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Microsoft

Microsoft's DNS Down 603

Posted by CmdrTaco from the immeasurably-irrelevant dept.
Everybody and their brother has submitted what has to be the least interesting story in months. Microsoft's DNS server is down. I haven't visited their web site in months and I don't care in the slightest, but if I don't post this, I'm going to spend the next 48 hours deleting 2,000 submissions about it as zillions of people somehow think that this matters. Yup. Its down. Ye haw. Do you people actually visit microsoft.com? It didn't even render under Netscape for the longest time. I can't remember the last time I intentionally went to that site. There's just no need. (Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes ;)
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Microsoft's DNS Down More

Microsoft's DNS Down

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  • whois amazon.com:
    AMAZON.COM.SHOULD.SELL.SEXTOYSONLINE.COM
    whois yahoo.com:
    YAHOO.COM.IS.TRYING.TO.STEAL.YAHOO.VU.HOW.ACIDULOU S.COM
    whois slashdot.org:
    SLASHDOT.ORG.SUCKS.COMPARED.TO.JIMPHILLIPS.ORG
    whois netscape.com:
    NETSCAPE.COM.SHOULD.SHAKE.OFF.ITS.CHAINS.AND.FUCKA OL.ORG
    NETSCAPE.COM.SHOULD-DUMP.AOL-AND-REHIRE.JWZ.BUT.CH ECK-OUT.JIMPHILLIPS.ORG
    whois aol.com:
    AOL.COM.IS.REGULARLY.HAX0RED.BY.INSIDE-AOL.COM
    AOL.COM.HACKED.BY.PSYKOJOKO.ON.A.ROOT-NETWORK.COM
    whois microsoft.com:
    MICROSOFT.COM.HACKED.BY.PSYKOJOKO.ON.A.ROOT-NETWOR K.COM
    MICROSOFT.COM.IS.NO.MATCH.FOR.THE.UEBER-GEEKS.AT.J IMPHILLIPS.ORG

    I don't know about anyone else, but I see a theme...

  • more MS bashing! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    geez...is this the most blatant "I hate MS" post in a long time or what?!?
  • "Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes "

    The normal rant about MSFT around here is that one has to wait a long time for a service pack to come out with fixes to known bugs and security holes. So which is? Do they come frequently or infrequently?

  • If nothing else, this should make everybody question the wisdom of using .NET
  • Hey, maybe they're getting ready to tell the world that this kind of thing wouldn't happen if the entire Internet ran on Active Directory (tm) instead of ordinary DNS! (Moderators: it's a joke. Put yer flamebait points away.)
    --
  • If you find Windows in either version usefull, then please be happy and use it. Nobody will care about you using both systems, as well as nobody cares about every other guy that just uses Linux or Windows.

    Out there are so many OSes, and almost every of them has something that others can't do better, simply because its designed for that. Windows for example has two or three main advantages: first, it's widely spread and therefore a lot of people know how to work with it, and second, it pretends being easy-to-use. (A third advantage is e.g. you can't hack the root acount ;) )

    Others have other advantages, and everyone should use that operation system that he thinks is best for the job.

    And I find it interesting that the DNS Server of microsoft crashed, interesting in the same way as the hack of www.apache.org (if those guys don't know how to setup a secure webserver, who should know then?), and also as the newsitem about some MS Services like hotmail running Unices, simply because MS's products didn't do the job.

  • I now expect to lose Karma for criticizing Slashdot. Of course, if I cared about Karma, I wouldn't post this response...
    Why is it that every response that has something to the effect of "Now, I know I'll be modded down for this..." always get modded up?

    Human nature. I believe the thought process goes something like "I'm no bigot. I'll show this guy how tolerant we are of alternative viewpoints by moderating him up!"

    Am I the only guy who noticed this, or did ChaoticCoyote know it too?

    It's fairly widely known around the people who've been on /. for a while. Certainly everybody that uses the technique does - but, unfortunately, many moderators haven't realized it yet. Unfortunately, complaining about this tends to draw a bunch of people telling you to stop bitching.

    And if he did know it, doesnt that mean that he does care about karma?

    Undoubtedly, or if not karma, at least a +5 so he can shout his views with a karmic megaphone (geez, I like that phrase :)

    The solution? My personal moderation policy is that anybody who uses the phrase "I know I'm going to be modded down for this" or similar, gets exactly what they ask for - moderation down.

  • Who the hell still runs IE2? You can get IE3 for Win3.1. You can't run Asheron's Call under DOS either.

    Look at microsoft.com in lynx sometime (not a framed one, try w3m for that). Now try netscape.com.
    --
  • I'm beginning to wonder what's going on, because earthlink.net [earthlink.net]'s DNS servers were down last nite, too.

    Is someone out there attacking DNS servers?

    Just an irrational suspicion...

  • The article said that they hadn't been cracked. So I guess this was a natural response of their own software running on their own-ed hardware.

    Which is scarier, that M$ would be that vulnerable to cracking, which wasn' the case this time, or that not even M$ is capable of defending itself against its own products?

    Check into access security systems which monitor traffic through doors and other entry/exit points from secure facilities. NONE are running anything by M$. They're ALL run on Unix platforms.
  • The Windows Internet platform defaults to so many
    aspects of microsoft.com- hotmail, passport, msn,
    outlook- and is mostly disabled today. You'd
    think that the company that wants to become the
    NET computing platform would have better reliability
    and defence against hacking.
  • Straight from the source...

    "At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (PST), a Microsoft technician made a configuration change to the routers on the edge of Microsoft's Domain Name Server network..."

    More Info [microsoft.com]

  • Actually MS has all of their servers in the same location (Microsoft evidently believes that the world ends in Redmond) as their DNS servers, and therefore what good would Geographical Dispersity have helped when after resolving the IP you still have to goto Redmond for the web page?
  • This stuff about Windows needing service packs often is bull. Linux has far more service packs, because Microsft updates things all at once whereas with Linux you have to update individually.

    I fail to see how this is an advantage - Microsoft service packs are notorious for fixing some things and breaking others. Far better to only have to upgrade things you care about. This probably brings the number of updates you have to get about on par with the number of Microsoft updates, except that you can more closely control the number of changes that you do at once.

    Hell my grandmother could install a Windows service pack, but I can't see her upgrading bind when a security hole's found in that.

    Your grandma's running bind? She rocks! But seriously, all you have to do is get the RPM/DEB in response to the security bulletin from your distribution's security list, open up your favorite package manager front-end, click on the package, and then quit once it's installed. Doesn't sound too tough for Grandma if she could already click through a Windows upgrade. If Grandma's running Debian she can even get the updates automated and never mess with them again.

    And of course Grandma can upgrade bind a couple hours after the hole is found if she's interested; who knows how long she'd wait for a Service Pack?

    We keep hearing from you how Slashdot is becoming the newspaper for the new millennium, how people are taking notice of it, and how it ranks alongside traditional media...

    Actually, that was jonkatz :) I totally agree on the spelling issue, though - it's at the point where I just skip some of the good Cmdr's articles, because it's too difficult to determine what he's getting at. I've never understood why bright, motivated people don't have the same regard for the impression their words make that they have for the way that their code runs.

    (b) you're going to have to learn about journalistic standards. If you expect to be taken seriously, you can't write like that - you can't show such prejudice, and you can't show such a casual dismissal of America's biggest company.

    Oh, c'mon. Journalistic standards vary widely; although CmdrTaco's screed wasn't particularly literate or well-reasoned (I would have rated it Flamebait too) it falls within the realm of so-called journalism from the Microsoft Linux Myths page or from ZDNet et al. The sad truth is that yellow journalism is alive and well in the modern tech press on all sides of a given issue.

  • Actually, SSL Certificates are IP-neutral, they tie a domain name to a business. If you can steal the certificate, the corresponding private key, and hack the DNS traffic, you are now the valid site, technologically speaking.

  • Who gets to be the Certificate Authority? Are they going to charge as much as current commercial CAs do to verify your identity?
  • I am not sure if microsoft's DNS is down or just fscked up. I can't access it by http://www.microsoft.com [microsoft.com] but I can with http://microsoft.com [microsoft.com]


    "When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
  • I don't know which system is hacked
    but that's not a normal whois-query:

    dollyb /root# whois microsoft.com

    Whois Server Version 1.3

    Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
    with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
    for detailed information.

    Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.WILL.LIVE.FOREVER.BUT.LUNIX.SUCKS-BY BIRTH.ARTISTICCHEESE.COM
    IP Address: 209.191.22.24
    Registrar: CORE INTERNET COUNCIL OF REGISTRARS
    Whois Server: whois.corenic.net
    Referral URL: www.corenic.net

    Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.SHOULD.GIVE.UP.BECAUSE.LINUXISGOD.CO M
    IP Address: 207.10.88.13
    Registrar: INTERNET DOMAIN REGISTRARS
    Whois Server: whois.registrars.com
    Referral URL: www.registrars.com

    Server Name: MICROSOFT.COM.SE.FAIT.HAX0RIZER.PAR.TOUT.LE.ZOY.OR G
    IP Address: 138.12.12.12
    Registrar: GANDI
    Whois Server: whois.gandi.net
    Referral URL: www.gandi.net

  • No shit this is irrelevant.

    But most of the slashdot community these days seems to be composed of 14 year old linux script kiddie hacker wannabies who think this is earth shattering news.

    Maybe we need a new website. Posting stories such as "How to haxx0r" and "MS website is down for the 48924th time this week". It will be "News for kiddies. Stuff thats l337."

    This will leave slashdot for the real intellects. Who knows, it might just work ...

    D
  • > Windows 2000 is quite stable--as many others have pointed out in past postings. My Win2K system runs continuously for weeks at a time, without glitch or problem, despite my use of games and unusual hardware.

    Weeks at at time!

    There has been a raging argument about this in comp.os.linux.advocacy for the past few weeks, and some guy finally went and looked up all the Hot 100 sites using Netcraft's uptime counters, and the results looked pretty dismal for W2K.

    I suppose someday I'll be bothered to learn how to href a usenet article, but meanwhile I'll just direct you to c.o.l.a. and tell you to look for a recent thread with "Hot 100" in the subject line.

    To avoid undue suspense, I'll tip you off that the average uptime for sites based on W2K was about 19 days, or about half what the Linux sites were getting and 1/3 of what the Solaris sites had.

    So. I'm sure W2K is nice for people who are in to that kind of thing, but I were trying to sell people on it I wouldn't push it on the basis of its uptimes.

    --
  • That's just a bunch of perfectly legitimate host ercords at internic.
    Whois doesn't return the domain registration info for a single domain, it first does a substring search for the given string.
    In this case, it shows every single registered host record that has 'microsoft.com' as part of it's name.

    Many domains do this.. it's not a hack, it's not even anything at all.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Especially considering - well actually *not* considering - the high percentage of people who read slashdot.org from an IE browser. I do, and usually visit windowsupdate.microsoft.com regularly. IE5.5 is fine/great for me, except recently kuro5hin has the ability to crash it... :-\
  • I agree that Microsoft is a very important force for people to deal with in the real world. But, all that aside, here in my non-real college student world, I am *very* interested to read that MS is having DNS problems because it makes me HAPPY! I am very happy to see just about anything go wrong at the Empire, and I think a lot of /.'ers feel the same way. Their DNS problem is going to make me smile all the way through my networking class! :>
  • if you look at the uptime charts on netcraft or uptimes.net, you'll notice that win2k doesn't even compare to some of the *ix based OSes.

    ...and you'll also notice that Windows 2000 has been out of beta for less than a year, whereas UNIX has been around for decades. Of course someone who installed BSD on a box back in 1993 and left it there will have a higher uptime than someone who put Win2K on a box last year. That's because Win2K didn't exist in 1993. Talk about unfair comparisons...

    As the sole developer of the only GUI uptimes.net client for Windows, I spend a good bit of my time explaining to people how comparing Win2K uptimes with *NIX uptimes is comparing apples to oranges. It's gotten to the point now where I just don't even care anymore. If ya' can't figure it out fer yerself, I ain't gonna explain it.

    --

  • I'm a programmer, by the way. ;)

    --

  • Damn straight. Couldn't have said it better myself.

    I run several Windows 2000 servers myself, and I also use Windows 2000 as my full-time desktop OS at home and at work. At one point, I had a web server running Windows 2000 Server RC2, serving a popular dynamic (ASP/MSSQL-driven) site, on hardware that didn't meet Windows' minimum requirements. The server stayed up (and perfectly stable) for 155 days before I finally had to shut it down to move it to my new apartment. And this was on a beta version of Windows, on sub-standard hardware! My desktop installation (running a non-beta version, on hardware that surpasses the OS's requirements) has an average uptime of over 20 days, and this is a machine that I use for software development, testing, and games. Even then, I usually only reboot it to install new hardware or upgrade software. Crashes are very infrequent.

