←back to thread

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

(status.zoom.us)
634 points RVRX | 1 comments | 17 Apr 25 00:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
RVRX ◴[17 Apr 25 00:55 UTC] No.43711958[source]▶
"This block was the result of a communication error between Zoom’s domain registrar, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy Registry, which resulted in GoDaddy Registry mistakenly shutting down zoom.us domain. "
replies(3): >>43711994 #>>43712118 #>>43712177 #
LinuxBender ◴[17 Apr 25 01:00 UTC] No.43711994[source]▶
Something is fishy about this. A communication error would not result in a domain being placed on hold. On hold is usually the result of a legal order or in the case of the .us TLD a nexus compliance violation. I've transferred thousands of domains from assorted dodgy registrars into MarkMonitor and can not even imagine a scenario where a miscommunication results in a domain being placed on hold.
replies(4): >>43712073 #>>43712287 #>>43712366 #>>43712853 #
gjsman-1000 ◴[17 Apr 25 01:12 UTC] No.43712073[source]▶
Nah, weird stuff that “shouldn’t” happen almost always happens more often than things that “should” happen.
replies(2): >>43712120 #>>43712260 #
1. LinuxBender ◴[17 Apr 25 01:20 UTC] No.43712120[source]▶
I hear ya but this would more than likely be something like a really sloppy human error such as following the wrong process vs. a miscommunication otherwise I would expect these outages to be much more frequent. I do remember when a fat-finger at UUNET took out most of the internet long ago but that was a human error and is a bit harder to have the same impact today.

To me a communication error implies someone followed erroneous instructions without asking the obvious, " ... but isn't this a big business that is still live and why don't I have a legal order in my hand?" In fairness this did happen recently with he.net because a sub-domain was reported but it was done intentionally even if they failed to do even basic due diligence. After Covid I would expect most people would know zoom.us would be in use by a lot of people whereas only specific groups of people would know what he.net is.

I am curious if the process has changed due to laziness and now registrars can just select any number of domains and click a button to place them on hold without management or executive approval. If so that should be in some audit trail and should require confirmation and approval by a senior leader.