cloud computing and why it’s a good or bad idea
April 16 The music-streaming app Spotify was down for a good chunk of time this morning, leaving millions of music fans in the lurch. Both the app and web client weren’t working, but service seem to be broadly returned to normal at this point, though lingering bugs may remain. To view this content, you’ll need Read more about Spotify was down for a while. Yay clouds.[…]
Microsoft is no longer playing around when it comes to requiring every Windows 11 device be set up with an internet-connected account. In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script that let end users skip the requirement of connecting to the internet and logging in Read more about Windows 11 is closing a loophole that let you skip making a Microsoft account[…]
I bought a Bosch 500 series because that’s what Consumer Reports recommended, and more importantly, I could find one in stock. After my dad and I got it installed, I went to run a rinse cycle, only to find that that, along with features like delayed start and eco mode, require an app. Not only Read more about I won’t connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud – why not just use buttons? Also planned obsolesence is a bitch[…]
Users of Microsoft’s email service might be feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu after the web version of Outlook last night blocked access to Exchange Online mailboxes. According to Microsoft, the problem was due to “a recent change made to a portion of Outlook on the web infrastructure, that may have resulted in impact.” Read more about Microsoft blames Outlook outage on another dodgy code change[…]
The data was stored in Google Maps’ Timeline feature, which – for those of you who let Google track you around the world – preserves a record of locations you visit. That sounds creepy and perhaps creepier still once you realize Google makes it possible for photos to appear on the Timeline too, so that Read more about ‘Technical issue’ at Google deletes some customer maps timeline data[…]
If you wanted to play some tunes on your iPhone this afternoon, but found nothing would play, it’s not just you: As of Tuesday afternoon ET, Apple Music is down. Apple’s System Status website currently confirms Apple Music’s downtime. As of this piece, the site shows the following status for Apple Music: Apple Music – Outage Today, Read more about Apple Music Is Down, you can’t listen to your music because cloud[…]
Problems with Outlook.com are continuing, with users reporting being unable to access their emails or authenticate themselves. Part of the issue appears to be related to the initial wobble over the weekend. Some of the users affected by that outage were locked out of their accounts after repeated login failures, and Microsoft’s status center for Read more about Still can’t access your Outlook mailbox? You aren’t alone[…]
Microsoft’s Exchange Administration Center (EAC) has fallen over and appears to be struggling to get up. The issue affects users trying to access EAC to administer Exchange Online for their users. Users began expressing frustration about the service being down just before lunchtime in the UK. The issue appears widespread in Europe, with users from Read more about Microsoft Exchange Admin Center goes down for EU users[…]
The UK is full of unhappy workers that are unable to manage their payday cash amid online service outages at a host of major banks. Downdetector indicates trouble at Lloyds Bank, Halifax, TSB, Nationwide, First Direct, Bank of Scotland, and Barclays, although the latter’s woes appear to have been resolved since the surge of complaints Read more about Payday from hell as several Brit banks report major outages[…]
In a recent blog post titled “It is no longer safe to move our governments and societies to US clouds,” Bert Hubert, an entrepreneur, software developer, and part-time technical advisor to the Dutch Electoral Council, articulated such concerns. “We now have the bizarre situation that anyone with any sense can see that America is no Read more about After Snowden and now Trump, Europe Finally begins to worry about US-controlled clouds[…]
Microsoft has notified customers that it’s missing more than two weeks of security logs for some of its cloud products, leaving network defenders without critical data for detecting possible intrusions. According to a notification sent to affected customers, Microsoft said that “a bug in one of Microsoft’s internal monitoring agents resulted in a malfunction in Read more about Microsoft said it lost weeks of security logs for its customers’ cloud products[…]
Microsoft’s Outlook app is crashing for European users due to memory problems, Redmond has warned, and evidence suggests the problems are spreading to the US. “We’re investigating an issue in which users in Europe may be experiencing crashing, not receiving emails or observing high memory usage when using the Outlook client,” Redmond warned. “We’re analyzing Read more about Microsoft applies fix for new Outlook desktop crashes[…]
This is kind of the problem with cloud services – you have absolutely no control over what is going on and a lot can go wrong at one time.