    What too many Microsoft-haters fail to realize is that Windows 2000 can be every bit as stable as your favorite *NIX OS. It's not that stable right out of the box (nor is any *NIX distro), but if you tweak it just right and run things smartly, you'll have a server that could take on anything in an uptime contest.

    In the interests of not getting modded down for redundancy, I won't go into detail about how retarded this bias is that so many *NIX users (especially that punk CmdrTaco) have against Microsoft.

    --

  • My day job's responsibilities include making sure mail from us actually gets to Microsoft, so here's what we did on our postfix mail gateway - I figure others out there would like to know how to do the same thing.

    Create an /etc/postfix/transport file with the contents:

    microsoft.com smtp:[131.107.3.124]
    .microsoft.com smtp:[131.107.3.124]

    (.124 is mail2.microsoft.com; .125 is mail1, which is apparently down right now.)

    Put this in your /etc/postfix/main.cf:

    transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport

    Reload or restart postfix and have it flush all the mail. It might take a while, especially if you have a lot of mail queued up. To speed things up, try these two settings:

    default_destination_concurrency_limit = 200
    qmgr_site_hog_factor = 100

  • Oh, I know where we would be without Microsoft. We would have cheaper, faster computers with better sound and graphics, easier to program for, easier to use, and not requireing a weekly reboot and a 6-month reinstall cycle.

    Thats where we would be. Because that is the history of computers that we have.

  • How many times has Rob talked about Diablo II? And then on the front page he starts talking about "if you run Windows." Well, rob, you do too. Sometimes it just gets rediculous with the Linux sensationalism.

    Yes I use and Love linux and it's my primary OS on all of my computers (excpet the Mac IIsi (no FPU yet)). but I have windows on my workstation to do things like play games, hard disk multi-track recording, and to view quicktime movies.

  • A quick whois microsoft.com shows they are running 4 dns servers all on the same /24 network. What kind of "network professional" did this. Most likely the idiot illegally claims to be an engineer as well.

    What ever happened to putting your dns servers on separate networks? It used to be a requirement to register a domain. At least hotmail got it almost right... too bad they link to passport.com which didn't.
  • I agree that's incompetent, but it isn't the problem in this case. I can ping all of them; they're alive, and the router on the subnet is alive. Their problem appears to be that their reverse DNS tables are shagged, so the servers don't know their own identities. Mind you, that incompetent too, but it's a different kind of incompetent.
  • How many times has Taco stated that he posts what he finds to be interesting, nothing less, nothing more. For the most part that happens to be "news for nerds, stuff that matters" but not always. Taco doesn't use windows so M$ having dns problems isn't important to him.

    Keep in mind also that this site isn't meant to be a news portal for IT professionals but a news site for Linux using geek-types in general about things that interest us outside of our professional lives (ignore for a minute that for most geek types there is a fair bit of crossover between work stuff and personal stuff.) With that in mind, I agree with Taco, that one company that makes software I don't use having dns problems is not worthy of a headline on the front page of /.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Ahem!:

    Main Entry: their
    Pronunciation: [th]&r, '[th]er, '[th]ar
    Function: adjective
    Etymology: Middle English, from their, pronoun, from Old Norse theirra, genitive plural demonstrative & personal pronoun; akin to Old English thæt that
    Date: 13th century
    1 : of or relating to them or themselves especially as possessors, agents, or objects of an action <their furniture> <their verses> <their being seen>
    2 : his or her : HIS, HER, ITS-- used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent <anyone in their senses -- W. H. Auden>
    usage see THEY

    So if you consider "everybody" to be singular then it seems that at least Mirriam-Webster's agrees that "their" is appropriate usage.

    There's nothing like flaming a grammar flamer flaming another grammar flamer for grammar.

  • who cares about dns, when I couldn't even upgrade an nt4 re-install. "sure", sez i to myself, "i can just update the rest over the net, using the bundled browser." big bro microsoft had other ideas.

    of course, their latest websites haven't even rendered in ie2 ... this is their own software that doesn't display their own website. feh.

  • I'm picking on you, specifically, because you're convenient, but the same goes for everyone else posting this.

    First of all, you are the fourth person to post the exact same thing, on page 12 of the comments...I can only imagine hoe many more times it has already been posted.

    Not only this, but your post follows two explanations -- one nicely written, one a flame -- on this page alone explaining why you are wrong.

    None of those entries are for microsoft.com's domain, except the last one, which is microsoft.com. The rest? "MICROSOFT.COM.GUTS.NL" is for guts.nl. "MICROSOFT.COM.MUST.STOP.TAKEDRUGS.ORG" is for takedrugs.org. See the pattern?

    Anyone can buy a domain, create microsoft.sucks.mydomain.com, and get it to show up on WHOIS.

    Of course you'll never be modded up. You are wrong, you have been proven wrong multiple times, and you are highly redundant.

    --

  • [this is a repost from here [slashdot.org] because I'm getting sick of seeing these posts.

    First of all, you are the fifth person to post the exact same thing, on page 12 of the comments...I can only imagine how many more times it has already been posted.

    Not only this, but your post follows two explanations -- one nicely written, one a flame -- on this page alone explaining why you are wrong.

    None of those entries are for microsoft.com's domain, except the last one, which is microsoft.com. The rest? "MICROSOFT.COM.GUTS.NL" is for guts.nl. "MICROSOFT.COM.MUST.STOP.TAKEDRUGS.ORG" is for takedrugs.org. See the pattern?

    Anyone can buy a domain, create microsoft.sucks.mydomain.com, and get it to show up on WHOIS.

    Of course you'll never be modded up. You are wrong, you have been proven wrong multiple times, and you are highly redundant.

    --

  • As of 4:50PM PST, they're back up. No apology or explanation on the home page.
  • All I have to say is that MSN being down is bad. I do ISP tech support. Does anybody really want to know in this past week how many people have called thinking their internet was down, because their MSN home page didn't come up?
    *twitch*
  • You were given bad inforamtion. There is no such piece of software as `Optiionn Pack 4'. You want the `Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack'. No wonder the MS respresentative was confused.

    FYI, the Windows NT 4.0 Option pack includes IIS, Transaction Server, Certificate Server, Index server, and various other bits and pieces.

  • Everybody is singular? What's the plural form? Everybodies?

    Everyone

  • I now expect to lose Karma for criticizing Slashdot. Of course, if I cared about Karma, I wouldn't post this response...

