Twitter self-DDOS following recent code changes

[Ink]

Content source

https://waxy.org/2023/07/twitter-bug-causes-self-ddos-possibly-causing-elon-musks-emergency-blocks-and-rate-limits-its-amateur-hour/

Elon Musk has claimed that Twitter is under attack from “several hundred organizations” who were conducting “EXTREME levels of data scraping,” forcing them to bring “large numbers of servers online on an emergency basis” and enact emergency measures.

Twitter started blocking all logged-out access to Twitter, requiring signing in to view any tweet or profile. Elon Musk called it a “temporary emergency measure,” claiming they “were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”

Apparently, it didn’t stop the crush of traffic and, this morning, Musk announced they escalated their actions against supposed “extreme levels of data scraping” by rate-limiting the number of tweets you can view.

But on Mastodon this morning, web developer Sheldon Chang noticed another source of unusual traffic: a bug in Twitter’s web app that is constantly sending requests to Twitter in an infinite loop:

"This is hilarious. It appears that Twitter is DDOSing itself.
​

The Twitter home feed’s been down for most of this morning. Even though nothing loads, the Twitter website never stops trying and trying.
​

In the first video, notice the error message that I’m being rate limited. Then notice the jiggling scrollbar on the right.​

The second video shows why it’s jiggling. Twitter is firing off about 10 requests a second to itself to try and fetch content that never arrives because Elon’s latest genius innovation is to block people from being able to read Twitter without logging in.​

This likely created some hellish conditions that the engineers never envisioned and so we get this comedy of errors resulting in the most epic of self-owns, the self-DDOS.​

Unbelievable. It’s amateur hour."
​

He posted a video of the bug in action, sending hundreds of requests a minute.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

It is a good and hilareous read, thanks for posting the links

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

Yeah, well, it may be a bug that Sheldon Yang found, but I would have thought it would take a few more than "'about 10 requests a second" to DOS Twitter.

For what its worth, I think Musk is brilliant, a bit 'on the spectrum', but brilliant and genuine Twitter fans should be glad to have him.

It seems to me that he is currently trying to clean-out all the dross and bludgers who downgrade the whole experience with bot based crypto ads, self-serving pseudo conspiracy theories and general Marketing 101 scams for the benefit of genuine users.

I won't touch the bloody thing atm, but I might actually give it a go when he's finished putting a broom through the joint.

And besides, what ever bugs are actually in the system he inherited from the previous bunch of clown's running the thing into the ground.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

Yeah, well, it may be a bug that Sheldon Yang found, but I would have thought it would take a few more than "'about 10 requests a second" to DOS Twitter.

Yes, but you should multiply that for every user not logged in, just checking tweets

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

So, even though they have user accounts, they're just lurking?

I mean, using resources but not contributing.

 

[blackice]

So, even though they have user accounts, they're just lurking?

I mean, using resources but not contributing.

Twitter is a one to many platform. Most users never post.

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

Just seems weird that there's this huge kerfuffle, that seems to be primarily from non account holders.

Any idea what actual account holders feel about said access limitations? Has it cleared congestion?

 

[Ink]

For what its worth, I think Musk is brilliant, a bit 'on the spectrum', but brilliant and genuine Twitter fans should be glad to have him.

Tech companies are run by the employees, it's maintained by engineers, scientists, researchers, developers, cleaners.

It’s anyones best guess if Elon is a developer or engineer.

On Bluesky, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth wrote, “For anyone keeping track, this isn’t even the first time they’ve completely broken the site by bumbling around in the rate limiter. There’s a reason the limiter was one of the most locked down internal tools. Futzing around with rate limits is probably the easiest way to break Twitter.”

Credit: Post by Yoel Roth

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

Tech companies are run by the employees, it's maintained by engineers, scientists, researchers, developers, cleaners.

True, but under-performers are fired by the owner and replaced with effective alternatives, it just takes time to assemble the 'right' team.

 

[vtqhtr413]

Over the last few days, Twitter not only stopped showing tweets unless you're logged in, but also started capping the number of tweets users can ready each ("rate limiting") — ostensibly due to "data scraping," according to Elon Musk. Those actions are starting to have an impact elsewhere across Twitter's ecosystem, with many users reporting that Tweetdeck (a power-user version of Twitter) no longer works. In addition, Google Search is reportedly showing up to 50 percent fewer Twitter URLs due to the logged-in requirement, Search Engine Roundtable reported.

For a lot of users (including Engadget), Tweetdeck effectively stopped functioning, just showing a spinning wheel above most columns. That may be because a bug in Twitter's web app is sending requests in an infinite loop, effectively creating a "self-DDOS" (distributed denial of service), Waxy reported. As researcher Molly White tweeted, that effect is multiplied in Tweetdeck for anything other than the "Home" column, as it keeps "repeatedly retrying 404s," she wrote.

Twitter's apps are breaking following Elon Musk's decision to cap tweet rates | Engadget

Twitter's 'rate limiting' and login requirements may be affecting its power-user app Tweetdeck..

www.engadget.com

 

[vtqhtr413]

Text and image AI models are trained using huge data sets that have been scraped from the internet. This includes our personal data and copyrighted works by artists, and that data we have created is now forever part of an AI model that is built to make a company money. We unwittingly contribute our labor for free by uploading our photos on public sites, upvoting comments on Reddit, labeling images on reCAPTCHA, or performing online searches. In fact, we are all data laborers for big technology companies, whether we are aware of it or not, argue researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Davis, the University of Minnesota, and Northwestern University in a new paper presented at FAccT.

We are all AI’s free data workers

Plus: DeepMind’s game-playing AI just found another way to make code faster.

www.technologyreview.com

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

"...Text and image AI models are trained using huge data sets that have been scraped from the internet. This includes our personal data and copyrighted works by artists, and that data we have created is now forever part of an AI model that is built to make a company money. We unwittingly contribute our labor for free by uploading our photos on public sites, upvoting comments on Reddit, labeling images on reCAPTCHA, or performing online searches..."

Can't happen on a decentralised site... just saying...

 

[blackice]

True, but under-performers are fired by the owner and replaced with effective alternatives, it just takes time to assemble the 'right' team.

I think ‘underperformers’ have been used as a scapegoat to justify some of the worst aspects of capitalism. Twitter wasn’t a great company, any they were struggling to make it profitable, but trying to make it profitable by only employing people with zero personal life boundaries and demonizing anybody who just does a decent job and firing them isn’t some kind of stellar management. It’s shortsighted and misguided. Burnout is real and a lot harder to justify when you aren’t the one making billions of dollars. It’s a lot easier to have a Musk-style ‘work ethic’ (which is incredibly unhealthy) when you are drowning in overflowing bank accounts.

 

[blackice]

I know Musk is not a good manager or leader by the way he dodges personal responsibility and throws employees under the bus witth regularity. He is in fact a very poor leader with a lot of capital and that is a manifestation of that.

 

[oldschool]

I know Musk is not a good manager or leader by the way he dodges personal responsibility and throws employees under the bus witth regularity. He is in fact a very poor leader with a lot of capital and that is a manifestation of that.

Musk is a throwback to the days of the New England textile mill magnates in the U.S., and other unfettered, unregulated capitalists abusing workers, e.g. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire - Wikipedia

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

I am not an Elon fan, but he gathered his fortune through leadership and vision.

I have worked with a man who grew a company from zero to 8000 man. After 15 years he turned from an out of the box thinker and inspiring leader into a nan who thought his opinion on everything was the best and that others just did not see the things he saw.

When argueing with him everyone in the room was less succesfull, had way less money on their bank accounts, had not dared to take the risks he did, had not seen trends or opportunities evolve and materialize as soon as he had seen them, so every discussion turned into "a clothes of the emporer" applause and yah saying session.

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

I don't think anyone is claiming Musk's style of management is perfect.

But I think some context and perspective is called for...

Musk has got a big mouth. No doubt. Calling a rescuer a pedophile, Dogecoin to name but two. And, now Twitter... Its well known he bought Twitter to avoid being court ordered to buy Twitter after simply making a passing comment about buying Twitter and after some very greedy investor's freaked out and sold out of or bought in to Twitter shares, freaked out again and class actioned him to complete the deal.

He was lied to by the previous management about its bottom-line, subscriber base, revenue streams and Bot generated content, yet he completed the deal without, to my knowledge, suing anyone.

Under those circumstances, the guy is now pilloried for trying to bring order to chaos. Twitter was a financial and operational basket case that hasn't turned a profit since day one.

To my mind, he is simply trying to take it from there to a place where it can function, turn a profit and serve its target audience most effectively.

And, I don't think he is doing a bad job. But, time will tell.

 

[oldschool]

... The situation has made conspiracy theorists out of onlookers who can’t help but wonder whether Musk’s plan has been to slowly and steadily destroy the platform all along. Such theories are compelling, but they all share a flaw, in that they presuppose both a rational actor and a plan. You may not find either here. I’ve reported on Musk for the past five years, speaking with dozens of employees in the process to try to understand his rationales. The takeaway is clear: His motivations are frequently not what they seem, and chaos is a given. His money and power command attention and his actions have far-reaching consequences, but his behavior is rarely befitting of his station.

All the money and trolling can’t hide what’s obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention to his Twitter tenure: Elon Musk is bad at this. His incompetence should unravel his image as a visionary, one whose ambitions extend as far as colonizing Mars. This reputation as a genius, more than his billions, is Musk’s real fortune; it masks the impetuousness he demonstrates so frequently on Twitter. But Musk has spent this currency recklessly. Who in their right mind would explore space with a man who can’t keep a website running?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...er-outage-elon-musk-user-restrictions/674609/