Google search engine claiming all sites harmful

It looks like Google is seriously broken, all across the board. This began on 2009/01/31, sometime between 0600 PST and 0640 PST.

All search results on Google are returning “This site may harm your computer”. Every search result from www.google.com points you to their interstitial URL redirector, e.g.:

http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.whateversite.com/

Clearing one’s DNS cache does not fix this problem. I’ve verified its not my own connection either, by using lynx and telnet from co-located servers across the United States. This is indeed a Google problem.

I’m not the only one who’s reported this. Slashdot also reported it, as did the DSLR folks (and here as well).

I’ll be interested to see what the media makes of this, because this is a pretty severe outage.

EDIT: The outage appears over as of approximately 0710 PST. An hour to mitigate is pretty quick, but an hour of search results broken… ouch.

European English realm list

What a morning! First my ISP decided to do some form of maintenance which took 3+ hours, and now Quel’Thalas is down (easily confirmed by trying to connect to 80.239.149.29 on TCP port 3724 — no answer), despite what the Realm Status page says. Or, well, it was down — and it wasn’t just me who noticed, either…

This, along with a post from a Blizzard rep. about server location, got me wondering: what exactly are the IPs of the servers, and where are they geographically situated? Well that’s somewhat of a pain to figure out… but I bust out Wireshark this morning, spent some time analysing packets, and then hand-editing the results to get server names, their IPs and TCP port numbers, and where they’re located geographically.

Increased network latency to Europe servers — part 3

Folks in the Netherlands apparently lost all connectivity to all European Realms on the 29th, supposedly due to a fibre cut somewhere. The following LeaseWeb item documents the problem:

http://storingsoverzicht.nl/2009/01/29/problems-in-telia-network/

The official WoW Forum thread for the issue is quite long (presently 16 pages), and the last few pages are continued indication that the issue is more widespread than just the Netherlands:

Lag since roughly 15.00 today (Netherlands)

A fibre cut could indeed explain general oversaturation of a router or network interface, resulting in packet loss and high latency.

Also, I see that the US Realms experienced what were labelled “rolling restarts” yesterday. I logged on to WoW tonight to see the message “Server shutdown in 13:00″. Nothing on the “Breaking News” page indicated the European Realms were undergoing rolling restarts — but Blizzard’s Realm Status page had the following to say:

30/01 Rolling restarts

There will be rolling restarts of all realms to apply hotfixes, starting at approximately 05:00, Paris time (CET). Each realm will receive a 15 minute notice prior to being restarted.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Equally as interesting: if they’re being restarted, why does the message say server shutdown and not restart like usual? This makes me think they’re actually fixing something server-side (server/daemon software update).

Big city mentality

A friend of mine gave me the following news article link this evening, and I’m still baffled/shocked.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090129/METRO08/901290400

I shouldn’t need to explain why. It’s pretty incredible how everyone has “tunnel vision” in society these days…

Increased network latency to Europe servers — part 2

The problem I spoke about in my previous post is still occurring. Blizzard’s official thread for the problem is:

Latency Submission Thread | 23rd Jan 2009

This morning I woke up to read a thread on the forums which indicated most Belgian players can’t connect at all. Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, recommended the users use IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS and reset their DSL/cable modems. A few of the users pointed out the same thing I have: the problem is with Telia, particularly their POP in Paris.

While I was asleep, apparently some members in our guild who live in Sweden were also seeing crazy latency and bizarre “bursty” lag.

Supermicro X7SBA and ECC RAM — finale

Supermicro took my report seriously and filed a case on the problem.

A few days ago, a new BIOS version (v1.2a) appeared on Supermicro’s site:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBA.cfm

I upgraded my X7SBA’s system BIOS to 1.2a, and the memory size reported during POST is now correct (4096MB). Hooray! Another case closed. :-)

Increased network latency to Europe servers

Starting a few days ago, latency to the World of Warcraft EU servers has been significant. Many users — including myself — are reporting in-game latencies ranging from 500ms all the way into the tens of thousands. Users located in North America, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and other portions of Europe are experiencing this issue.

There is a WoW EU Forum thread about this problem. Be sure to note the timestamps of the replies, even though the thread itself was started in 2008:

16/01/2008 – Latency Submission Thread

R.I.P. Michael Takashi Sandborn

A fellow I used to talk to occasionally on IRC, a member of the romhacking/translation community, passed away today (2009/01/13) after undergoing brain surgery a couple days prior. Takashi was pretty well-known for drawing group pictures of all the members IRC #romhack.

I didn’t know him very well personally, and hadn’t spoken to him for a few years, but I still feel the loss. It’s strange — years go by and you figure a person is off doing something, in good health, and that you’ve just lost touch… and then one day you find out they’re gone. A small part of me feels empty, and even more-so awkward.

I’d like to think he’s in a better place now. I wish his family the best, and I hope friends of his who knew him personally are doing okay.

Anxiety and stomach adventures — update

I haven’t blogged for a week or two about how I’ve been doing in this regard. A lot has happened (good and bad), and I’m still struggling through things. Am I better than I was shortly prior to Christmas? Yes, definitely, but the ordeal is far from over.

Cooking Korean samgyeopsal (삼겹살)

I like samgyeopsal (삼겹살) quite a lot. I’ve never had it prepared at an actual Korean BBQ place, but I’ve had others make it for me — and recently, have made it myself.

I thought I’d make a video of how I prepare it, because it’s not the standard way — it’s my own way, a much more “Americanised” method.

Also, the ssamjang (쌈장) depicted (not the stuff in the green container) is a special kind made by Korean friends of mine. I have no idea what’s in it, so it’s a secret even to me! I do know sugar is involved though…

I hope other bachelors enjoy this video, since I cannot imagine a Korean, Korean-American, or female cooking anything like how I do. I like to keep it simple.

done

P.S. — The music is a song called “Rag Time On The Rag” from 崎谷健次郎. Nothing like mixing Korean food with Japanese music, eh? I’m such a bastard.