    Why is it that every response that has something to the effect of "Now, I know I'll be modded down for this..." always get modded up? Am I the only guy who noticed this, or did ChaoticCoyote know it too? And if he did know it, doesnt that mean that he does care about karma?

    Secondly, "excellent" and "knowledge base" have never followed each other in a sentence that I have ever seen. The knowledge base SUCKS. Which leads me to another point: people in IT tend to believe what they're told and not think for themselves, which is what pisses off most linux advocates the most, because they wont even try anything non-MS, despite the PROVEN cost/work-done ratio.


    --
  • In theory, it's relatively easy - the DNS registration authority who sells you "foo.com" either generates the public and private keys for foo.com and gives them to the person who paid the money to register the name, or lets the person who registered the name send in the public keys along with the payment. Unlike the more general certificate authority problem, where a CA wants some evidence that the person claiming to be "Bill Clinton" so they can certify that "Bill Clinton" owns the key "0x1234566735", and needs to charge some amount of money for verification and for any liabilities that accompany that certification,
    the DNS registrar inherently knows that the person that they sold foo.com to is the person they sold foo.com to. That doesn't mean they're certifying that it's really "The Foo Corporation, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC, USA" (an issue that leads to trademark resolution court cases when "Joe Foo Widgets" says that foo.com is their trademark) - it just certifies that "the person who possesses this key can change the IP addresses that .com uses for the foo.com domain and that foo.com uses for subdomains under it."

    In practice, that could work fine for new domain names, as long as the registrars want to start supporting SecureDNS for their domains, but there's more trouble in setting the keys for existing domain names. Some domain names use PGP keys to control changes to their DNS data, and those PGP keys could be used to certify any submitted keys. Some domain names use the previous traditional method for controlling DNS information "accept any syntactically correct request to change the IP address and user data, even if that allows anybody in the world to hijack the domain." You could either retain the same mechanism (:-), or use that mechanism to bootstrap setting an initial SecureDNS key, and using that key to certify future change requests, or pick some hybrid mechanism like "generate the keys and email them to the registered contact address, if it exists".


    We'll probably see Secure DNS from smaller, more flexible TLDs like .to and the Scandinavian country-code domains before ICANN gets around to getting .com on board.

  • Microsoft is the company that recently tried to push the acronym "DNS" to mean "Digital Nervous System" instead of the industry-standard well-established meaning for one of the core protocols of the Internet. Given the obvious problem with their priorities, I can't say that a Digital Nervous Breakdown isn't poetic justice.

  • www.theregister.co.uk reports that MS's DNS is back up. (Of course, if it had been backed up better, it would have been back up much sooner :-)
  • or maybe he's just as sick of the ludicrous bashing of this type, and posted the story so that people would stop bugging him about it.

    actually, no maybe involved, he's clearly stated that.
  • really. Is there anyone who DOESN'T have a login to this? I always laugh when I see Microsoft stuff on a pirate site.. why? Go download it!

    Also, msdn.microsoft.com works just fine, btw...
    ---
  • The Good Taco's rant seems to me why a lot of folks now a days have preconceived notions about Linux and it's users. It's a sort of elitism of "I'm so cool that bagging on M$ and saying how rarely I visit their site makes me a better person." While I agree that a DNS failure isn't really news, Taco's little rant just reinforces stereotypes about the blind, pointless "I'm better than you" attitudes many people hold about their freakin' computer operating system. Calm down dude. It's software. We know you don't go to their site. We know you're better than that. We know, we know.

    Flamebait? Probably. Do as you will.



    The Good Reverend
  • Yes, I do know about subnetting. I didn't bother to put that in because I didn't want to be technically boring.

    And indeed probably these are on two subnets, judging from the addresses.

    What I guess I was trying to point out is that if I were the size of Microsoft I'd have them much more distributed, on different ISPs in different class C's.

    Mind you, MS do a lot of interesting stuff behind the scenes, so they may have more going on we don't know about - there's an informative whitepaper on their web site....ah.

  • Regardless of what their explanation [microsoft.com] says, the real reason Microsoft's domains were unavailable today is that they had put all of their eggs in one basket...

    All four of the DNS addresses for microsoft.com and other microsoft domains are in the same Class-C range. If routing or connectivity for that one IP subnet is disrupted, those names stop resolving.

    This goes against everything recommended in RFC2182 [dns.net].

    Yes, this is a common mistake, but one of the first rules you learn when becoming a DNS admin is to have diversity in your name servers. Spread them across multiple hosts, on different networks, in physically separate datacenters.

    Apparently Microsoft had to learn this the hard way.

    To stop our users from complaining about the long lookup timeout on MICROSOFT,COM, MSN.COM, MSFT.NET and various other sites, I aliased those domains in our name servers to return immediately with 'no A records available'.

    It's a shame management will insist that I take out those aliases tomorrow morning.

  • Well, I've modified my window manager (IceWM) to include a list of all the open windows when using alt-tab instead of just one, and a handful of the GNU command-line programs in one way or another. I'm also working on adding keyboard hotkey support to licq.

    The point isn't that *I* necessarily need to be able to modify the source, the point is that if the source is open, *anyone can fix a bug and submit a patch*. No more waiting 6 months for Microsoft to release a service patch that MAY OR MAY NOT include your bug fix.

    Granted they are SLOWLY getting better about this, but if you're using NT 4 now, you're fucked, because MS is not releasing any more patches for NT 4, so if something's broken, it's going to be broken forever.

    Just because *you* don't have the time to worry about any of the code in your underlying programs (OS, window manager, etc.) doesn't mean that it's not a good thing it's available!

  • I must say that I contribute to the IE stats, but in my own defense, my company makes me use it; but I take a shower when I get home from work. ;-)
  • I like to go there at least once or twice a day so their server can log one more Linux user.
  • ASHERON'S CALL [turbinegames.com]!!!

    Agh!...If lose the items on my corpse on HG, I will be quite pissed. BTW, AC servers were taken off line for a bug hotfix. And, like 8hrs. later when they were finally put back up, right then MS's DNS dies!...egh!

  • http://207.46.230.218/ms.htm
  • Coming from an environment where we use Microsoft product across the board (basically because it is free), I find Microsoft's sites quite useful. WindwsUpdate is good fro security patches and Service Packs; the Knowledge Base, although hard to search through, is quite extensive; and there are countless other areas of great use to the MS Enterprise administrators of the world, like Technet, and MSDN. So people like myself would definitely notice if their site was down, and be in a world of hurt if it was permanent.
  • Linux rocks.

    solves the problems of the user with insightful advice (did you reboot your computer today?.

