo (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/05/2348219/HTML-5-Canvas-Experiment-Hints-At-Things-To-Come?art_pos=8) that made Slashdot earlier today? The site in question hits Twitter for a large number of tweets, and I imagine a lot of /.'ers were checking it out earlier. I doubt it helped, at the very least...

Re:Whoops.

[Stephan Seidt]

Dunno, the script is searching for html5+love once it's started. Unless Twitter's search api is a performance hog there shouldn't be much of a problem :)

Re:Whoops.

[Anonymous Coward]

Was thinking the exact same thing when I read this story. In fact, while I was checking that demo shortly after the slashdot story was posted I already noticed it doing requests to twitter in the background with some of them timing out..

Re:Whoops.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, are you fucking kidding me? I'm serious, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Do you realize how much traffic Twitter faced after Michael Jackson died? We're reportedly talking hundreds of terabytes. And it didn't crash.

But here you are, giving us this line of bullshit about some single site that's generating probably 0.0005% of the traffic that Twitter faced after MJ's death, yet it took down their whole service? Bollocks and tiddlywinks to you and your cockamamie ideas.

Re:Whoops.

[MiniMike]

That was my first thought too. If I'd know it would have this effect, I would have kept it up longer. In multiple tabs... On multiple computers...

Re:Whoops.

[Anonymous Coward]

Might it have had something to do with the Twitter-based HTML demo (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/05/2348219/HTML-5-Canvas-Experiment-Hints-At-Things-To-Come?art_pos=8) that made Slashdot earlier today? The site in question hits Twitter for a large number of tweets, and I imagine a lot of /.'ers were checking it out earlier. I doubt it helped, at the very least...

Good theory, as I have tried to view that demo on multiple browsers from multiple connections, all I ever get is a black page with white text that says "LOADING", and nothing ever happens. I was rather disappointed in the demo, I thought, well I can do that with CSS - there must be more to it considering the kind of demos I have seen: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ , many of which now work in FF3.5 as well.

Oh check out a recent post there: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/twitterbrowse/ (could be related too...)

I could not figure out what was the big deal about the black page that says LOADING this morning. I am a fan of plain text presentations but why use HTML5 elements to do it?

Now I get it, the demo was not working due to some unimaginable reason that it depended on Twitter feeds?

Heh, now I cannot find the slashdot article in question... perhaps it has been yanked?

Anyway, the canvas demos on the chrome demo site are pretty cool. This whole black page that says "LOADING" and runs scripts directly from twitter was pretty unimpressive in comparison. AS of this post that demo is still non-functional.

Re:Whoops.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, now I cannot find the slashdot article in question... perhaps it has been yanked?

Whoops, I just noticed it linked in your post, the article is indeed still there but the demo it links still does not work.

Re:Whoops.

[clone53421]

Ah, yeah, that demo was actually kinda cool (in a completely useless way) when it actually worked the first time I tried it. After that, it just did the black screen "loading" thing.

The slashdot article in question...
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/05/2348219/HTML-5-Canvas-Experiment-Hints-At-Things-To-Come

I'm assuming it'll start working again when Twitter comes back up.

aha.

[jrothwell97]

So THAT's what Conficker's for.

Re:aha.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now conflicker just needs to finish its job and attack myspace and facebook.

Re:aha.

[Culture20]

So THAT's what Conficker's for.

Now I wish I hadn't patched my machines.

Re:aha.

[maxume]

You could manually run the autorun trojan. Patches be damned.

Make sure to log in with administrator rights beforehand.

In other news...

[thisnamestoolong]

...the nation's IQ spontaneously rose 23 points this morning. Scientists are investigating this puzzling phenomenon but have yet to discover the cause.

Re:In other news...

[jerep]

myspace is still holding 32 points of collective IQ, and the medias and entertainments the remaining 78.

Oh well, its a start :)

Re:In other news...

[Opportunist]

Dimwit! 32 and 78 is 110, and everyone knows 100 is the maximum. So I'm quite happy with my 90 score!

Re:In other news...

[AdmiralXyz]

You joke, but with Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal all down, I bet workplace productivity will see a bump today.

Re:In other news...

[gnick]

An IQ of 90! Well done - I believe that's an 'A-'. I can see why you're here.

I keep trying to figure mine out, but Netscape keeps flaking out before I can hit submit on the Facebook IQ quiz.

Re:In other news...

[Opportunist]

Fffft, you can toss all those online IQ tests. They come up with impossible scores like 140...

Re:In other news...

[hondo77]

For a determined workplace slacker, those sites are merely the means, not the end. Or so I've heard.

Re:In other news...

[i love pineapples]

Are you kidding? I've been obsessively reloading status.twitter.com since I got in this morning!

Re:In other news...

[bldrtechguy]

Great point, I think things might actually be getting done today that doesn't involve telling the world about your cereal of choice this morning.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you didn't hear a Whoosing sound while posting that, you may be in the 'A-' category.

Re:In other news...

[clone53421]

100 is the average.

Re:In other news...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

the nation's IQ spontaneously rose 23 points this morning. Scientists are investigating this puzzling phenomenon but have yet to discover the cause

That's probably because their first priority was investigating a sudden influx of new IQ statistics that materialised spontaneously overnight.

Re:In other news...

[i_liek_turtles]

Strangely enough, the IT department is still not up to par.

Re:In other news...

[Is0m0rph]

Nope it's down because everyone is sitting there refreshing haha. Probably reality too. I haven't had any problem with Facebook today though.

Re:In other news...

[Inda]

90 is higher than everyone who replied to your post.

(if jokes make you think too much, are they still funny?)

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an A on a 10 point scale! Good job!

Re:In other news...

[recharged95]

Also: unexpected power surge across the nation today as everyone reports Twitter is down.

imagine the amount of power being used (on data centers, routers, switchboards, computers, monitors, data lines, cellphone lines, radio towers, TV stations, newspaper centers, printing presses, etc...) just to spread the word there's a 404 error on www.twitter.com?

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the nation's IQ spontaneously rose to 23 points this morning. Scientists are investigating this puzzling phenomenon but have yet to discover the cause.

There, corrected that for you....

Re:In other news...

[Opportunist]

It seems I tried to ride the joke well after it died. Ok, ok, I get off the dead horse.

money lost or...?

[Anonymous Coward]

well it's not as though either twitter or facebook were making money even when their respective websites were running normally! ;)

Re:money lost or...?

[Allicorn]

Good point - a sustained outage ought to actually be visible in the detailed breakdown of their end-of-year reports as a momentary decrease in the rate of losses.

Oh No...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what will Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore do?

Re:Oh No...

[drodal]

have sex :p

Re:Oh No...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what will Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore do?

probably fuck .. lucky bastard.

Re:Oh No...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who? ;-)

Re:Who is hitting it that hard?

[ohcrapitssteve]

Wow, that segway was about as awkward as some kind of two-parallel-wheeled auto-balancing minute-muscle-movement-controlled vehicle. Of some sort.

Defcon to blame?

[zcold]

Whats more, she blames defcon at the end of the article.. "There has been no indication that any of these various attacks are connected. But it's probably not a coincidence that they all coincide with the annual Defcon hacker convention." yes, not a coincidence at all... thats what happens when "hackers" get together...

Re:Defcon to blame?

[Opportunist]

Say about Defcon what you want. Yes, it lost its edge. Yes, it got watered down. Yes, it's not the top notch hacker con it used to be. Yes, it's been turned into the BH stepchild-still-in-puberty.

But even there nobody is yet so low to consider Twitter a worthy target.

Re:Defcon to blame?

[el_tedward]

Everyone knows that hackers are actually made of sludge and if you get too much sludge, the tubes get clogged.

Re:Defcon to blame?

[drinkypoo]

But even there nobody is yet so low to consider Twitter a worthy target.

You and I both know that getting drunk impairs judgment more than computer skills.

I haven't ever attended DEFCON, because of the people I know who go every year. Not that they are representative, necessarily, but they still go. I wouldn't put it past many of them to get drunk and show off. There is certainly an element which attends which is as destructive as possible...

Re:Defcon to blame?

[Verdatum]

This is the most insightful comment I've read in quite awhile.

Re:Defcon to blame?

[Opportunist]

Without doubt, but DC ain't been a con I want to be at for a few years now. I've been there, and it probably is a pretty cool con when you're new in the trade. Problem is, at least in my opinion, the only ones to stick around when they gain a bit of clue are the ones that talk too much with the wrong people about the wrong subjects. DC has that shady, borderline-illegal image that tends to attract the "wrong" people. Wrong in the sense that I want to be with them.

In IT security a lot goes with your "credibility". Not so much whether you know a lot. More whether you play on the 'right' side. I've gone out of my way to appear legit, to keep my police record spotless and to be as white-hat as can be. Whether some "important" people talk with you depends highly on that. Your admission card for a few of the more important invite-only cons could quickly be yanked if you happen to hang with the wrong crowd.

OMG, it's highschool all over...

Re:Defcon to blame?

[Coffee on Mars]

I was wondering about choosing a career in security, but right now I think I'll stick to data analysis... (My first comment! Yay!)

Re:Defcon to blame?

[Opportunist]

Do it! It's the most interesting, fascinating and absolutely stunning thing I've ever laid my fingers on. You have to live with a world that changes every other month, and an industry that has a knowledge turnover of about half a year (take a year break, come back, start over), but it's rewarding. Especially if you have an attention span as long as mine, when you simply crave something new to dig your teeth into every other month or work gets boring.

Cloud? Decentralize

[Bob9113]

Decentralization is the solution to single-link failures.

Cloud is centralization.

JM2C, YMMV.

Re:Cloud? Decentralize

[MojoRilla]

No.

Big sites have issues with DDOS attacks, period. Doesn't matter if they are cloud hosted or not.

In fact, Amazon's cloud infrastructure is far more distributed than most other individual companies infrastructure. Of course, you have to set up multiple availability zones.

Re:Cloud? Decentralize

[Relic of the Future]

Agreed.

The reason email was such a boon, and the only reason it's lasted so long, is because you didn't need a login on someone else's system in order to communicate with them. Of course, that's also why the folks who came up with it never (directly) made any money off of it. (Finding interviews with the inventor of '@' are left as a googlecise for the reader.)

It's a tough position: the only way to last longer than a flash-in-the-pan fad is to give up your only obvious way to turn a profit... but no flash-in-the-pan fads have ever turned a profit either. So we'll continue to get these cyclical fads, all of us moving from service provider to service provider, like a migrating swarm of locusts, leaving fields of venture capital devastated in our wake, hoping that someone will figure out the magic formula to make money from it.

Re:Cloud? Decentralize

[Bob9113]

Big sites have issues with DDOS attacks, period.

Big sites are another example of centralization.

Doesn't matter if they are cloud hosted or not.

I agree.

In fact, Amazon's cloud infrastructure is far more distributed than most other individual companies infrastructure.

Perhaps you don't understand the term. Centralization is when large amounts of otherwise individual somethings are aggregated in a single something else. A bunch of individual somethings cannot be more centralized than a single something. Hmm, that definition is clumsy. Try reading this:

http://www.12manage.com/methods_centralization_decentralization.html

Re:Cloud? Decentralize

[Bob9113]

hehe - yeah, very well said.

Pretty cool, hunh? I mean, wasteful, and a little stupid, but fascinating too, right?

Re:Cloud? Decentralize

[lennier]

"The reason email was such a boon, and the only reason it's lasted so long, is because you didn't need a login on someone else's system in order to communicate with them."

Indeed. I remember CompuServe, with its 'xxxxx.yyyyy' adddresses, and how slow they were to adopt this new-fangled Internet email thing.

Looking back, it still seems like a strange miracle that even the bones of an open Net emerged at all from that period. We're busy reinventing the locked-in 'information service' as fast as we can but... maybe something will survive.

Re:Cloud? Decentralize

[Neuroticwhine]

Oh dear, with twitter down i need to amuse myself through acts of googlecise;
Interviews with Ray Tomlinson

Interview 1: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3525110.ece

Interview 2: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/technology/looking-back-in-the-beginning-a-note-to-himself.html

Interview 3: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/1408411

Not DDoS, SlashDotted

[peterofoz]

The slashdot post below: "HTML 5 Canvas Experiment Hints At Things To Come" connects to Twitter for its canvas demonstration.

Re:Not DDoS, SlashDotted

[FishWithAHammer]

Compared to Twitter's usual activity load, a slashdotting is not going to be that big a deal.

Re:Not DDoS, SlashDotted

[Locklin]

When each Slashdot user is hitting Twitter a few hundred times (as per the demo), then yes, it's probably a big deal.

What we will do now?

[sxedog]

Finally. now everyone can get back to work.

Re:What we will do now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, we'll sit online blogging about it all day.

Re:What we will do now?

[marmoute]

There are so much slashdot comments to read first.

Re:What we will do now?

[Linker3000]

OK, let me just Tweet that: "Gotta go - going back to work now"

Re:What we will do now?

[slashmaddy]

Let's just ignore the first part of your sig.

And Now for Something Completely Different

[ArhcAngel]

There was weeping and gnashing of teeth - by tweens everywhere

And there was MUCH rejoicing - By everyone else

MDDoS

[gmuslera]

To affect Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal should have been a Massive DDos. Which botnet was in this case? Maybe the "overhyped" Conflicker?

Re:MDDoS

[Dogun]

Get right the heck out of town. DDoS is redundant enough; _M_DDoS adds NOTHING of value to the word.

Re:MDDoS

[LandDolphin]

Makes it sound more sensational

Re:MDDoS

[Anonymous Coward]

Super Massive Distributed DDoS attack done by tens of thousands of people across the globe, the SMDDDoS attack was unprovoked.

Feel better now? I just wrote the headline for Fox new's coverage of this event.

Maybe the Iranian government

[wiredog]

is doing it?

Re:Maybe the Iranian government

[onionman]

It has been pretty well documented that the Iranian opposition has been using Twitter extensively to organize their protests. So, I'm sure that the Iranian government is quite happy to have Twitter knocked out.

I, personally, don't use Twitter as I consider it a waste of time. However, I believe that the current DDoS attack might have substantial political ramifications for the Iranian people.

Is this taking down an entire datacenter?

[merreborn]

From my comcast connection at home, we've had difficulty accessing:
twitter.com, ezrider.bart.gov, and facebook.com

From my AT&T smartphone, via both the native browser (which uses AT&T's net connection) and Skyfire (which uses Skyfire's net connection -- they effectively proxy), I've had difficulty with:
twitter.com and ezrider.bart.gov

Now I'm finally in the office, on our DSL (sonic.net, copper owned by AT&T), and still can't access:
twitter.com and ezrider.bart.gov

I wonder if twitter.com and ezrider.bart.gov are sharing a datacenter or something.

