Federal Government Inadvertently Deleted Ca.Gov

An anonymous reader writes "A Network World reader whose brother works for a California state agency forwarded me an e-mail alert that his brother received: "The Department of Technology Services (DTS) has notified us that the Federal Government inadvertently deleted the CA.GOV domain. As the evening progresses you may experience an impact in your ability to access some Web sites and exchange e-mail. DTS is working with their federal counterparts to restore service as quickly as possible but service may not be restored until tomorrow morning.""

behind the scenes

[cez (539085)]

"We don't for sure have the whole picture, but as we understand it, there was some event at the Transportation Authority of Marin Country where their site got hacked," Hanacek told me this afternoon. Traffic was being redirected from that site to one featuring pornography.

A department within the U.S. General Services Administration in Washington oversees and polices the .gov domain.

"The federal government saw this incorrect use of ca.gov and they made a change at a much more global level than probably was necessary and it started taking down all of our ca.gov domain," says Hanacek. "That impacted Web access and e-mail services."

Damn... all this because someone pointed their IP surveillance camera at the nude beach across the street.

Re:behind the scenes

[MindStalker (22827)]

"We're from the government we're here to help!"

just like katrina

[User 956 (568564)]

The Department of Technology Services (DTS) has notified us that the Federal Government inadvertently deleted the CA.GOV domain.

That's not a mistake, someone just put FEMA's earthquake-recovery plan into action a little bit early.

Re:just like katrina

[Enlightenment (1073994)]

That's not recovery. That's acceptance.

Re:just like katrina

[Seumas (6865)]

Were the administrators responsible for this also graduates of Oral Roberts University? They're everywhere else in government . . .

Re:just like katrina

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Deleting CA.GOV? I didn't realize that FEMA was planning was to actually erase Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When you hire the Eraser (1996)

[infonography (566403)]

what did you think would happen?

Simple to fix?

[jfroot (455025)]

Can they not just:

# scp bkuser@backupserver:/etc/bind/zones/gov.ca.zonefile /etc/bind/zones
# service named reload

voila!

Re:

[cez (539085)]

doesn't sound like they deleted it to me, more like they routed it to nowhere, and propagated that route across the network and root DNS servers...

Re:Simple to fix?

[Achromatic1978 (916097)]

How do you "route" a domain name? Sure you can point the authoritive NS's to some black hole, but that's easily enough reversed. DNS changes don't 'propagate' upstream. They can be cached downstream, but nothing irrevocable, and there's no route to propagate. "ca.gov" is not a AS network.

Re:

[ObsessiveMathsFreak (773371)]

ssh: backupserver: Name or service not known
lost connection

In related news...

[dws90 (1063948)]

Shortly after this story broke, it was announced that Federal Offices were raided by an Austrian Cyborg who repeatedly shouted "My domain will be back!". The identity of the intruder is currently under investigation.

Re:

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

I can give them a hint ... CA.GOV.

Ooops.

[conlaw (983784)]

At least the Feds don't have to worry about Iraq, Iran, et al. for the next few days. They've probably upset The Terminator and, as we all know, he'll be back.

Terrorists ....

[snoggeramus (945056)]

Terrorists we can handle. What really scares is an attack of the stupids.

Re:

[Thaelon (250687)]

The term you're looking for is weaponized stupidity. Remember it. Use it. Enjoy it.

Why wait?

[amccaf1 (813772)]

I see the federal government isn't waiting around for the San Andreas Fault do to its work... they're cutting California free now!

Re:

[PPH (736903)]

After the 'Big One', everything east of the San Andreas fault is going to slide into the Atlantic Ocean.

Why not just use the .ca TLD?

[nebaz (453974)]

It's not like anyone else it using it?

Re:

[tehSpork (1000190)]

Very good idea! In fact why don't we hand .org to Oregon while we're at it, surely they will give that TLD much better use than the legions of lackluster sites infesting that TLD.

Re:

[SpeedyDX (1014595)]

Funny, yes, but insightful?

Whoever modded that has got to lay off the MJ. You might not be able to afford it [www.cbc.ca] soon.

Re:Why not just use the .ca TLD?

