Technologies

Cloudflare Outage Hits Hard Across the Web, but Recovery Is in Progress

When web services provider Cloudflare went down on Tuesday, a significant portion of the internet became unavailable.

Web services provider Cloudflare got hit by an outage on Tuesday, disrupting access to many websites and services including OpenAI, Spotify, X, Grindr, Letterboxd and Canva.

Cloudflare is a cloud services and cybersecurity company based in San Francisco that is used by approximately 20% of all websites, according to W3Techs. It’s one of a handful of services, along with Amazon Web Services, CrowdStrike and Fastly (all of which have experienced major outages in the past few years) that you might never have heard of, but that provide essential internet infrastructure.

The bulk of sites and services impacted by Tuesday’s outage, which began around 3.30 a.m. PT, seemed to recover within three hours of Cloudflare going down. It’s likely that some continue to be affected, and may still experience difficulties throughout the day. At the time of writing, Cloudflare was still issuing updates about the incident to its system status page.

Cloudflare hasn’t yet said what caused the outage, but has promised to conduct a full investigation.

Which sites and services were impacted?

Cloudflare has a massive range of clients across the internet, ranging from websites that are household names to smaller services you might not have heard of. Due to its size, when it went down, it took many of those sites and services with it.

Among those affected by the outage was Downdetector, which is where most people go to report problems when services are offline. (Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

Now that it’s back up and running, Downdetector says that it received over 2.1 million reports during the outage period. Over 435,000 of these came from the US, with the UK, Japan and Germany appearing to be the countries that were next most affected.

Most of the reports pertained to Cloudflare, but other affected companies also received a significant number of reports. They include X (320,549 reports), League of Legends (130,260 reports), OpenAI (81,077 reports), Spotify (93,377 reports) and Grindr (25,031 reports).

How did the outage unfold?

Cloudflare first acknowledged the outage at 3.48 a.m. PT. The company issued a statement on its system status page saying that it was aware of the problem.

«Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which impacts multiple customers: Widespread 500 errors, Cloudflare Dashboard and API also failing,» it said. «We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem. More updates to follow shortly.»

At 5.09 a.m. PT, the company said the issue had been identified and a fix was being implemented. In the subsequent hours, errors began to drop and services gradually came back online.

Cloudflare added at 9.14 a.m. PT that most services had returned to normal. «A full post-incident investigation and details about the incident will be made available asap,» it said.

Is the internet stable and reliable?

The Cloudflare outage comes just one month after Amazon Web Services went down, causing havoc across the internet. The AWS outage affected sites including Reddit, Snapchat, Roblox and Fortnite, sparking many to ask whether having such huge swathes of the internet reliant on a few centralized services is sensible or safe.

Major outages are also highlighting concerns about our growing reliance on AI — in particular the fragility of the infrastructure AI relies upon to function every day.

«The most dominant platform did not buckle because of simultaneous queries or the release of a new competitive model, but because of a problem with Cloudflare, a web security and performance provider,» said Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University. «The issue exposes the reality that this multi-billion, even trillion dollar investment in AI is only as reliable as its least scrutinized third party infrastructure.»

Technologies

Meta Wins Antitrust Case, Won’t Have to Give Up WhatsApp or Instagram

The FTC claimed Meta held an illegal monopoly in social networking.

Meta has won its antitrust case against the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC said Meta held an illegal monopoly in social networking — centering on the company’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.

Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia released a memorandum opinion on Tuesday, stating that the FTC failed to prove its claims in court.

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«Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past,» Boasberg wrote in the filing, «the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now.»

Boasberg initially dismissed the FTC’s complaint in 2021, stating that the agency lacked sufficient evidence that Meta holds «market power» in the social networking industry. At the time, the FTC argued that «Facebook’s course of conduct has eliminated nascent rivals,» preventing «the benefits of competition, including increased choice, quality and innovation» from developing for US social media users.

After the FTC amended its filing with information about Meta’s user numbers and acquisitions of the WhatsApp and Instagram applications, Boasberg allowed the case to proceed in 2022.

The trial began in April, and multiple high-ranking current and former Meta executives testified before the court — chief among them, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Much of Zuckerberg’s testimony focused on refuting the FTC’s primary claim, which hinged on an argument Zuckerberg made in 2008: «It is better to buy than compete.»

Meta’s win means the company will be able to continue operating WhatsApp and Instagram unimpeded. Had the FTC proven its claims in court, Meta likely would have had to break these applications off into their own separate social networking companies.

Meta released a public statement on Tuesday, stating that the decision «recognizes that Meta faces fierce competition» in the social networking industry.

«Our products are beneficial for people and businesses and exemplify American innovation and economic growth,» the statement read. «We look forward to continuing to partner with the Administration and to invest in America.»

FTC Director of Public Affairs Joe Simonson said the agency is «deeply disappointed» with the outcome of the case.

«The deck was always stacked against us with Judge Boasberg, who is currently facing articles of impeachment,» he said. «We are reviewing all our options.»

Republican lawmakers have tried multiple times to impeach Boasberg, a frequent political target of the Trump administration.

While Meta’s antitrust case may be over, it didn’t take place in a vacuum. Google recently settled a case with the FTC that resulted in the search giant being told it must share limited search and user-interaction data with «qualified competitors.» Another case targeting Google’s AI overview feature is ongoing in the European Union, as a group of publishers claims the company is causing harm due to a loss of traffic, readership, and revenue.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 19, #892

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Nov. 19, #892

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle has one of those classic purple categories, where four words have hidden connected words inside them. If you need help sorting them into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Not petite.

Green group hint: You learn this in driver’s ed.

Blue group hint: Nevermore!

Purple group hint: Look for hidden words having to do with the body.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Stocky.

Green group: Steer.

Blue group: Second words in Poe stories, after «The.»

Purple group: Organ plus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is stocky. The four answers are husky, solid, squat and thick.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is steer. The four answers are direct, guide, lead and shepherd.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is second words in Poe stories, after «The.» The four answers are cask, fall, masque and pit.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is organ plus a letter. The four answers are colony (colon), hearth (heart), lunge (lung) and skink (skin).

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 19 #626

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Nov. 19, No. 626.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is easier than most days. It helps if you know world religions. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I delve into the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Divinely inspired.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Different beliefs.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BRIM, BEAR, PEST, RIGS, ROPE, GRIP, GRIPE, GOES, GUILE, MAIM, GRAD

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: