Anybody else having problems with Facebook this morning?

If I try to update my status, I get this:

Transport error (#12031) while retrieving data from endpoint `/ajax/updatestatus.php': Unknown HTTP error #12031

Hmmmm...some of the stuff I'm seeing suggests this is a Firewall / Windows XP problem.

Update, 11:23 AM: Ummmm, can these stories be related?:

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/08/facebook-downtime-issues/
Facebook Experiencing Serious Downtime Issues
Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 6th, 2009 10:18 AM

Want to browse Facebook to see what your friends are doing or to catch up on to harvest your farms on FarmVille? Good luck! Over the past 24 hours I’ve been receiving numerous emails from users reporting that many features on Facebook have been unavailable. I’ve also been experiencing problems. This morning I tried to load my friend requests page and it just failed. On the AllFacebook page I tried viewing comments and likes of one of the posts and an AJAX error popped up.

Facebook doesn’t appear to be the only site having issues however. Twitter has been down for the past 15 minutes and users are going crazy! One anonymous blogger told us “I can’t retweet my own articles so how the hell am I going to get readers to my site?” Woe is me my dear friend! Talk about problems going on in the world: Facebook can’t be accessed by a large portion of its users. The site is known for having great uptime but more recently as the site has surged past 250 million users, the company is facing new issues.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351283,00.asp
Twitter's Site Goes Down
08.06.09
by Mark Hachman and Brian Heater
The popular microblogging site Twitter went down early Thursday morning, with the site's operators confirming the outage on a status blog.

Twitter offered no explanation for the outage, adding a characteristically pithy post on its Status blog titled, simply, "Site is Down". "We are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly," the post read.

PCMag.com staffers also noted problems with Facebook at about the same time, with the site failing to load briefly. The status site "downforeveryoneorjustme.com" also reported both Twitter and Facebook being down at about 9:45 AM Eastern time. Facebook was accessible shortly thereafter, although PCMag.com staffers reported a few glitches, such as problems with posting status updates and internal links.

http://defensesystems.com/Articles/2009/08/05/DOD-ban-social-media.aspx
Does a DOD ban on social media makes sense?
By John S. Monroe
Aug 05, 2009FCW readers are evenly split — and passionately so — about the prospects of a Defense Department ban on social media.

To some readers, it’s a “no duh” decision. DOD, an anonymous reader writes, “is not a social experiment.”

Other readers acknowledge the security risks associated with social media, but say such risks can and should be addressed.

Further, a ban comes with risks of its own.

“If [the social-media applications] are blocked, we potentially face losing good employees and soldiers/marines/airmen/sailors, but will be completely unprepared for future technology,” writes Phil.

For more background, check out the following stories:
DOD may ban Twitter, Facebook, other social media
Marines: Facebook is not for the few good men

Update, 2:18 PM, courtesy of Michelle: Facebook and Twitter are under attack.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_facebook_and_livejournal_down_at_the_same.php

Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal Down at the Same Time!(Update)
Written by Sarah Perez / August 6, 2009 7:32 AM/

For those of you addicted to social networking, Thursday morning is starting out pretty rough. The two biggest sites for updating your status - Twitter and Facebook - are both experiencing issues this morning. Twitter's outage started around 9 AM EST today and while Facebook is up (somewhat), posting updates and wall comments is currently very flaky. And you can't even go vent about how this makes you feel over on your LiveJournal blog because - guess what? - it's down too.

Update: Twitter says they're fighting off a DDOS attack right now but the site is back up. LJ also says they're experiencing a DDOS attack.

According to the Twitter status blog, a posting around 10 AM EST simply reads: "Site is down. We are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly." However, Twitter Search appears to be functional and is somehow pulling in recent tweets, so obviously Twitter has not completely "failwhaled" for everyone.

To make matters worse, Facebook is also experiencing issues this morning as many rebuffed Twitter users are now finding out when they go to post their status on the social networking site instead. The Facebook outage appears to be intermittent, though, and isn't affecting everyone. If you notice anything at all, it may be only that posting status updates and comments display an error message. But simply clicking the post button again may be able to force them through (at least that was my experience.) The site also loads slowly at times and is displaying occasional "transport" errors.

So, who to suspect in this Distributed Denial of Service attack on social media?

1. "White-hat" hackers making the DoD's point for them.
2. Wingnuts upset that people are expressing gratitude that Bill Clinton and/or the Obama Administration were able to get Laura Ling and Euna Lee freed from North Korea.
3. The same people behind the Astroturfing Teabaggers who are trying to Swift Boat health care reform. (And are there no cops armed with Tasers at these meetings?)
4. North Koreans upset that Americans are not bowing down in gratitude to the Great Leader for his mangnanimity.
5. The Iranian government because...just because.

This is happening just a little more than a year after SiteMeter crashed the Internet.


Update, 7:38 PM: Michelle has pointed out that there is a major hackers' conference going on, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect some connection.

But this from a friend on Facebook: "Andy Borowitz just announced 'One Billionth Click on Nude Vanessa Hudgens Link Causes Twitter Outage.'"