[pembo13 (770295)]

Why not use ca.us ?

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

It was considered. Unfortunately, with the poor state of the American dollar, it would cost just too much for California to register a Canadian domain name.

Re:

[patio11 (857072)]

Plus, the only vowel allowed in Canadian domain names is A, eh?

If only...

[feepness (543479)]

If only these idiots were running more of my life.

Re:

[SuperBanana (662181)]

If only these idiots were running more of my life.

Given California is easily the biggest nannystate in the union, if you live there- you've already got your wish.

Re:

[fm6 (162816)]

Before everybody gets all snickery about government incompetence, remember that the private sector has its moments [theregister.co.uk] too.

Re:

[feepness (543479)]

Microsoft doesn't put me in jail if I don't buy their product.

What REALLY happened

[antifoidulus (807088)]

Dick Cheney didn't want anyone to know that California actually exists(and if people cannot know about it, then their congressmen go away) so he arbitrarily declared it to be top secret.

Re:

[fm6 (162816)]

What you just reported is also top secret. That makes you a spy. Please wait for the DHS agents to come and arrest you.

No wonder!

[sweet 'n sour (595166)]

I was attempting to do some research at the California DMV web site yesterday and kept getting 404's. Google cache to the rescue. Maybe they can rebuild from that alone!

OOPS! I've entered CA.ORG by mistake

[zukinux (1094199)]

but it kind of looked the same. California, drug addict site, what's the difference?

Actually this is a news leak

[OrangeTide (124937)]

The real news is that the federal government is going to allow California to succeed from the Union, part of that preparation is deleting the domain name.

Re:Actually this is a news leak

[emurphy42 (631808)]

"As for immigration, solving that came at a heavy cost, and I personally regret the loss of California. However, the new Mexifornian economy is strong and El Presidente Schwarzenegger is doing a great job."

gov.c eh

[flyingfsck (986395)]

Pardon, eh? I saw the typo of 'ca.gov' and corrected it to 'gov.ca' and the next thing I knew the terminator kicked the door down, eh...

Gotta wonder ......

[edwardpickman (965122)]

Would this have happened if they voted Republican? It's not really a joke since Bush has snubbed California ever since the 2000 election.

It's back...

[rdwald (831442)]

Is it just me, or does http://www.ca.gov/ [ca.gov] still work? I mean, I just went there and got a page reading "Welcome to the State of California." I guess this problem's already been resolved.

Blame Canada

[knuth (6137)]

Maybe they got confused and thought Canadians wre infiltrating the U.S. federal government. What if, horrors, they were separatist Freedom [wikipedia.org] Canadians?

Re:

[djh101010 (656795)]

Unfortunately, yes. But, should California ever decide to secede, I will be in full support of same.

Re:

[nurb432 (527695)]

Only on paper for tax revenue.. In spirit, we lost them long ago.

Re:who really cares, when does ca.mx go live?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

Well, the northern part is, but the southern part never was.

Re:Sorry

[Dachannien (617929)]

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.

Re:

[pembo13 (770295)]

you know, that is really getting played out

Re:Sorry

[untaken_name (660789)]

Malice gets you fired, while stupidity gets excused and forgiven. Which would you prefer your actions to be seen as?

Re:Sorry

[hawks5999 (588198)]

any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

Re:

[speedingant (1121329)]

Then you won't have any problems not believing that the Terminator did it, and he's slowly deleting the entire internet. Think about it in a positive light, go play frisbee or something.

Re:Sorry

[statemachine (840641)]

It's easy to delete a domain. Delete the zone file on the primary name server and reload the daemon. That's only two steps, and it would really ruin your day if you didn't keep a backup on hand. Why would you think it's not hard to do?

Re:Sorry

[by Anonymous Coward]

How do you accidently delete an entire domain?

You're grossly over-estimating the competence of the federal government. The only thing surprising about this is that they didn't delete the entire .gov domain.

I sense a disturbance in the Force...

[schwaang (667808)]

...as if millions of URLs cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Re:

[WillAffleckUW (858324)]

Your pitiful Green State shall not stop the Power of the Red Bushie side of the Force!

Soon you shall feel the might of this fully operational Iraq Embassy!