Techmeme
October 4, 2021, 9:25 PM

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Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Facebook's services are returning online after suffering a global outage for over six hours  —  Update: 5:55 p.m. ET: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger are slowly but surely coming back up after more than 6 hours of being down.  Your mileage may vary for now, but the services are in the process of coming back to life.
More: Krebs on Security, The Verge, Kentik, The Independent, NME, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, news.com.au, Toronto Star, CNET, Decrypt, The Verge, VICE, Reuters, New York Times, BleepingComputer, VICE, Yahoo Finance, Snopes.com, PYMNTS.com, The Economic Times, Forbes, 9to5Google, CNBC, Benzinga, Threatpost, WTRF-TV, Los Angeles Times, Gizmodo, iPhone in Canada Blog, CNN, FrontPageTech.com, The Atlantic, techadvisor.com, iTnews, TechCrunch, Insider, Fast Company, iLounge, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Wccftech, Variety, PCMag, Neowin News Feed for, KnowTechie, The Guardian, XDA Developers, Times of India, phonearena.com, CRN, MUO, Memeburn, and WTRF-TV
Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook
Tom Strickx / The Cloudflare Blog:
Cloudflare says prior to Facebook's outage, Facebook issued several BGP updates, causing DNS resolution errors that knocked Facebook off the web  —  “Facebook can't be down, can it?”, we thought, for a second.  —  Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled …
New York Times:
Facebook employees and an internal memo say that, several hours into the incident, Facebook's security experts were still trying to identify the root issue  —  When apps used by billions of people worldwide blinked out, lives were disrupted, businesses were cut off from customers …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
As WSJ's Facebook Files suggest, Facebook seems to be in a slow, steady decline, evidenced by frenetic pivots, executive paranoia, and talent attrition  —  A trove of leaked documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, hints at a company whose best days are behind it.
Scott Pelley / CBS News:
Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Review of the now-released Windows 11: improved modern UI and sounds, but many promised features like Android apps are missing and new taskbar is a step back  —  Microsoft's new OS is a work in progress  —  Microsoft wants Windows 11 to feel familiar.  While the company has attempted drastic changes …
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
Filing: Syniverse, which routes texts for AT&T, Verizon, and others, says hackers had access to its databases and customer logins for 5 years; logins were reset  —  Syniverse handles billions of text messages a year, and hackers had unauthorized access to its system for years.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Apple starts letting users report scammy apps from their App Store listings through its Report a Problem button  —  The ‘Report a Problem’ button is back  —  One month ago, we laid out a list of eight obvious things Apple could do to prove it puts App Store users ahead of profits.
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Android 12 review: big design improvements led by Material You, but the new widgets will need dev support to shine; Pixel phones get the update in a few weeks  —  There are a just a few noteworthy features in this design-focused update  —  The most exciting thing about a big Android update …
Harrison Weber / dot.LA:
In a blow to online streaming services, over 50,000 backstage movie and TV workers vote to authorize a strike after their union's demands were not met  —  Ratcheting up the stakes in an already tense labor battle, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) …
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Amazon says Prime members can send gifts with a phone number or email address, no physical address required, rolling out to mobile users in the continental US  —  There's currently no way to opt out of the new feature  —  Amazon is launching a new gifting feature today that will allow subscribers …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Stable, a risk management platform to help businesses limit their exposure to potential volatility in commodity prices, raises $46.5M Series A led by Greycroft  —  Stable, an insurtech aiming to help minimize a businesses' risk due to volatile commodity prices, today announced …

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