Re:Is this taking down an entire datacenter?

[merreborn]

It appears the ezrider.bart.gov issue is simply one of configuration.

http://ezrider.bart.gov/ times out.
https://ezrider.bart.gov/ does not.

Re:Is this taking down an entire datacenter?

[ShaunC]

Various security mailing lists received several postings today about BART card exploits. ezrider.bart.gov is probably either overloaded or intentionally offline. It looks like it's hosted in the Dallas area while Twitter is near DC.

Geeks

[whisper_jeff]

Won't somebody please think of the geeks...

Re:Geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

"geek" is such a watered down, trendy term. everyone wants to be a "geek" and claims that they are a ________ geek.

using one of these social networking things when you're out of high school twitter makes you a loser, not a geek.

Twitter website or API

[BigHungryJoe]

I don't need 140 characters to say

FUCK YOU, Twitter

hey isn't it just the twitter website that's down? Apps using the twitter API seem to be doing just fine

Re:Twitter website or API

[jrothwell97]

um... no. Gwibber is also timing out when trying to connect to Twitter (or, if it does succeed, it's being painfully slow). As is Twitteriffic, Twitter Tools for WordPress and just about every other app which uses the Twitter API.

Re:Who is hitting it that hard?

[ohcrapitssteve]

Really, dude? Really?

Loss of revenue?

[greymond]

I wonder what the loss of revenue is for companies like Dell who recently posted earnings of $3M from Twitter sales. I know for me, it's an inconvenience as I just released mobile versions of my rpg supplements and twittered about it, which will probably be lost in a see of tweets from various people this morning about twitter being down. I also promote other pdf books through a second Twitter account that is undoubtedly not gaining any referral fees with no one clicking on the links since the site is down. Ultimately though, my loss of revenue will be around $20 LOL so it's not like my mortgage payment or something that will make me a sad panda, but for companies like Dell, I wonder how much they estimate their losses at, probably higher than actual, but still a fair amount I bet.

Re:Loss of revenue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any business model built on top of another company's services can come crumbling down at a moment's notice.

Just ask an iPhone Developer.

"/status/update This method requires a POST."

[Anonymous Coward]

"/status/update This method requires a POST." - lol, still down I assume.

Re:Who is hitting it that hard?

[krakelohm]

No, really it was not.

Oh come on.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

This is how their "journalists" report news on CNet? FTA - the very last line:

There has been no indication that any of these various attacks are connected. But it's probably not a coincidence that they all coincide with the annual Defcon hacker convention.

You mean the one that ended Sunday? Nice. Real nice.

Re:Oh come on.

[Eil]

On top of that,

"it's probably not a coincidence that they all coincide"

makes me want to break pencils and kick puppies.

Re:Oh come on.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Oh, that's special - I missed that completely.

Re:Oh come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, so everyone has gone home and is trying out what they heard about at DefCon...

Great,

[drodal]

so now were going to slashdot the sites that are undergoing the DDoS attacks, that will make them run faster ;)

Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

Practically every news source is reporting it on their front page. Including BBC, MSNBC, Reuters, CNN, etc...

But continue on dorkmeister.

Re:Give me a break

[eln]

Okay, so the fact that all of these sites are reporting on a temporary outage on a social networking site says more about the overall decline in the mainstream media than CNN specifically.

Also, as of right now, I don't see the story on the front page of the BBC. Fox News now has it listed as "Urgent" and has the headline in huge letters on the front page. CNN currently shows it as its top story. Reuters has it much further down the page, but it's still there.

Reporting on a story like this deep in the Technology section is one thing, but displaying it prominently as major breaking news is entirely another.

Re:Give me a break

[amicusNYCL]

You can't be that out of touch. The job of a news organization is to report events that affect a lot of people, right? You really think that twitter going offline does not affect a lot of people? I don't use it myself, but I at least acknowledge the fact that it's an extremely popular site (commentary shows on most news networks routinely show viewer comments that were sent to them via twitter, for example). This isn't an indication that mainstream media is declining, it's an indication that services like twitter are on the rise.

Re:Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that nobody used or cared about twitter outside of a handful of nerds until the people in charge of twitter struck on the advertising idea of "convince everyone that everyone is already using it, and it's the most popular thing online". After that, it started being reported on weekly by sites like Slashdot as well as major news sites, until it started getting massive buyout offers.

Honestly, I still don't think that many people care about it. There are a handful of popular bloggers, but I don't think I've ever met a person in "real life" that has twittered for longer than a week. I'm 26, by the way.

A similar strategy was/is used by Second Life, which is why corporations started flocking to it and then realized they'd been duped.

Re:Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, as of right now, I don't see the story on the front page of the BBC.

Well, it's there now.

Re:Give me a break

[BitZtream]

What it says is that the world really isn't doing that bad. If they don't have anything more important to talk about than twitter, regardless of the reason they are talking about twitter then its an indication that things are doing pretty well in the world, regardless of the random nuts trying to scare people for political gain.

Re:Give me a break

[rs79]

" Reporting on a story like this deep in the Technology section is one thing, but displaying it prominently as major breaking news is entirely another."

Nobody gives a shit about Twitter. I use it every day but don't care. This is news because a website a lot of people use is down and nobody can do a damn thing about it. Banks next? Paypal? IANA? A-root?

That's not what people expect of the intartubes. And half of them are going "uh, if this happened to me I would not know what to do, besides lose money".

Re:Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I should go look up their PR firm... whoever it is has done a great job pushing twitter.

Twitter will probably fade like Second Life did.

Re:Give me a break

[Meski]

The funny thing is that nobody used or cared about the internet outside of a handful of nerds ...

Sigh. There fixed it.

Re:Give me a break

[laddiebuck]

Yep. The top stories on Fox seem to be this thing and "Man Kills Daughter, Mother-in-Law, Self, Injures Wife". On the BBC News site (which is refreshingly clean, incidentally) this gets a line as "Web attack blogger blames Russia". It is the top story in their Tech section though, with a montage of the facebook, google and twitter logos.

I consume most of my news as RSS these days, but my feeds are the BBC's feeds, because they are still the best mainstream source to trust. And they are the largest news-gathering organisation in the world, so they actually get news, not just reprocess it. To top it off, they're funded on an odd but stable and non-partisan model, so in many ways the British TV watching public is paying for my quality news. I don't mind. ;)

HTML5 demo

[tom17]

I'm wondering if that HTML5 demo http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/05/2348219/HTML-5-Canvas-Experiment-Hints-At-Things-To-Come?art_pos=8 had anything to do with it. If the normal /. crowd went to the demo, which then in turn loads 100 'tweets' from twitter, is that not equivalent to twitter receiving a 100x slash-dotting?

Tom...

Re:HTML5 demo

[FishWithAHammer]

Twitter's API returns tweets in chunks; it's not one call per tweet.

A slashdotting is not really an appreciable bump in traffic for Twitter. They have a lot of throughput at any given time.

Re:HTML5 demo

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, could be. By itself, it's not difficult to survive a slashdotting - at most, a slashdotting will yield a few hundred thousand extra page turns in the day it's posted on the frontpage; even modestly powered educational web servers can survive it. Dynamic content of course adds a bit of whammy, and the described HTML5 demo might be hard to defend against.

