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Posted on Aug 06, 2009 - 10:50am by John P. in News
So, for those of you who don’t know it, the world’s most popular micro-blogging platform, Twitter has been completely down for over two and a half hours so far today due to a Denial of Service attack.
Now, Twitter goes down pretty regularly. It’s difficult to scale up this rapidly for any business. But this is the first time that I can remember it being down for so long in a single block, especially in a critical part of the day. And it’s not just that they are serving up their standard “over capacity” message. The entire Web site has vanished!
I think the interesting thing about this is that it should emphasize how vulnerable we all are to relying on a single communication network with our contacts. It demonstrates why having multiple social systems is a good thing. If Twitter is down, one should be able to hop on FaceBook and stay in touch.
I’ve been on Facebook via Seesmic Desktop, but, I’ve actually had trouble logging in there, too. Not sure if that’s better yet. I’ve even buckled down and opened up FriendFeed – the one I don’t really like all that much.
Come back, Twitter!!! We need you!!!!!!!!!! :P
I`m not that much into twitter thou…so didnt effect me much ;)
Neither did it affect me…but I agree with you relying on a single communication network can be problematic in situations like these.
Too many users on twitter? I dont think so, more of a security or backup exercise.
Facebook was being targeted at the same time. I use Skype as an IM service, and their status updates could also double up as a twitter or FB type status. We are actually far too reliant on technology. We suffered a power failure earlier this morning, and boy was I loast for the next 45 minutes!
Twitter is increasingly important to international affairs. I agree with you that this reaffirms the need for various communications networks. This recent attack may be a job for the President’s new Cybersecurity Czar. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502104.html
Please note that the previous link to the Washington Post works if you remove the period from the end.