    You just proved my point -- and contradicted yourself -- quite nicely.

    --
  • hotmail.com's ip address is 64.4.11.7. I think the problem is that hotmail.com is actually down. I could ping them and resolve the IP address, but I cannot get a response from the site. So try it yourself I guess -> 64.4.11.7

  • Searching microsoft.com and Navigator (Score:3)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:37AM (#485067)
    I do have to access Microsoft's web site as part of my work responsibilities. Although I don't personally like many things M$ does, I can put up with them as with any other vendor. The thing that really annoys me, though, is that searching M$'s tech support sites will produce different results when using IE than when using Netscape Navigator (IE results being more complete, natch).

    That doesn't surprise me, and I guess it isn't really worse than any trick organizations play to gain competitive advantage, but it does irritate me a lot for some reason.

    sPh

  • It is quite important! (Score:3)

    by viktor ( 11866 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:29AM (#485068) Homepage
    Although some of us might not visit them often, and some of us may not even like them, the fact that Microsoft is currently not "on the web" is rather big News. It just made national radio news in Sweden, for example.

    And all the swedish online papers have small articles, complete with rumors of hackers having brought the DNS down and replies from Microsoft representatives saying that they "have no information about that, just that the DNS is to blame".

    Altough some of us occasionally degrade ourselves by Microsoft-bashing, I don't think that anybody in the computer industry could close their eyes to the fact that if microsoft.com and hotmail.com are wiped from the face of the net, its big news.

    And we don't even have to tell people that evil Linux-activists brought it down or that Microsoft has incompetent staff, or that the moon is in the phase where these things happen, we could just plainly say that Microsoft's DNS is down, and that it has some significance in the world of today.

    /Viktor...

  • Re:This is news? (Score:3)

    by thegrommit ( 13025 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:06AM (#485069)

    But don't you see, this allows the rabid anti-microsofties to vent their spleen. Come on - ANY microft-is-bad-so-we-gotta-slam-them-at-any-oppurt unity
    story is front page /. material.

    Next.

  • Re:Yes, actually, Taco, we do (Score:3)

    by johnathan ( 44958 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:34AM (#485070) Homepage
    P.S. The correct phrase is "everybody and
    their brother."
    P.P.S. "Everybody" is singular. The correct phrase is "everybody and his brother." Or replace "his" with some "his/her" bastardization, if you're PC.

    There's nothing like flaming a grammar flame for grammar.

    --

  • Re:What a WHOIS lookup shows (Score:3)

    by mansemat ( 65131 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:33AM (#485071)
    This has NOTHING to do with the DNS problem.

    Anyone can register a server with multiple sub-domains (such as the ones criticizing M$).

    You could register a server called microsoft.sucks.slashdot.org and that has nothing to do with Microsoft.com.

    The only part that matters is the last two parts.... i.e. slashdot.org.

    So why is that post informative? It's idiotic.

  • DoS ? (Score:3)

    by Lion-O ( 81320 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:41AM (#485072)
    This give you something to think about; how vulnerable a site and even a whole Internet community is... Lets assume that people are DoSsing their DNS servers with a mega attack. It would, in time, get the complete site down (currently I can still access it even though the DNS servers report the domain non-existent) as well as their email. I need a DNS server in order to let my mail server know where to send it.

    So far I've only heard about DoS attacks on websites and IRC servers. Could this be the beginning of a script kiddie actually using that grey blob of his a bit more then is reasonable?

  • DNS, Schmee En Ess.... (Score:3)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:04AM (#485073)
    This is why I just memorize the IP numbers (in 32-bit hexadecimal format, of course...what's up with all those dots anyhow?) of all the sites I ever go to, and avoid any reliance on DNS at all. It also makes thinking of hostnames for my new boxes a lot less complicated...just name them box3C if its last 8 bits are 3C, for example. Why should anything be any more complicated than that?

  • Re:not only microsoft.com (Score:3)

    by Mecha[drone] ( 146303 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:10AM (#485074) Homepage
    Why would you put all of your domain servers in the same subnet? Same state for that matter.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @11:47AM (#485075)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • HOTMAIL IS DOWN (Score:3)

    by David Wong ( 199703 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:11AM (#485076) Homepage
    I haven't been able to access hotmail for the last 11 hours. That's by far the longest outage I've seen in my 3 years of using it, checking it several times a day. I've never seen it down for more than a couple of hours. THIS IS A STORY, GUYS. There are MILLIONS of us Hotmail users.

  • Re:Oh no. (Score:3)

    by mrhandstand ( 233183 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:54AM (#485077) Journal
    You know...some of us actually have to give a damn about microsoft. I am employeed as an NT admin at a small software company. I need patches and the like today from said site. Just because most of the readers like to bash Microsoft, and/or use Linux personally (myself included), doesn't mean that it's not a topic of importance to the computer-using world. Don't let your personal dislike or bias interfere with important converage of an article of news!

  • Re:This is news? (Score:3)

    by tekker430 ( 261358 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @08:52AM (#485078) Homepage
    You are incorrect. This article [cnet.com] states the follwing:

    Microsoft said that beginning Tuesday night and through Wednesday morning users have been getting no response from the affected Web sites. Sohn said the problem stems from Microsoft's Domain Name Servers, which translate requests to various Web servers. The servers are operated and maintained by Microsoft.

    BTW- when it comes to downtime and everyone bashing MS, please note that it took me over 5 minutes of retries to post this message, and it was not because I posted any other messages within the last minute.

    Im sure this will be considered flamebait, but oh well, I dont post often anyways.

  • Due to Incompetence (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:06AM (#485079)

    The only reason their site is down is because of engineering incompetence on the first order.

    Never ever ever put all of your nameservers on one network segment! How stupid could you be, Microsoft?

    What's wrong with this picture?!

    DNS4.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.11
    DNS5.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.12
    DNS7.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.21
    DNS6.CP.MSFT.NET. 207.46.138.20

  • Re:Due to Incompetence (Score:4)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @08:11AM (#485080) Homepage
    Actually, for a site of the size and importance of Microsoft's stable, it is best to have a geographically diverse pool of servers doing DNS.

    While it is theoretically possible to distribute a subnet that small geographically, in practice it doesn't work that way. Generally, anything smaller than a /24 netblock is tied to one network provider, and probably even to one area of their network.

    So, the incompetence charge sticks. To you as well.