Another way to look at it: slashdot handles a slashdotting every day, and it's not exactly a massive installation. It's hard to see how Twitter can even see it's getting DDoSed, since by its very nature, that would appear to be its usual pattern of traffic (and if the content was sufficiently unique, would be comparatively easy to protect against).

Regardless, I'd prefer to see the originators of such attacks lose a testicle.

Re:HTML5 demo

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a twitter engineer and I thought that too, but when I looked at the HDS-4 switch network it was placed in promiscuous mode. All I did w

Costly

[CopaceticOpus]

This could be an expensive attack. There are estimates that just a few hours without social networking could lead to billions of dollars in increased productivity.

Imagine if Slashdot went down. Spam would be wiped out in a day, Linux audio would be bug free in a week, and next month we'd see the release of GNU Hurd.

Re:Costly

[AdmiralXyz]

Imagine if Slashdot went down. Spam would be wiped out in a day, Linux audio would be bug free in a week, and next month we'd see the release of GNU Hurd.

Can I use that as my sig (with attribution, of course)? Seriously, that's classic.

Re:Costly

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget Duke Nuke'm Forever!

Re:Costly

[CopaceticOpus]

Sure, go for it.

Re:Costly

[Culture20]

"This could be an expensive attack. There are estimates that just a few hours without social networking could lead to billions of dollars in increased productivity. Imagine if Slashdot went down. Spam would be wiped out in a day"
Your post advocates a

(X) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would see increased use
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
(X) It requires brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of slashdot will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(X) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
(X) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack Oh, wait, it relies on that.
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes Oh, wait, it relies on that.
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work, but it's the closest I've seen.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!

Re:Costly

[Anonymous Coward]

but nobody would know :) we cant read it here

amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just so funny to watch nerds make fun of other nerds and act superior in the process.

mac trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Only PC users bring that up.

Re:mac trolling

[ubersoldat2k7]

Only Windows users bring that up.

There, fixed that for you

Lets look at this

[geekoid]

1) Millions of people use it

2) It is uses to allow poeple to follow people that are interesting to them. Not just gossip, but science information, events.

3) Nearly instant knowledge of world events.

4) Allows protesters to disseminate information

5) Is allowing for a deeper understanding od human nature in large societies.

6) It's another tool for expression.

So I would say that it does have value.

Re:Lets look at this

[camg188]

Half of those points also apply to Mylie Cyrus.

Re:Lets look at this

[sanosuke001]

Millions of people believe that social networking is a plus to society; it doesn't mean it is.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda sounds like some crazy "system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet". What will they think of next?

Re:Lets look at this

[neoform]

1) Millions of people use it 2) It allows people to follow people that are interesting to them. Not just gossip, but science information, events. 3) Nearly instant knowledge of world events. 4) Allows protesters to disseminate information 5) Is allowing for a deeper understanding of human nature in large societies. 6) It's another tool for expression. So I would say that it does have value.

You've successfully listed what every single site on the web can do.

Re:Lets look at this

[Daniel Dvorkin]

"A plus to society" is the kind of thing that can only be judged in retrospect. When online social networking's been around for several generations, maybe we'll be able to decide. What is undeniable right now is that it's important to a hell of a lot of people, and people who reflexively say "no it's not" are ignoring the reality that's staring them in the face.

Re:Lets look at this

[tthomas48]

Yes, I get CDC outbreak updates, political updates, software updates. These are hardly social nonsense. If you don't "get" twitter, that's fine, but don't assume it's useless.

Twitter is like the news ticker with RSS feeds being the newspaper.

Re:Lets look at this

[Buelldozer]

"When online social networking's been around for several generations, maybe we'll be able to decide."

I think we've hit the "several generations" mark and we can conclusively say that online social networking is a plus to society.

You need to understand that "online social networking" has been happening since DARPA started hooking facilities up several decades ago. The jonny come lately sites like MS, FB, and Twitter are simply the newest and shiniest versions of what started back in the '60s.

If you think I'm wrong go back into the archives and see what kinds of traffic DARPA-net was passing.

Re:Lets look at this

[Colonel Korn]

1) Millions of people use it

2) It is uses to allow poeple to follow people that are interesting to them. Not just gossip, but science information, events.

3) Nearly instant knowledge of world events.

4) Allows protesters to disseminate information

5) Is allowing for a deeper understanding od human nature in large societies.

6) It's another tool for expression.

So I would say that it does have value.

You need to look at opportunity cost: what is lost in order to gain these benefits?

1) Millions of people could be using something else.
2) "Following" people on Twitter is necessarily superficial compared to other media, which offer the same benefits without the message size limit.
3) Instant knowledge of world events is available in many media, with Twitter again being more superficial than the others.
4) No, it's a means by which protesters disseminate information. It worked in Iran because it's new and the government didn't know how to block it as well as other services at first. It has no inherent advantage in this area.
5) Your point is preposterous. It allows for a deeper understanding of how people use Twitter, sure, but that's not valuable.
6) And an inferior one at that.

Re:Lets look at this

[hesaigo999ca]

You forgot

7) Allow terrorists to exchange information using different forms of media under assumed names.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

Except RSS fills that role EXACTLY AS WELL. Better, in fact, because it, ya know, works, and doesn't have a 140-character limitation. The only situation I can think of that would be better-fulfilled by twitter is if you needed some of these updates RIGHT AWAY and you don't have a smartphone, but none of your given examples present that situation.

Your analogy sucks.

Re:Lets look at this

[daveywest]

Personally, I'd argue Twitter focuses an individual's attention far away from their circle of influence and consequently has negative value.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't give him too much credit; it was probably an accident.

Re:Lets look at this

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Hmmm, good point. I think, though, that you have to distinguish between the phenomenon as it applied to a very small subculture (geeks, basically) and to society as a whole. The critical point, it seems to me, was with the rise of the online services in the late 80s and early 90s -- ca. 1990 was when the idea of communicating via computer with a large number of people outside your local area became something the general public could understand. DARPAnet, BBSs, and even Usenet were just too far under the radar to have a widespread cultural effect.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

7) And it doesn't make a dime in revenue.

Re:Lets look at this

[gamefreak1450]

I think your criteria for deciding it is "inferior" may be a little unclear. When the plane crashed into the Hudson river recently, Twitter and TwitPic had some of the first information about the event. With the recent political unrest in Iran, Twitter is the most common tool to get information out.

Millions of people could be using something else.

Like what? Facebook? The Internet is what gives the average person a voice, and Twitter is what collects those voices together.

I guess you don't use Twitter, but that doesn't mean nothing good can come of it. Sure, there will be people who post drivel (and probably a LOT of these people), but there are legitimate uses, and because of that, I think it deserves its place in world communications.

Re:Lets look at this

[Munden]

I'm sorry - but knowing that Firefox just updated from 3.5.1 to 3.5.2 via your phone is total nonsense. Instantly knowing the CDC just arbitrarily raised it's threat level from 2 to 3 and then 3 to 4 is of no social value. However, I'll concede that whatever Sarah Palin tweats is usually valued at least a chuckle or /boggle.

Re:Lets look at this

[tthomas48]

I'm a software developer. I monitor a lot of software, not just firefox. I don't twitter from my phone. I get updates of the number of people who have died of flu via the CDC, which is hardly an arbitrary number. And my friends tweets are more amusing than palin.

I also have a theater company and used it to let people know that a show had been cancelled due to illness.

Again, just because you don't see the usefulness doesn't mean that no one else does.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

But at the same time if it were to suddenly cease to exist do you really think society would as well?
Sheesh, get a life.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

"1) Millions of people could be using something else".

1) Millions of people could be doing something else.

Fixed that for ya...

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, 1 out of 6.

Millions of people use it.

It does not allow people to follow science information; talking to scientists does. Twitter is not accurate to any degree. The value of it would be characterized specifically as gossip, and nothing more, because the ability to distinguish between gossip and science information on twitter is non-existent. You can talk to a scientist, hear something come out of their mouth, and claim, "thats horseshit,"
  whereas with twitter, you simply assume it is.

News of world events are not spread through twitter. Twitter simply allows idiots to update their ever changing views on such events, despite lack of information regarding them.

I have never seen a protester disseminate information. I have seen them block traffic.

Unless you consider the portion of the world where people will say literally anything because they believe no one can trace it to them, the internet is not the place to track how people behave in society. Its sort of the definition of society is that direct interaction with other people is necessary.

I don't understand what you mean in #6. I assume you are mentally retarded based on it alone.

I would agree that twitter has value, it keeps the twits from talking to me.

Re:Lets look at this

[rantingkitten]

1. The masses are asses. They could be using something else -- something worthwhile. Or, god forbid, nothing at all. Somehow, I don't recall feeling like 2006, before Twitter, was some sort of Dark Age.

2. Barely. Most people just collect followers and follow others at random, building huge lists of people just so they can brag about it or advertise more or whatever. The signal to noise ratio is atrocious. I realise that, with effort, one could selectively trim one's list down to get only useful information from "important" sources but since nobody actually does this, it really is just a bunch of chattering, inconsequential nonsense. You might as well just watch computers ARP at each other on a network.

3. Yeah, all the fun of texting combined with the reliability of anonymous hearsay.

4. This only worked because the Iranian government hadn't figured out how to shut it down. This is the case with any new technology. It will not be the case for Twitter within a year. And the information coming out of Twitter was of dubious value, despite the hype. "Things are really going bad," that sort of stuff. Highly informative, that.

5. No, it provides an understanding of how people use Twitter. It reflects absolutely nothing on how societies function. It's completely self-contained and insular.

6. So is scribbling on the wall with crayons but we usually stop children when we catch them doing that.

Re:Lets look at this

[aj50]

2) "Following" people on Twitter is necessarily superficial compared to other media, which offer the same benefits without the message size limit.

And that's exactly the point, following someone on Twitter isn't even close to declaring them a "friend", it merely means that you find their thoughts interesting and would like to subscribe to their newsletter.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what is really interesting?

All these points apply to toilet paper too!

1) Lets just hope so.
2) True, but creepy. Like with Twitter.
3) True. And like twitter, it just reproduces what we could already know from other sources.
4) You know nothing transports stuff untouched from governmental control like the colon.
5) Very true.
6) True, yet disgusting. Like with Twitter.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

And let's have a look at Colonel Korn's rebuttle:

1. Blind guessing
2. Subjective
3. Subjective
4. Blind guessing
5. Blind guessing
6. Subjective

Let's all give him a big [Citation needed] for coming out, folks!

Thank you, please try again.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Millions of people could be using something else.
2) "Following" people on Twitter is necessarily superficial compared to other media, which offer the same benefits without the message size limit.
3) Instant knowledge of world events is available in many media, with Twitter again being more superficial than the others.
4) No, it's a means by which protesters disseminate information. It worked in Iran because it's new and the government didn't know how to block it as well as other services at first. It has no inherent advantage in this area.
5) Your point is preposterous. It allows for a deeper understanding of how people use Twitter, sure, but that's not valuable.
6) And an inferior one at that.

1) They COULD, but they didn't choose to. There's always alternatives, but that doesn't mean it's not a bad thing if your main means of communication goes down. If the phone network goes down, is that a non-issue since the millions of people using it could just "be using something else"?

2) I can't speak for Twitter and if people manage to communicate there effectively, but what the GP said is definitely true for Livejournal, at least.

3) See 1).

4) It's another tool in the toolbox - another option. If you're a dissident, that's never a bad thing.

5) OK, you do have a point here, actually.

6) Inferior to what? And according to whom?

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I don't use it. I'd rather use Digg.

Re:Lets look at this

[TuringTest]

2) "Following" people on Twitter is necessarily superficial compared to other media, which offer the same benefits without the message size limit.

Bzzzz! Wrong analysis.

You fail to realize that this size limit is the differentiating feature that makes Twitter stand out from the other media. By being limited, it offers a lower barrier to participation (overcoming procastination and the "empty page" syndrome), thus increasing the volume of posts and unique participants and therefore making it more valuable. (Yes, technically you could limit yourself to post 140 character messages through other media, but the human brain doesn't work that way).

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused: Why not just use RSS feeds then?

I don't use twitter or RSS feeds, but one night I wrote a useful RSS iPhone app as a demo for some college grad students I spoke to the next day (as a favor for a cute girl). While mine worked fine for /., NY Times, XKCD, and the other sites I used, I imagine there must be much more evolved ones out there that do more refining and filtering of results for you. Maybe I just don't "get" twitter, but it seems to me like twitter is completely beside the point when it comes to RSS feeds, news stories, and software updates: they all existed before twitter, and they will all still be perfectly useful and easily available once twitter runs out of money.

Re:Lets look at this

[LWATCDR]

I can not say if it is a benefit too all society. What I can do is give an example. I have a friend that lives on the other side of the world. She couldn't sleep and was feeling down because her husband hand been away on works for several months. I noticed that she was posting in the middle of the night. I DMed her on Twitter to ask what was wrong. We then moved to Facebook chat and final to Skype IM. We talked for a few hours about movies and such.
I would like to think that she was a little less lonely but she was just one person and not society. But society really is nothing but a heck of a lot of one person talking to another person.
 

Re:Lets look at this

[Eil]

1) Millions of people could be using something else.

Such as? I mean, billions of people worldwide don't read a newspaper on a daily basis. They just pass along important news orally. Ergo, you argue that newspapers everywhere are worthless, right?

2) "Following" people on Twitter is necessarily superficial compared to other media, which offer the same benefits without the message size limit.

So what's wrong with a tool that lets your friend know what you're up to and vice versa? It's a great way to keep your relationship with friends and family members up to date. Everyone is superficial in a social setting. You are being superficial here on Slashdot. People are superficial by nature, and always will be. Twitter doesn't magically change an otherwise deep and thoughtful person into, "OMG hav u seen britney l8ly? lol."

3) Instant knowledge of world events is available in many media, with Twitter again being more superficial than the others.

Oh yes. You must be talking about that other medium that you lets an entire cadre of friends know about something important that happened to you or that you heard about within minutes of it happening just by quickly shooting off a short message from a computer or cell phone. The non-superficial one.

4) No, it's a means by which protesters disseminate information. It worked in Iran because it's new and the government didn't know how to block it as well as other services at first. It has no inherent advantage in this area.

But you're missing the point that it worked. Better than instant messaging could have. Better than email could have. Better than blogs alone could have. That is important and while the Iranian people may not have achieved their goal, the event will probably earn at least a well-deserved footnote in history. How quickly governments can block Twitter has no bearing on its overall worth. If they control the country's communications, they can block any media.