Companies and banks worldwide have been reportedly hit by a mass IT outage, leading to grounded flights. A major IT outage has reportedly hit banks, media outlets, and airlines on Friday, causing chaos at airport check-in and cancelled flights. The outage is believed to be caused by an outage of Microsoft’s Azure and Office365 services. Read more about Major IT outage hits Microsoft Azure and Office365 users worldwide leading to cancelled flights, stock exchange outages and more chaos. What a great idea cloud is for critical infrastructure![…]
Slack announced a significant change to its platform, saying it will “begin deleting messages and files more than one year old from free workspaces on a rolling basis.” Slack’s prior policy involved keeping messages and files for the lifetime of a free workspace, although accessing that full history required switching to a paid account. Under Read more about Slack Will Begin Deleting Older Content From Free Workspaces[…]
According to correspondence released by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) under freedom of information (FOI) rules, Microsoft is unable to guarantee that data uploaded to a key Police Scotland IT system – the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) – will remain in the UK as required by law. While the correspondence has not been released Read more about Microsoft admits no guarantee that UK policing data will stay in the UK and at all private – are you looking, EU member states?![…]
More than half a million UniSuper fund members went a week with no access to their superannuation accounts after a “one-of-a-kind” Google Cloud “misconfiguration” led to the financial services provider’s private cloud account being deleted, Google and UniSuper have revealed. Services began being restored for UniSuper customers on Thursday, more than a week after the Read more about Google Cloud accidentally deletes UniSuper’s online account with 620k customers due to ‘unprecedented misconfiguration’[…]
Sony has indefinitely decommissioned the PlayStation 4 servers for puzzle platformer LittleBigPlanet 3, the company announced in an update to one of its support pages. The permanent shutdown comes just months after the servers were temporarily taken offline due to ongoing issues. Fans now fear potentially hundreds of thousands of player creations not saved locally Read more about Sony Shuts Down LittleBigPlanet 3 Servers, destroying Fan Creations – don’t trust the cloud[…]
The European Commission has been reprimanded for infringing data protection regulations when using Microsoft 365. The rebuke came from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and is the culmination of an investigation that kicked off in May 2021, following the Schrems II judgement. According to the EDPS, the EC infringed several data protection regulations, including Read more about European Commission broke data protection law with Microsoft Office 365 – duh[…]
More than one-quarter of scholarly articles are not being properly archived and preserved, a study of more than seven million digital publications suggests. The findings, published in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication on 24 January1, indicate that systems to preserve papers online have failed to keep pace with the growth of research output. Read more about Millions of research papers at risk of disappearing from the Internet[…]
[…] Earlier this week, four out of 15 communication cables were cut, disrupting network traffic that flows through the Red Sea. The damaged cables affected 25% of traffic between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, according to Hong Kong telecoms company HGC Global Communications. The cause of the damage is still unknown, and the company Read more about Satellites Step Up After Red Sea Internet Cables Get Severed[…]
Last week, co-founder David Crosby said that “so far” the company had identified 14 people who were able to briefly see into a stranger’s property because they were shown an image from someone else’s Wyze camera. Now we’re being told that number of affected customers has ballooned to 13,000. The revelation came from an email Read more about Wyze says camera breach let 13,000 customers briefly see into other people’s homes[…]
Apple’s financial services, including Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Card and Wallet, experienced service disruptions for some users between 6:15 AM and 6:49 AM Eastern this morning, according to the company’s System Status page. As AppleInsider notes, it’s unclear how widespread the issues were, but the company has experienced intermittent Apple Pay issues earlier this Read more about Apple Pay, Apple Card and Wallet were down for some users this morning – again[…]
Google is dealing with its second “lost data” fiasco in the past few months. This time, it’s Google Drive, which has been mysteriously losing files for some people. Google acknowledged the issue on November 27, and a week later, it posted what it called a fix. It doesn’t feel like Google is describing this issue Read more about Google calls Drive data loss “fixed,” locks forum threads saying otherwise[…]
Google Drive users are reporting files mysteriously disappearing from the service, with some netizens on the goliath’s support forums claiming six or more months of work have unceremoniously vanished. The issue has been rumbling for a few days, with one user logging into Google Drive and finding things as they were in May 2023. According Read more about Months of Google Drive files disappearing randomly[…]