    --

  • Re:SecureDNS (Score:4)

    by QuadPro ( 16532 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @09:29AM (#485081) Homepage

    SecureDNS (available in bind 9) allows you to sign your zone, so this kind of DNS cache poisoning can not happen.

    1. This wasn't DNS cache poisoning. The nameservers just weren't reachable.

    2. DNS cache poisoning is easily solved: just use good resolvers that don't automatically trust all answers. Try dnscache [cr.yp.to], and the mydomain.com incident wouldn't have affected you.

  • Uh-huh.. (Score:4)

    by BilldaCat ( 19181 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:07AM (#485082) Homepage
    and of course Slashdot is the pinnacle of reliability. Wasn't there just an outage yesterday?

  • This is important! (Score:4)

    by filrock ( 71729 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:03AM (#485083) Homepage

    This affects all Microsoft sites. Because of this I can't:

    • Receive my spam via HoTMaiL
    • Read my horoscope on Msn.com
    • ummm... any help?

  • Re:This article is another example... (Score:4)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @09:08AM (#485084) Journal
    Yeah, it's a good thing Windows 2000 is also available free of charge, and that if there's something I don't like about it, I have the source code to W2K so I can change whatever I want!

    Hey, wait a minute...

  • Welcome to the real world (Score:4)

    by cloudscout ( 104011 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:05AM (#485085) Homepage
    Yes, believe it or not, some people actually have paying jobs that require the use of commercial software which often involves visiting the vendors' websites. In case you've been living under a rock since the 70's, Microsoft is a major software vendor with products installed in a majority of companies worldwide. Is it really so strange to think that people might find it significant when Microsoft's sites become unavailable?

  • Are you serious? Of course your readers go there! (Score:4)

    by evil_one ( 142582 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:07AM (#485086) Homepage
    Even your stats indicate that MORE than half of your viewers use Internet Explorer!
    The biggest software company, one that prides itself on supposedly "enterprise level" server software has it's DNS down. It dosn't matter if you don't like them or not, many people visit them daily!
    I visit them in order to obtain the latest patches for my clients, and to find out if the problem I'm fixing is one that MS is aware of.

    I've kept out of it so far, but jeez Taco, don't you think you should try to REDUCE the trolling in your forums?
    ---
  • For instance, if you're not an adminsitrator, running any program called setup.exe causes a dialog to pop up asking if you'd like to install as Administrator or as the current user. There's no way to "forget" to become one.

    Here you are assuming that all install programs are called setup.exe. I have seen that dialog once, for a certain 3rd party utility(cygwin). I got no warnings of any kind for several others (adobe acrobat). I also discovered a bug in the user creation dialogs as well while messing around with my user profiles.

    Second, you seldom need to reboot when installing new software, but lots of software just pops up a "reboot" message anyways.

    Plenty of software does really need a reboot. Some install scripts try to make you do an uneeded one, but those are not what I'm talking about. Install Single-Step on Chip or W2kPacket Capture Driver and you will need a reboot.

    Third, there is in fact a "Home" directory, and has been even in NT4. It was in Profiles then, and it's under Documents and Settings now. Applications default to your "home" directory (My Documents) so long as they don't specify a specific directory (which most apps don't do).

    I am aware of the documents and settings directory. First its a horrible directory name to try and navigate to from within a cmd shell. Second many applications support it by starting all the save dialogs there- but this sucks if you are trying to save in the directory you started the application in. The idea of a unix home directory is not only are they standard, easy to use with scripts, and universally supported in thier OS, but they are the only place you can save files as a user.

    If you're going to pretend you know something, you shouldn't make comments which immediately give away your lack of knowledge.

    Well, you seem to know a bit about W2k. Just enough to be dangerous...

  • Re:Accounts Payable (Score:4)

    by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @08:37AM (#485088) Homepage

    Yes they did, and Herbert Kornfeld is on his way over in the Nite Rida right now. Now they really got problems.

  • Accounts Payable (Score:4)

    by peccary ( 161168 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:03AM (#485089)
    Did they forget to pay their bill again?

  • Re:DoS ? (Score:4)

    by Cassivs ( 183894 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @11:51AM (#485090)
    There's an update [linuxtoday.com] on linuxtoday.com, saying that this is actually the result of a DoS attack. Which they call a "break-in." Well, at least they make the cracker/hacker distinction I suppose. And they mention the odd entries in a whois of microsoft.com again too. Apparently all of Microsoft's DNS servers are located on the same network (according to the article), making them more vulnerable to DoS attacks.

  • not only microsoft.com (Score:4)

    by theroge ( 214016 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:01AM (#485091) Homepage
    The authorative DNS servers (do a whois -h whois.networksolutions.com microsoft.com to find them out) don't know the hostnames so they cannot be looked up.

    Also Hotmail and MSN suffer from this.

    --
    Rogier

  • Taco never visits Microsoft.com? (Score:4)

    by The NT Christ ( 305898 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @10:09AM (#485092) Homepage
    Too bad; they have some really interesting stuff at research.microsoft.com.

    Taco, get your head out of your ass. Microsoft is a major player in this industry. You're a journalist. Go figure.

  • SecureDNS (Score:5)

    by Hawke ( 1719 ) <kilpatds@oppositelock.org> on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:09AM (#485093) Homepage Journal
    There is a point to this story. It points out how vulnerable DNS still is to cache poisoning. One tiny human mistake and a significant portion of the net can't get to yahoo or microsoft. See your local friendly hacker to find out how to do this deliberately.

    SecureDNS (available in bind 9) allows you to sign your zone, so this kind of DNS cache poisoning can not happen. Lets roll it out and use it sooner rather than later.

  • Re:Flamebait (Score:5)

    by doce ( 31638 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:52AM (#485094) Homepage
    (b) you're going to have to learn about journalistic standards. If you expect to be taken seriously, you can't write like that - you can't show such prejudice, and you can't show such a casual dismissal of America's biggest company.


    On this point, there's something even more important to point out. Taco pretty much slammed his own readers for posting this supposedly insignificant story... when the very fact that he received a bazillion submissions on this shows that they do indeed read this site and that it is important for many of those who submitted the story.

    Journalists who insult their own readers don't have readers for very long.

