Front and Center
How the internet got broked :-P~
If you were to be perusing the interwebs early Tuesday morning, you would have immediately noticed something awry. Websites like Amazon, Reddit, Spotify, eBay, Twitch, Pinterest, many news sites, and even government service pages were showing Error: 503 messages, which typically appear when a website is under maintenance. Many took to message boards to find the cause, and even though service was restored before people started hoarding toilet paper again, it wasn’t until 24 hours later that a root cause was identified — and it turns out that it was a single, Fastly customer… imagine being that person.
No. What’s Fastly?
Fastly is a San Francisco-based cloud computing service provider that effectively makes loading times faster for websites (ah, Fastly, got it.) Yeah, it also optimizes images, videos and other large content to show up quickly when you load a web page. It does this by storing some website data from international websites in local data servers, instead of having to fetch them from faraway host servers every time. This “edge computing” method, which can be thought of as distributed fulfillment but for information, also performs various cybersecurity functions.
So who fudged up? I want names.
Okay psycho. Fastly sits between back-end web servers and the front-facing internet that we see, so any error in their system can cause entire websites to be unavailable.
On June 8, one UNNAMED customer (but pictured at the end) accidentally triggered a bug during a “valid configuration change”, which caused 85% of the company’s network to display errors. Within 60 seconds, the Fastly team identified and disabled the configuration, and within 49 minutes, 95% of the network was operating as normal. Quick work.
Could it happen again?
Fastly announced that it will be taking several steps to avoid outages in the future, including root-cause analyses and a complete evaluation of their bug-fix and deployment processes.
If you feel stressed by more and more companies falling victim to ransomware attacks and now the internet is going down, it may help to step away and take a breather this summer.
Want a free getaway?
Use code SHIPHERO123 at your front door to walk outside and enjoy the roses. Check out this botanical garden directory for roses near you, and tell them ShipHero sent you if you want to confuse the staff.
Back of the Packet
????Heard it Through Pipeline????
On Monday, the Justice Department announced that federal officials had recovered most of the Bitcoin ransom paid out for the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. While they did not specify how exactly they were able to track down the funds, feds said that they had recouped 63.7 of the 75 bitcoins ($2.3 million of the $4.3 million), exposing a common misconception that Bitcoin payments cannot be traced.
Ready Player 2
Meet Matt Furlong and George Sherman, Gamestop’s new CEO and CFO respectively, and they’re both Amazon-executive alumni. This move continues to signify the Reddit-obsessed gaming company’s efforts to completely level up their e-commerce business.
Amazon’s Privacy Fine
The Luxembourg data protection commission, the CNPD, has proposed a fine of more than $425 million against Amazon.com for violations against the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which allows these privacy regulators to fine company’s up to 4% of a company’s annual revenue. This fine in particular would represent roughly 2% of Amazon’s reported net income ($21.3 billion), due to the violation being administrative in nature.
The Bezos Bros
TO THE MOON!???? (we’ll stop using this one day)
ShipHero News
Relaaaax
Shipping CBD products is now legal across all 50 states, but beware! Companies that want their share of this growing $2.8 billion market must comply with the FDA’s shipping regulations. That’s why we grind up the industry’s best practice and FDA guidance and roll it into this latest how-to guide to grow your CBD business!
Take a ride on the information superhighway!
Did you know: KPIs allow you to organize your company’s data and set specific and actionable goals against them. From social media to shipping logistics, you can use this information to track marketing trends, warehouse inventory, and customer service interactions. Dive into our latest blog for 16 must-track KPIs in 2021!
Best Print-on-Demand Companies of 2021
Whether you hope to make a business out of print-on-demand, want to sell merchandise to spread brand awareness, or think it’d be cool to sell your self-designed “Pfizer Gang” shirts, you must pick the print-on-demand company that’s right for you. In this blog, we explain print-on-demand and identify the top five print-on-demand services as of 2021.
