Comcast endures major Internet outage on the East Coast

By Aemon Malone Published November 29, 2010

Comcast’s Internet service suffered an outage on Sunday that left East Coast subscribers without online access for several hours. Complaints began to surface on Twitter late yesterday evening and appeared to be relegated to subscribers in Boston, Washington, DC, and the surrounding areas.

Shortly after reports of the outage began surfacing, some Twitter users began posting workarounds involving switching Domain Name System (DNS) settings. DNS works by translating the numerical Internet Protocol addresses into the domain names that humans can read (like www.digitaltrends.com). By flipping DNS settings from those Comcast provided to either OpenDNS or Google’s Public DNS users were able to restore connectivity.

Recommended Videos

Comcast announced that it had fixed the problem shortly after midnight and just in time for the official start of Cyber Monday, the Internet’s version of Black Friday. It’s not clear how many customers were affected by the outage or what the exact cause was, but neither cable television nor phone service appear to have been impacted.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Computing

I used ASUS’ dual-screen laptop as a portable creative station, and my desk PC started collecting dust

The Zenbook Duo might be the creator setup I wanted in college

Computer Hardware, Electronics, Hardware

With laptops, brands are constantly in a balancing act between portability and workspace productivity. The ASUS Zenbook Duo UX8407AA tries to dodge that choice with a design that brings a whole setup in a compact form factor.

I used the Zenbook Duo as a creative machine, mainly with design apps, illustration work, writing, and multitasking. The model I tried runs on Intel’s Core Ultra 7 355, paired with 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. That gives it enough horsepower to handle Photoshop and Animate, for sketches and animations, and a lot more without breaking a sweat.

Computing

macOS clipboard app Maccy has a fake out there stealing passwords

PamStealer malware is disguising itself as Maccy to target Mac users

Depicting of the Maccy clipboard app for macOS on a laptop with letters inb the background.

A fake version of Maccy, a popular clipboard manager for macOS, is being used to deliver a newly discovered Mac malware strain called PamStealer. Researchers at Jamf say the malware impersonates the real open-source app, but its actual purpose is to steal data and capture a victim’s login password.

PamStealer arrives as a disk image containing an AppleScript file that impersonates Maccy. Once the user opens that file, macOS launches it in Script Editor, where the on-screen instructions tell them to press Command-R. To someone expecting a normal app installer, that may look like an odd setup step. In reality, that action runs hidden malware code and starts the attack.

Computing

A new technology teaching drones to feel pain could stop your self-driving car from harming itself

Drones first, autonomous cars next. A pain-sensing system that detects failure before it happens has real stakes for self-driving vehicles.

Transportation, Vehicle, Car

When you sprain your ankle in the middle of a run, your body sends a pain signal to your brain, forcing you to stop. Essentially, the ability to sense pain stops you from pushing through the injury and causing further self-harm.

Researchers at Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University have applied this exact concept to drones, giving them a digital equivalent of a nervous system that recognizes a faulty part and triggers a pain-like warning signal. What's even more interesting is that the technology could find use in self-driving cars.