  • Re:Oh no. (Score:5)

    by Garpenlov ( 34711 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @09:04AM (#485095) Homepage

    > set type=soa
    > microsoft.com
    Server: localhost
    Address: 127.0.0.1

    Non-authoritative answer:
    microsoft.com
    primary name server = dns.cp.msft.net
    responsible mail addr = msnhst.microsoft.com
    serial = 2001012306
    refresh = 900 (15 mins)
    retry = 600 (10 mins)
    expire = 7200000 (83 days 8 hours)
    default TTL = 7200 (2 hours)

    microsoft.com nameserver = DNS7.cp.msft.net
    microsoft.com nameserver = DNS6.cp.msft.net
    microsoft.com nameserver = DNS4.cp.msft.net
    microsoft.com nameserver = DNS5.cp.msft.net
    DNS7.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.21
    DNS6.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.20
    DNS4.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.11
    DNS5.cp.msft.net internet address = 207.46.138.12
    > server dns7.cp.msft.net
    Default Server: dns7.cp.msft.net
    Address: 207.46.138.21

    > set type=a
    > www.microsoft.com
    Server: dns7.cp.msft.net
    Address: 207.46.138.21

    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    *** Request to dns7.cp.msft.net timed-out
    > server dns6.cp.msft.net
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    *** Can't find address for server dns6.cp.msft.net: Timed out
    > server dns4.cp.msft.net
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    *** Can't find address for server dns4.cp.msft.net: Timed out
    > server dns5.cp.msft.net
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
    *** Can't find address for server dns5.cp.msft.net: Timed out
    >


    The sad thing is, the way DNS info is cached, is that it takes a fairly long outage for anyone to even notice.

    Anyway, the above says: dns4,5,6 and 7 .cp.msft.net are responsible for giving out Microsoft's DNS information. And they all timed out.. strange. It seems too concidental to not be an attack.

  • Remember the admins! (Score:5)

    by jmaslak ( 39422 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:08AM (#485096)
    Are any of you network admins? What was your worst day on the job? Probably, it was a day when things really didn't go well after an upgrade or equipment change. You probably had people coming in to the equipment room every five minutes to ask two things: 1) do you need any help? and 2) when will it be fixed? You got sick of both questions, because you were stressed out enough already.

    This is part of the Internet, though: we forget that real people do work for Microsoft. We forget that MS isn't just an evil force, but has people who have emotions working for it. It is an irony that people on Slashdot - technically literate people - who claim that email is an equalizer (no respector of race, disabilities, age, etc) - these same peple forget about the human faces behind a large website.

    I wouldn't want to be in those network admin's shoes right now. I've had DNS outages, and I know what it is like to have corporate headquarters yelling, "Why aren't we up?"

    So, before you criticize how "dumb" their admins are, and whatever else, remember two things: 1) This same problem (DNS outage) has happened to any real admin on Slashdot, and 2) the MS network admins are having a very bad day.

  • Re:Due to Incompetence (Score:5)

    by sedawkgrep ( 142682 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:12AM (#485097)
    Um...why do you say they're on the same segment? Don't you know how netmasks work?

    A netmask of 255.255.255.240 would segment 6/7 from 4/5. Just because they look like they fall on the same class-C, doesn't mean they are. Even if MS owns all of 207.46, they could mix and match the network ranges however they want. Don't assume anything.

    The only incompetence I can verify is that you don't know how to segment networks.

    sedawkgrep

  • Yes, actually, Taco, we do (Score:5)

    by dizee ( 143832 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @07:01AM (#485098) Homepage
    Believe it or not, there are some of us that actually don't spend the entire day bashing Microsoft and boasting that we don't go to their website. Do you think we care if you haven't been there in months? Do you believe that the entire slashdot community is together in your anti-Microsoft holy war? I'm no Microsoft fan, but there are those of us that actually rely on Microsoft. Like it or not, Microsoft IS an important part of the industry. Do you have any idea where we'd be without Microsoft?

    I myself probably visit microsoft.com at least once every day or so. Their Knowledge Base is a great place to find out loads of information on just about any product they make. MSDN Online is a great resource for developers!

    I'm a sysad for an ISP. Most all of our users use Windows (we've got a few Mac users, a few Win3.1 users, and a few Linux users). I wrote our installation software in VC. I actually was going to write a utility today that uninstalls DUN, all of the Network components, and deleted all of the network-related files, and then forced a reinstallation from CD. To do this, I was going to refer to KB article Q181599, which details all of the network-related files to remove and which cab files to find them in to put them back. And now I can't do that because microsoft's site (one of the most reliable sites I've ever frequented, I might add) is down.

    And all you have to do is sit over there and say "do you people actually visit microsoft.com?" like it's some sort of unholy act to go there.

    I knew there was a reason I stopped going to slashdot recently. I actually hit the wrong button on my IE (yup, i'm using Win98!) Links bar and caught the "Microsoft DNS is down" line, so I thought I'd read it, but all I got was disgusted.

    Mike

    P.S. The correct phrase is "everybody and their brother."

    "I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."

  • Details on The Register (Score:5)

    by beebware ( 149208 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:15AM (#485099) Homepage
    The Register [theregister.co.uk] has been running this as a story [theregister.co.uk] for the past few hours.

    Basically, it appears as if the entire subnet the Microsoft DNS servers were hosted on has just 'disappeared' making microsoft.com, msn.com, hotmail.com, passport.com et al unavailable. Sites hosted on other domains (such as microsoft.co.uk [microsoft.co.uk] are still available). Direct IP addresses are stated in the article if you _have_ to visit Microsoft.com

    Microsoft and Yahoo were suffering DNS problems earlier this week [theregister.co.uk] as well, and microsoft new zealand [theregister.co.uk] was recently hacked.

    Beebware.com [beebware.com] also has a list of consumer information on Microsoft [beebware.com], MS Humor [beebware.com] as well as many other categories [beebware.com] about 'that' software company.
    Richy C.

  • Java DNS? (Score:5)

    by multipartmixed ( 163409 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:40AM (#485100) Homepage
    Maybe M$ was running Java-based DNS servers, and their settlement with Sun forced them to take them offline..

    --

  • Re:Are you serious? Of course your readers go ther (Score:5)

    by armypuke ( 172430 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:45AM (#485101) Homepage
    I've kept out of it so far, but jeez Taco, don't you think you should try to REDUCE the trolling in your forums?

    This IS his forum. I don't remember reading anything that says he HAS to be fair and impartial. Yes he claims this is a "News for Nerds" site. But this isn't a REAL(tm) news site. He's not a reporter so he doesn't have to live up to any moral or ethical standard. You don't have to come here if you don't like it.

  • This article is another example... (Score:5)

    by ChaoticCoyote ( 195677 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:11AM (#485102) Homepage

    ...of Slashdot's immature attitude.

    I now expect to lose Karma for criticizing Slashdot. Of course, if I cared about Karma, I wouldn't post this response... :)

    I run and program both Linux and Win2K; Windows 2000 is quite stable--as many others have pointed out in past postings. My Win2K system runs continuously for weeks at a time, without glitch or problem, despite my use of games and unusual hardware. It might surpise CmdrTaco to know that quite a few "nerds" think that Windows matters.

    I find many reasons to visit Microsoft's web site: to pick up development kits, to read articles, and for the excellent knowledge base that Linux can only dream of emulating. Win2K has bugs, but so does Linux. I suggest Slashdot spend less time making snide comment about MS, and work on fixing the leaks in its own ship of state. Linux ain't perfect, ya know.


    --
    Scott Robert Ladd
    Master of Complexity
    Destroyer of Order and Chaos

  • Huh? It matters immensely (Score:5)

    by Ergo2000 ( 203269 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:37AM (#485103) Homepage

    Just this sort of thing happened the other day where an ISP released DNS entries for yahoo.com, and some other sites, uh...accidentally. The problem is that people don't talk to the authoratative DNS servers : They just trust anyone. This is leading to all sorts of shit and I'm sure after the ruckous about that guy overriding commercial sites DNS entries some script kiddies got some ideas. THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ANY SITE, INCLUDING SLASHDOT. To think this isn't news is just bizarre. It isn't that MS' DNS server was hacked : Rather DNS is showing it's cracks and they are absolutely massive. What if someone redirected a banks page to a dupe that logged everyones login info? Of course theoretically SSL ties a site to an IP, but most people ignore little warnings like that.

    On another note I go to microsoft.com all the time in fact (though usually msdn.microsoft.com). Excellent site. In fact I believe it's among the top 3 most visited sites on the planet, so to proclaim it not to matter seems rather goofy.

  • Taco, please... (Score:5)

    by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @08:11AM (#485104) Homepage
    If you want Slashdot to be taken as seriously as print media, you are going to have to drop the "holy war" stance. Microsoft plays a very important part in the computing industry, and they have the 3rd largest website in the world.

    Perhaps even more important is the fact that if some fool can corrupt DNS and take Yahoo and Microsoft offline, they can take anybody offline. The DNS system needs to be fixed, but with your snide comments about Microsoft the focus of that issue is lost.

    I might add that I do in fact use Windows 2000 because it is stable (2 BSODs since Dec. 1999) and supports everything I need. Many people that use Linux do so because it fits their specific needs, and that's great. But I get the feeling from some of the /. staff that they only use Linux to spite Microsoft. I say use what works best for you.


    -
    The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]

  • Flamebait (Score:5)

    by Metal Machine Music ( 255620 ) on Wednesday January 24, 2001 @06:25AM (#485105)
    I don't normally respond to illiterate flamebait, but in this case I'll make an exception:

    > Everybody and there brother

    I'll just pick this up before someone else does.

    'There'!= 'their', the possessive pronoun Taco is looking for.

    > has submitted what has to be the least interesting story in months. Microsoft's DNS server is down.

    Ok fine. End of story. No need for irrelevant flamebait designed to get thousands of posts about how Windows/Linux sucks.

    Let's address the news: MS' dns is down.

    Ok wow. Have you been to uptime.netcraft.com [netcraft.com]? I think you'll find *all* servers go down, especially ones under the consistently heavy load of ddos, millions of hits a day, etc like MS. Redhat goes down, MS goes down, big wow. Every big site goes down more often than a presedential intern on heat. Ok. [It's just that people don't gloat when Linux companies go down, probably because they aren't successful like MS so people aren't jealous of their success.]

    > I haven't visited their web site in months and I don't care in the slightest, but if I don't post this, I'm going to spend the next 48 hours deleting 2,000 submissions about it as zillions of people somehow think that this matters.

    It does to the millions of daily visitors, yes.

    > Yup. Its down. Ye haw. Do you people actually visit microsoft.com?

    It's actually in the top 10 of most visited websites in the world. It has free software, updates, one of the best developers' sites anywhere, etc..

    > I can't remember the last time I intentionally went to that site. There's just no need.

    You might as well say you have no need to upgrade Slashcode when that gets holes in it. If you use Windows there is a need, because all software is insecure and Windows is no exception. It's no different with Linux. It's not just that either. Microsoft's website has a whole bunch of other interesting and free stuff there too. In fact, Microsoft's site became, in about 1997 (I remember reading) the largest website in the world, with several terabytes of content. So yes, there is a need.

    If you actually took your blinkers off you might realize that - I don't just crap about Linux like you seem to about Windows. I haven't got an irrational fear/jealousy about Linux.

    Hell I use linux. I install and maintain it as a web server. And I don't say that no-one needs to visit redhat.com, even though it's clearly not as good a site.

    > (Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes ;)

    Nice casual aside there, guaranteed to pick up a few hundred replies. Nice one. But it's not true.

    There is *one* service pack for Windows 2000 since release.

    Let's look at the Linux equivalent shall we?

    Have you ever tried installing Redhat?

    I have, and I spent 3 hours downloading things from http://updates.redhat.com [redhat.com] and upgrading them.

    This stuff about Windows needing service packs often is bull. Linux has far more service packs, because Microsft updates things all at once whereas with Linux you have to update individually.

    Hell my grandmother could install a Windows service pack, but I can't see her upgrading bind when a security hole's found in that.

    I don't mean to respond in such flameish terms, but I had no choice in this case. In one breath you say the story sucks, and then you throw in some highly childish and unprofessional insults against a site which represents a considerable portion of many people's lives.

    We keep hearing from you how Slashdot is becoming the newspaper for the new millennium, how people are taking notice of it, and how it ranks alongside traditional media, but if you expect the kind of respect this implies, you are going to:

    (a) learn how to spell. I'm not normally a spelling flamer (i.e. not for posters), but how can you expect people to take the site seriously when you can't even be bothered to read the post twice or put it through a spellchecker to find that 'its' is a possessive pronoun, whereas 'it's' is the contraction of 'it is' you where looking for.

    (b) you're going to have to learn about journalistic standards. If you expect to be taken seriously, you can't write like that - you can't show such prejudice, and you can't show such a casual dismissal of America's biggest company.

    You're not just a Perl hacker sitting around eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew any more Rob - you're responsible for an important and valuable institution, and it's time you behaved like it.

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