Thank you Nivard for the full explanation that some others may have not been aware of. I am surprised that there has been no public announcement regarding Ancestry. It is a Worldwide Group and the whole system has been let down, particularly its paying customers for weeks now. A short tag on some Ancestry pages and on their "Help" folder, doesn't reach their millions of customers I would suggest. Certainly here in Australia there has been no media news of it at all, except TV advertisements suggesting we all join Ancestry.com.au. Let's hope we're all over the worst of it now......wait and see at present anyway. Cheers, Robyn -----Original Message----- From: new-zealand-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:new-zealand-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Nivard Ovington Sent: Friday, 27 June 2014 7:41 AM To: new-zealand@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [nz] No mail re Ancestry and Rootsweb lists outage On the 16th June 2014 Ancestry servers were attacked by a huge DDOS strike <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack> This brought the Ancestry sites down including the lists Security was not compromised, no data lost or changed, no personal data taken The motive (I speculate) could be an attempt to get a ransom, Ancestry was not the only site attacked and at least one other has said a ransom was demanded It took Ancestry a couple of days to get the main site back online but other parts such as Rootsweb have been longer Its obvious Ancestry would want their paid for services working first Rootsweb came back online early on Tuesday the 24th June but the lists only started working properly about two hours ago Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 24/06/2014 09:54, annesteve.westley@gmail.com wrote: > Hi Everyone > > I have received no mail since about last Tuesday > > Can anyone explain? > > Cheers > > Steve Westley The List Guidelines http://new-zealand-l.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NEW-ZEALAND-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Robyn In fairness to Ancestry they were caught between a rock and a hard place They couldn't inform its users directly as all systems were down, the press did cover it widely, I saw it reported in various newspapers, granted those I saw were UK or US papers I am not an advocate for facebook, I think its a very poor substitute for research but on this occasion it was useful as I followed Ancestry and got frequent updates, they also have a twitter feed where similar messages appeared They also have a blog which is worth checking if there are problems at any time <http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2014/06/17/distributed-denial-of-service-attack-neutralized/> Other forums also discussed it in depth so it was publicised reasonably well They also have a freephone number, I keep it in a saved email in case I can't access the site as in this case But thankfully the lists are back and we can move forward again :-) Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 27/06/2014 00:32, Robyn Clarke wrote: > Thank you Nivard for the full explanation that some others may have not been > aware of. > > I am surprised that there has been no public announcement regarding > Ancestry. It is a Worldwide Group and the whole system has been let down, > particularly its paying customers for weeks now. A short tag on some > Ancestry pages and on their "Help" folder, doesn't reach their millions of > customers I would suggest. > > Certainly here in Australia there has been no media news of it at all, > except TV advertisements suggesting we all join Ancestry.com.au. > > Let's hope we're all over the worst of it now......wait and see at present > anyway. > > Cheers, > Robyn