Google Mail aka Gmail Outage

Can I blame yesterday’s Gmail outage for the lack of a post today? No?

Just in case you didn’t know it, Gmail, Google’s email service which has been in beta since 2004, went down Tuesday afternoon, and didn’t come back fully until late in the evening. Google attributed the problem to server changes which may have overloaded their router traffic. That’s tech talk for the drain got clogged. (I recommend G-drano, Google guys).

Gmail has over 146 million users worldwide, and most of them were unable to access the service for much of the day. This is the second major outage this year. The prior one occurred on February 24, when Gmail was out for about 2.5 hours. You can read about that one here on Skylarking under Gmail Crashes Again. Did that say, “Again”? The major outage prior to that was October 2008 when Gmail was out for 30 hours without explanation.

Major outages aside, PC World reports that there have been several minor outages, too, prior to the last February’s outage:

• July 16, 2008: A similar “502 error” (bad gateway) struck Gmail, leading to what was described as a “long outage” by affected users.

• August 6, 2008: Technical trouble knocked an “undetermined number” of Gmail users (including both regular users and paying Google Apps clients) out of their mail for about 15 hours.

• August 11, 2008: An issue with Google’s “contacts system” caused Gmail access to go offline for a “couple of hours” for numerous users. Both individual accounts and Google Apps accounts were affected again.

• August 15, 2008: The third outage within a span of two weeks left users locked out of their accounts for more than 24 hours. That pesky “502 server error” popped up on the Gmail login page here, too.

• October 16, 2008: Users went a full 30 hours without access. Google didn’t elaborate on what caused the issue.

Google claimed in an IDG News Service report that “Gmail suffers only about 10 to 15 minutes of downtime each month”.

I guess I should be thanking Gmail for today’s post. “Thanks, Gmail!” Love skylarkingblog at gmail.com

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Spam Fighting Update

My blog post titled “I’m Fighting Acai Berry Spam Today” from August 14, 2008 is the 4th most read post on Skylarking. It has received a fair amount of commentary since April of this year. The comments have lead me to add an update to the post to clarify the intent and purpose of the article:

This post is about spam in general, using Acai Berry spam as an example. I aim to (1) illustrate that sometimes email addresses and web site addresses don’t match; and that when WHOIS is used, one may often find that they might not belong to the same person or organization. That should be a warning as to the legitimacy of the email message (or the site). Some readers have focused more on the email aspect of spam, but (2) much spam directs you to a web site. As some commenters have pointed out: email addresses can be spoofed, and tracking an email can be very difficult, BUT it is my opinion that web sites can be easier to track.

So my point is that spam is often associated with a web site, and discrepancies between a web site and an email message can often help determine the validity of the email and/or the site.

You can read the updated post and comments here.

Thanks to everyone who has commented, and added their thoughts, ideas, and knowledge concerning the subject. And thank you for leading me to elaborate further. I look forward to hearing more comments and thoughts on the subject.

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Conficker Virus Begins To Attack PCs

I was reading about the Conficker virus on Shawn’s Technology Blog. He says that a report from Reuters says the Conficker virus — which was supposed to activate on April 1st — has slowly started activating on computers by installing spyware and turning them into spam servers.

Conficker is also known as Downadup and Kido, and it also installs a second virus called Waledac.

Reuters mentions how the computer worm began spreading late last year, and how it was designed to respond to commands from a remote server. This army of slave computers infected with the worm controlled by a remote server is called a botnet.

Furthermore, Vincent Weafer, a vice president with Symantec Security Response, makers of Norton Antivirus, has reported that recently the unknown controllers of this remote server have begun using a small percentage of the computers they control to upload ‘malware’ and ’spyware’. One such piece of malware is the Waledac virus which installs itself on the infected computer, and then uses the computer to send out spam email messages promoting a fake anti-spyware program.

Meanwhile, Shawn’s technology Blog is very wisely recommending that computer owners keep your Windows software up to date by visiting the Windows Update web site. He also recommends you install anti-spyware software such as PC Tools Spyware Doctor. I strongly agree with his recommendations, and have done so frequently in this blog. I also recommend you install an antivirus program such as Alwil’s free Avast! antivirus program. Yes, you read that correctly, Avast antivirus is free. I have been using it on all my computers for several years now.

There is a free version of Spyware Doctor available from Google which does a good job of removing spyware, but for real time protection against spyware you should purchase Spyware Doctor. If you don’t have an antivirus program, you might also consider downloading Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus.

Have a question about spyware or viruses? Then why not post a Comment or Question with the link below.

Keep up-to-date with Skylarking: By Email or RSS Newsfeed or on Twitter. You can also send questions with Skylarking’s email form.

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