5) Your point is preposterous. It allows for a deeper understanding of how people use Twitter, sure, but that's not valuable.

To say that there's nothing to be learned about human communication by studying it via a brand-new electronic communications medium is what I call preposterous. Since your so forthright with your opinions, I'm sure you won't mind contacting these researchers and telling them that their work is worthless.

6) And an inferior one at that.

Inferior to what? Concrete examples please, no weasling out with "everything" or "other media" like you have in this post. I'm really curious to know what exactly does Twitter's job better than Twitter. Without being, you know, superficial.

Re:Lets look at this

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously: can the elitist snobs on this board PLEASE accept the fact that Twitter & other social networking sites are sort-of-a big thing? Do you think there is remotely a chance that a "Slash Dot" effect would even put a minor dent in the Twitter service levels? When was the last time CNN had Slashdot as a headline?

I know you all hate it, and perhaps can not accept it, but Slashdot is becoming a dinosaur. Take the "holier-than-thou" attitude and stuff it.

There are plenty of people out there (read 'celebrities') that regularly reach 3 Million + fans with a single IM/Message from a cell phone, no middle-man involved. MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY.

How many visitors did this entire site receive today?

Re:Lets look at this

[tthomas48]

Because RSS feeds don't generally compress their summary down to 140 characters. I don't want to read the CDC's rss feed. I want 140 character updates on epidemics.

I feel like we're debating the merits of newspapers and magazines here. One can get the same information in both.

I also use twitter as a highly asynchronous chat client.

OMG.. what would CNN do?

[anup_at_mac]

Now that CNN's news reports are almost entirely dependent on twitter postings, I wonder that they would be doing? Oh the humanity !!!

In the news today

[OrangeTide]

Nations across the world increase their economic output by 78% as millions of people at work start doing their jobs again, temporarily suspending a world-wise recession.

Twitter != Reliable news source

[CodingHero]

3) Nearly instant knowledge of world events.

Instant AND not necessarily accurate. A two-for-one!

4) Allows protesters to disseminate information

Information that is more than likely one sided and ignorant of "the big picture" of any given event.

Re:Twitter != Reliable news source

[LaughingCoder]

When did the subject change to wikipedia?

Re:Twitter != Reliable news source

[LWATCDR]

"Instant AND not necessarily accurate. A two-for-one!"
Funny but I don't think I have ever found a news service that is perfectly accurate. Here is a correction that the New York Times published after only a few decades. http://tiny.cc/A4LxJ
And how many errors have we had on Slashdot?
CNN?
NPR?
BBC?
CBS?
ABC?
NBC?
Exactly which of these have never published something that was less than accurate?
I get updates from NASA, Engadget, and a few friends. Many people actually find it useful.
The correct way use Twitter is when you see some news flash up on it you then start checking the News sites. Think of Twitter as an alert system. When you get a blip you go and check it out. Also find some good sources to follow and you may find it very useful.
BTW even the I am eating dinner at X posts can be of use. When friends of mine eat at someplace I want to try and they post it then I can DM them and ask if it is worth trying myself.
The anti twitter people remind me of the people that just didn't understand why you would want that internet thing.
Yes twitter may end up as a flash in the pan but so far it has been useful for some people.

When good tweets go bad

[Ukab the Great]

Before tweet

Tell the new junior sysadmin to delete an account of a spammer who tweets our users. The SQL command to do this is delete from user_account where user_id = 2341234235;

After tweet

Tell the new junior sysadmin to delete an account of a spammer who tweets our users. The SQL command to do this is delete from user_account

So it's true. You really can do profound things limiting yourself to 140 characters.

In other news...

[cjb658]

...office productivity is up 50 percent today.

Twitter crashes for 90 minutes, nerds horrified

[David Gerard]

Twitter.com crashed on Thursday at about 3pm BST due to a "denial of twat" attack from thousands of virus-infected Windows PCs under the control of terrorist masterminds.

Stephen Fry has been hospitalised and is queueing messages from his PatientLine text terminal in readiness for the site returning. "Twatter ++ungood sweeties zomg I do believe I'm feeling a little faint."

The source of the attack is unknown, but is hypothesised to be either the Russian Mafia, the Iranian security forces, the Chinese government or Alan Davies recoiling from his latest humiliation on QI.

News agencies around the world condemned the attack, which hits at the root of their online news-gathering processes, and have had to resort to following the Wikipedia "Recent Changes" feed. "Apparently BUSH IS GAY LOLOLOL," says the current CNN front page headline. "Who knew?"

A new site, "Grunter," has attempted to take up the slack. Users of "Grunter" are freed from the wordy excesses of Twitter's 140-character limit and can post one of twelve pre-programmed onomatopoeic noises, such as "mmrph," "huh," "grah" or "tubgirl."

Popular teenage angst poetry blogging and fan fiction site LiveJournal was affected by a similar attack at about the same time, but that attack was considered "just as well, really."

Re:Twitter crashes for 90 minutes, nerds horrified

[maxume]

So how much incremental revenue to you figure you make when you post one of these?

Cause they are usually pretty lame, and you sure don't hesitate to throw them up.

The connotation of that last bit there was a happy accident.

Well...

[Comatose51]

Well I guess we know who has the biggest social network: Conflicker.

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

You should know.

Flutter

[vee-dub.net]

More motivation for all the Twitter users to start using Flutter instead.

Oh noes!11

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so does this mean I will never know how well NarcissistCunt6969's morning shit went, or whether ParisHiltonLOL saw P Diddy at the club last night?

OH NOES!!!!!1111111 IT AER TEH END FO TEH WROLD AZ I KNOWZ IT!!!!1111

P.S. Fuck Twitter and everyone who uses it

Re:Oh noes!11

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck John Cleese, Michael J. Nelson, and Michael Kupperman?

You're a lousy fucking geek. Use it for a week and I guarantee you will enjoy it, so long as you pick the right funny people. Good one liners out there.

Re:Oh noes!11

[Anonymous Coward]

So being entertained by a bunch of C-list celebrities is now the mark of a geek?

Making socially awkward references to the perpetually unfunny "Knights Who say Ni" or making fun of old movies does not make one a geek. And Kupperman? Who the fuck is that?

Discovering with science, or creating with technology, however, does. And the real geeks - who are producing, creating, and discovering - are too busy benefiting society with their work to bother with the inanity of telling everybody about their daily fiber intake in 140 characters or less.

I love it.

[ubrgeek]

The page at Wired.com with the story has a large graphic on the top, right part of the page saying readers can follow tech events via Twitter. Or, you know, not ... ;)

Twitter hype

[mrraven]

All the shallow newspeak condensation of texting with character limits with all the interactivity of e-mail circa 1975, as far far as I am concerned the twitter hype can't die fast enough. Fo course it makes $ many for large centralized corporations as shallow people update us on how they just finished eating a cheeseburger (isn't that fascinating?) so we dare not question it, right net.Libertarian$?

Re:Twitter hype

[rs79]

" Fo course it makes $ many for large centralized corporations as shallow people "

Makes money? Twitter?

Um... no.

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good! Buh-bye!!

No one cares!! ... except CNN, they made it front page news!

It's the Willow Creek Leadership Summit

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a nationwide simulcast conference with about 100,000 people, and they're pushing Twitter collaboration.

Evangelicals will be the downfall of science and technology.

I wonder where this made news first...

[usa1mac]

As many times as I've read that news stories were first reported on twitter, I wonder if this story "broke" on twitter.

Next site that needs DDoSed is.....

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot.org

Re:Next site that needs DDoSed is.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, no cuntdot fags want to waste a mod point to mod the parent down, that is why cuntdot needs DDoSed. Haha, this is your old buddy The Idle Troll, yup, I'm trolling main line shitdot. Have a nice day and get fucked in the ass!

How Will CNN Survive?!?

[MartinSchou]

Don't they get most of their stuff from Twitter these days?

Granted, I don't watch CNN and get my impression of them from The Daily Show, but judging by that coverage it seems like CNN is reduced to just reading aloud stuff from Twitter.

I'm still waiting for The Daily Show showing a clip showing a CNN host trying to read out "OMG PWNIES!!1!!111oneONE"

Twitter DDoS +usenet threats by FSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd how Twitter was threatened and Evan Williams and his wife were impersonated on-line on various usenet groups by Richard M. Scoville of the FreeSpeechStore.com. Now we see a DDoS attack on Twitter? I think the coincedence is too strong!

http://groups.google.ca/group/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet/browse_thread/thread/87bce3a2146fa043?hl=en#

Re:Who is hitting it that hard?

[beanyk]

I disagree, unless "segway" means anything apart from the Jeff Bezos creation.

"Segue" is pronounced "segway", and is almost certainly what the product name was evoking.

Unique architecture?

[TheLink]

What's so special about Twitter's architecture?

Is DDoSing the login servers difficult?

Social Problems

[SEWilco]

Obviously someone has social problems.

Whale FAIL!

[PhotonSphere]

Not even the fail whale was working...

All The News That Fits in 144 Characters

[SEWilco]

Oh, I don't think it is particularly informative to waste resources in putting Twits on the air.
Unless the Twits are reading news that actual reporters with active brains have found.

What if a celebrity dies?

[Nick Fel]

How will we find out about it without Twitter's trending topics? How did we used to find out about these things?

In other news ...

[daveywest]

Analysts report office productivity skyrocketed today.

"When I couldn't get on Twitter and Facebook, I figured I might as well get some work done," said one office denizen.

Early reports indicate the single-day increased domestic output may have propelled the country of the recession ...

My First thought was this

[BOUND4DOOM]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Re:My First thought was this

[Majik Sheff]

We're talking about twitter. This is the equivalent of running a steam roller over a chipmunk farm: Somewhat disturbing, oddly hilarious, and ultimately a loss of nothing but a bunch of chattering rodents.

Re:My First thought was this

[rs79]

"We're talking about twitter. This is the equivalent of running a steam roller over a chipmunk farm: Somewhat disturbing, oddly hilarious, and ultimately a loss of nothing but a bunch of chattering rodents."

That's what some poeple say about slashdot.

I've bashed twitter more than anybody I know, but I will admit now it's actually useful for some things.

Opinions about the marginal utility of various internet services notwithstanding, when any site is targeted it hurts us all.

Re:My First thought was this

[Shakrai]

That's what some poeple say about slashdot.

At least slashdot gives loud mouthed assholes like me more than 140 characters to express our opinions that nobody else cares about ;)

Re:My First thought was this

[teknopurge]

parent should be modded insightful, not funny. People need to get a grip on web 2.0 BS.....

Re:My First thought was this

[Anonymous Coward]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I feel something wonderful has happened.

I like my version better. :-)

Re:My First thought was this

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what some poeple say about slashdot.

And that is justified. Even if I like browsing slashdot and from time to time enjoy the stupid arguments I would ridicule everyone who acts like something of value is gone when slashdot goes down.

Re:My First thought was this

[Krizdo4]

At least two people care at this point since you've been modded to 3.

Re:My First thought was this

[Doctor O]

I've bashed twitter more than anybody I know, but I will admit now it's actually useful for some things.

Like what? I'm not bashing Twitter, I just keep reading "it's useful for something" without ever having seen any example whatsoever.

Re:My First thought was this

[stoned_hamster]

>. +5 freakin' hillarious also, kinda like lemmings.....

Re:My First thought was this

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of the karma bonus asshole?

Re:Who is hitting it that hard?

[clone53421]

Yeah. Almost like he tried to come up with a bad analogy.

Iran ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't mess with Iran?

Hurray!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now maybe people can connect in person...wait, scratch that, they'll just move over to their Myspace, Facebook, Cell Phone, one of their dozens of Instant Messenger accounts, Forums, IRC, Blogs, Email, News Groups...(forgive me for anything I missed).

Usenet is a peer to peer network.

[John Hasler]

> I would look at is P2P networking, followed by Usenet...

Usenet is the original peer to peer network.

Re:Usenet is a peer to peer network.

[betterunixthanunix]

I should probably have been more specific about that -- I was referring to Internet P2P networks, where every user's computer is a node on the network, as opposed to Usenet as it is today, where the nodes are NNTP servers that the users connect to.

Re:Usenet is a peer to peer network.

[tsm_sf]

dammit guys, what's the first rule of usenet? AND the second?

Re:Usenet is a peer to peer network.

[rs79]

" dammit guys, what's the first rule of usenet? AND the second?" "

(waves) I know! I know! Can I answer this?

1) There is no Cabal.
2) Dinette set for sale in New Jersey - $35.

Good

[Redlite]

Facebook and Twitter are the blight of the internet.

Summary wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter is a service, the messages are tweets. The users however are twats not tweeters. Taco please correct this egregious error.

Brevity

[AlpineR]

6) It's another tool for expression.

6) And an inferior one at that.

"If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter." - Proust (?)

Brevity, simplicity, and disposability are good things for many messages. I'm learning to like a communication stream with brief updates that I can parse in three seconds or ignore when I'm busy without an email program exclaiming that I have fifty messages unread.

And something of value was gained - maybe

[davidwr]

As I write this the first item on Google News is Could YOU be responsible for the Twitter outage?

The story says if you don't keep your computer clean of viruses you could be partly responsible.

Hopefully, a few of the people with insecure computers will get tired of being pwned and take back their machine. I would call that a plus.
==

Could YOU be responsible for the Twitter outage?
CNET News - Larry Magid - 43 minutes ago
Of course you're not personally responsible for bringing down Twitter, but if your computer isn't equipped with up-to-date anti-malware software and the latest version of your operating system, you could unwittingly be part of the ...
Facebook Confirms Problems, But Is It an Attack? PC Magazine
Twitter Hit By 'Denial-Of-Service' Attack Wall Street Journal
Computerworld - InformationWeek - Los Angeles Times - PC World
all 821 news articles
Email this story
BBC News

All those "I've having X for lunch" tweets

[sarkeizen]

...lost! Oh the humanity.

Perhaps this is just me but...probably what you had for lunch is pretty low on most peoples "care-dar". When I get together with my friends...know how often we talk about lunch...almost never. Know how may SMSs I've received about peoples lunch? or IMs or emails for that matter? Those figures hang pretty close to zero too. But Twitter? From my modest sampling of tweets it seems like it's pretty close to mandatory to shoutout about your ingestibles. I can think of some reasons for why this particular subject comes up but the real revelation for tweeters (or twits or whatever you call yourselves) should be that MOST OF YOU ARE REACHING PRETTY DAMN FAR TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT!!

Re:All those "I've having X for lunch" tweets

[Culture20]

I had 3 chicken tenders, a small fry, and a large drink because they ran out of small cups.

Re:All those "I've having X for lunch" tweets

[Cro Magnon]

The DDos messed up the tweeting about lunch, but with any luck it will be back in time for them to inform you when their lunch is leaving their bodies.

Re:All those "I've having X for lunch" tweets

[SheeEttin]

Or maybe they're just answering Twitter's question of "What are you doing?".

Re:Since I cannot access Twitter..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is too long, go get a blog.

Protesters in Iran forced this

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of governments who will need to be able to break Twitter before they can impose their will on their people.
This was nicely demonstrated during the post election troubles in Iran.

To be fair

[earnest murderer]

It's all been bullshit since Tim Berners-Lee wrote his first href.

Really?

[Wolfger]

Dude, I am so going to Tweet thi....
I am so going to Dent this!

WTF...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is Twitter ?

Coincidence?

[oncebitten]

Twitter/Facebook down, recession declared over.

Coincidence? I think not...

yeaaaaaa

[Anonymous Coward]

That is awesome i always wanted to do that

Tweeters?

[No-Cool-Nickname]

Runner... run
Swimmer... swim
Twitters... twit?

must be diarrhea at the twittering toilet

[peter303]

People are making all their appliances twitter now.

Re: Twitter Offline Due To DDoS

[BabaG1]

this is about organizing for u.s. health care reform.

Why DDoS twitter?

[GameboyRMH]

What's the point in DDoS twitter?

For EPIC lulz. You don't need to be a troll to appreciate the awesome hilarity in sending every twit and twitter-obsessed news channel into a panicked tizzy over a stupid microblogging site. The whole dumb world has gone nuts over the most trivial thing on the planet. I think this is the most raw unadulterated fun you could have with a botnet. If it was me I'd probably end up literally killing myself with laughter!

Re:Why DDoS twitter?

[JohnnyComeLately]

Thanks for explaining. I guess it's a bit hypocritical of me to not see the hilarity. I can appreciate a good teabagging and taunting during/after a game, but doing a DDoS just seems pointless against a social networking site. OK, so all these people are nuts about nothing. OK...so? Which is more retarded? You spent the time to do it, or that they spent the time complaining? You mention if it was you, you'd use it to get a laugh. Me, if I'm going to be doing illegal malicious acts, it's going to be for something productive (profit$). To use the overused analogy, it's the equiv to stealing a car to joy ride two blocks.

Iranian government could be behind this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a note that Mir-Hossein Mousavi's facebook account with 114,779 supporters has been compromised and got deleted this morning as well! It is speculated that these attacks at Facebook and Twitter are related to supressen of Iranian social network activities.

http://iran.whyweprotest.net/news-current-events/27068-mousavis-facebook-deleted.html

Mousavi is part of Iran's Green Movement and was the presidential candidate that had his election victory stolen form him by Ahmadinejad in a velvet coup. Also many of the frequently visited websites that supported Mousavi are getting shutdown, including arrest of Mir-Hamid Hassanzadeh, the director of Mousaviâ(TM)s web site. http://bit.ly/N83cS

Re:Iranian government could be behind this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a list of all the reformist Facebook accounts that got deleted today! So all of the vocal and public supporters of Mousavi had their accounts compromised.
http://www.facebook.com/mousavi
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zahra-Rahnavard-/79757303129ÃZ
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Mirdamadi-/129589377387ÃZ
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Abdollah-Ramezanzadeh/104800577446
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Behzad-Nabavi-/112121917445

Scala doesn't scale

[janwedekind]

What now?

And, yet again, the uninformed panic.

[Doug52392]

Watch the average Twitter user try to figure out what a "DDoS" is in real-time! This is even funnier than the swine flu scare...

My favorite so far: "DDoS? So it's like a terrorist attack on the Internet???".

Re:And, yet again, the uninformed panic.

[rs79]

My favorite so far: "DDoS? So it's like a terrorist attack on the Internet???""

That's right muffy, a bomb went off at Internet headquarters.

Why the hell would anyone do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, the Iranian revolution is still in progress. Oppressed people elsewhere also use Twitter for communication. Whoever did this is either a government agent or incredibly irresponsible...

Re:Who is hitting it that hard?

[Limburgher]

Or possibly Dean Kamen?

Sorry ... pulled the wrong cable

[cyberspittle]

Patch panels can be so confusing. My bad.

How come nobody sponsors them?

[Ilgaz]

I wonder how come no company sponsors Twitter which will just appear as banner in "About" page.

For example, Turkish fast food ordering site yemeksepeti.com has "Powered by Sun" banner, a tiny banner who doesn't disturb anyone (most have no clue anyway) and when someone in IT business spot it, they say "hmm, it is ASP powered and runs on Sun blades. Perhaps Sun should be considered for our next IT expense."

For something sized like Twitter, unless there is a huge flaw in how it is designed, IBM who struggles to explain why mainframe needed could step up, say "Twitter was having serious issues and thanks to our mainframe solution which is spread to 5 continents, the issues are over"

If I ever needed some kind of massive bandwidth and uptime, "Rack Space" would come to my mind. Why? Slashdot. Basic as that. I am sure there are other hosting providers which can handle that load but I use Slashdot daily and never seen it down, even on 9/11. Most people who are interested in how things work knows slashdot is hosted on rack space, uses perl etc. Just like when someone talks about "FreeBSD is dead, netcraft confirms it", you just reply "yahoo.com".

Onion Humour

[Balial]

Reminds me of this funny little piece: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/myspace_outage_leaves_millions

s/myspace/twitter/g

I've just onto Twitter

[Master of Transhuman]

for the last few weeks, so naturally it falls over immediately, like everything else computer-related I get involved in for the last X years...As Woody Allen says, "Nothing works and nobody cares."

I was just tweeting Gavin Bonnar (Sharon Corr's husband) about how he could get more followers than his wife - just offer free concert tickets to anyone who follows him. Instant 5,000 followers! But then I told him he'd then owe her money. LOL

Following celebrities on Twitter is fun. Lisa Rinna once tweeted that she was stuck in traffic and had to pee.

tell that to the Iranian democracy protestors

[alizard]

using Twitter. . . never mind, you can't.

the most interesting use of twitter

[alizard]

I know of, other than the use Iranian democracy protesters are making of it, is real-time messages on what's going on in Congressional and state legislator committee meetings closed to the media.

What are people complaining about re: Twitter news

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, a while back when we were discussing the potential fall of the traditional news media, and decrying attempts at making their business more commercial (just like they would charge for papers and commercials on TV), people said that they would just find a competitor that was still free; until no more free competitors would exist, and then find their news on blogs, facebook, and twitter, claiming they're far less biased, etc. etc. as well.

So there you have it.. the new media are just giving you what you were going to go with anyway

But everybody's complaining? puh-lease.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

Wooo, Twitter (a glorified shoutbox from a web forum) is off-line... ON NOES!1!11

Whoosh!

[dkf]

100 is the average.

Do you hear that noise over your head?

Google too?

[ockegheim]

On the way home I read that "Google was also targeted but was able to fend off the assault", but now that I'm home, Gmail is timing out.

Of course I'd normally be broadcasting this information on Twitter, but I don't have an account.

when they find the hackers.....

[stoned_hamster]

i hope the first thing people will do is hand them a check for $10mill and personally thank them on behalf of the rest of the sane world.