Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain • Hacker News Board

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#241

Post by moe_sc » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #178

Hackbraten wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are countries whose ccTLD registrars are impeccably well-run and have been for decades, such as DENIC, the entity that oversees the .de ccTLD. If you're based in Germany, I don't see a reason why you would want to avoid .de domains.

Them being subject to the pretty draconian laws of Germany is a minus for most people if they had no other reason to have to follow those laws (such as not being in Germany).

Mind ellaborating what draconian laws you are talking about?

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#242

Post by gameshot911 » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

Noob here: could this issue have been worked around if you had a personal list of the IP addresses that the domain resolved to?

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#243

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

renegade-otter wrote: post #186

Animats wrote: post #85

That seriously devalues MarkMonitor's services. MarkMonitor claims to be a "an ICANN-accredited registrar and recognized industry leader since 1999". The whole point of paying for MarkMonitor is that they're an expensive service for valuable domains and are not allowed to screw up. GoDaddy should not be involved here at all.

These big companies spend tens of millions on homegrown tooling, even their own languages and databases, but they can't assign one dev to write a domain-monitoring tool?

Because it's cheaper and more reliable to outsource that to a company specializing in it.

If one dev had written it, how many times would that tool have failed by now? When the original dev left the company a decade ago, the tool has been transferred between teams six times, it failed a migration and the email address it used to send errors to no longer exists so nobody noticed, and it's literally gotten lost in the shuffle?

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#244

Post by natebc » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

gameshot911 wrote: post #242

Noob here: could this issue have been worked around if you had a personal list of the IP addresses that the domain resolved to?

Most DNS issues can, yes. Your hosts file is going to be thick though, and a pain to keep up to date ;P

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#245

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

film42 wrote: post #47

Zoom CEO: Hi, we'd like an SLA credit for the global outage you caused our company. GoDaddy: I am so sorry about that. I can offer you a one-time coupon for $10 off your next purchase or renewal. Would you like me to apply this to your account? --- Most companies just hope an apologetic zoom call is enough to retain your business, and most of the time it works. Not enough has been written about the asymmetry of your…

If there were symmetry, then renewing the domain would cost millions instead of $20 or whatever it is, to cover the payouts. Is that what you want?

If it is, you can buy custom insurance for the event from an insurance company, and pay the same kind of yearly fee.

And remember that with build vs buy, what you build will often be worse than what you buy, because at least what you buy is getting bugs fixed from bug reports across the world from other customers. An internal tool will rarely be as stress-tested and battle-hardened as what you can buy.

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#246

Post by zippergz » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

renegade-otter wrote: post #186

Animats wrote: post #85

That seriously devalues MarkMonitor's services. MarkMonitor claims to be a "an ICANN-accredited registrar and recognized industry leader since 1999". The whole point of paying for MarkMonitor is that they're an expensive service for valuable domains and are not allowed to screw up. GoDaddy should not be involved here at all.

These big companies spend tens of millions on homegrown tooling, even their own languages and databases, but they can't assign one dev to write a domain-monitoring tool?

Markmonitor is much more about the people and service behind it rather than the software. To replace markmonitor you don't need a dev to write a tool. You need a dev to write a tool, and then a team of people who build relationships with everyone in the domain world and are available 24/7 to make calls and deal with issues if they come up.

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#247

Post by Hobadee » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

bakuninsbart wrote: post #194

rhubarbtree wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, Zoom seems a terrible name for a video conferencing app - anyone know why they chose it?

It is a one-syllable word, easy to pronounce in many languages, quite distinct from other words and brands, and can easily be turned into a verb.

Verbing your nouns is a great way to lose your trademark.

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#248

Post by johnklos » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

be_erik wrote: post #9

I was really hoping to find out they were hosting their DNS on GoDaddy. I still want it to be true.

GoDaddy is the registrar. They (Zoom) host their DNS using Amazon.

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#249

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

Maxious wrote: post #86

Animats wrote: post #85

That seriously devalues MarkMonitor's services. MarkMonitor claims to be a "an ICANN-accredited registrar and recognized industry leader since 1999". The whole point of paying for MarkMonitor is that they're an expensive service for valuable domains and are not allowed to screw up. GoDaddy should not be involved here at all.

GoDaddy runs the root dns for .us

I understood what you meant. I can understand why someone would want to clarify the terminology for those who don't know DNS well.

Re: Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us domain

#250

Post by Hobadee » Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

nom wrote: post #219

18172828286177 wrote: post #157

Godaddy is such an incompetent organisation. Should not be allowed to administer anything of importance.

It's easy to blame GoDaddy, but 'miscommunication' takes two. You pay Markmonitor a shitload of money to make sure this doesn't happen. They should have dedicated people at GoDaddy and direct communication channels. This is a significant fuckup on Markmonitor's part, even if GoDaddy did something different than was requested from them.

I can guarantee you that miscommunication doesn't always require 2 people.

Source: Have been OH SO EVER PRECISCE AND EXACT in my communication with certain idiots, and they still screw it up. Several instances of "put this here carefully", only to return and find it all the way across the room upside-down and broken, come to mind.