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Fastly says global internet outage was due to a software bug

09 June 2021
Dan Ackermann

Fastly, the popular content delivery network (CDN) hit by a global internet outage Tuesday, chalked the episode up in a blog post Tuesday to a software bug triggered by a customer changing their settings.

The state of play: Fastly's outage caused a slew of popular websites — including The New York Times, CNN, Reddit, Spotify, Twitch, GitHub, gov.uk, Hulu, HBO Max, PayPal, Vimeo, Shopify — to crash.

Why it matters: The episode highlighted "how the much of the global internet is dependent on a handful of behind the scenes companies like Fastly that provide vital infrastructure, and it amplified concerns about how vulnerable they are to more serious disruption," the AP writes.

The big picture: The bug was introduced in a software update deployed May 12, and was triggered Tuesday by a customer making a "valid" change in their computer settings, Nick Rockewell, Fastly's senior vice president of engineering and infrastructure, wrote in the blog post.

  • The company is working to fix the bug in their network and to understand how the bug it wasn't detected during the update's testing phase.

What they're saying: "We detected the disruption within one minute, then identified and isolated the cause, and disabled the configuration. Within 49 minutes, 95% of our network was operating as normal," said Rockwell.

  • "This outage was broad and severe, and we’re truly sorry for the impact to our customers and everyone who relies on them," he added.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.