5 ms·

4:35 AM PST We are investigating increased EC2 launched failures and networking connectivity issues for some instances in a single Availability Zone (USE1-AZ4)

4:35 AM PST We are investigating increased EC2 launched failures and networking connectivity issues for some instances in a single Availability Zone (USE1-AZ4) in the US-EAST-1 Region. Other Availability Zones within the US-EAST-1 Region are not affected by this issue. via https://stop.lying.cloud/ https://stop.lying.cloud/

junon 5y ago
Can anyone explain the affiliation of stop.lying.cloud to Amazon? All of the legalese in the header/footer seem to indicate it's actually owned and run by Amazon. If so... why? Why not just... use the real status page? I mean I'm glad it exists, don't get me wrong. Just weird that they'd have two status pages, one seemingly existing only to sort of 'mock' themselves...
- taspeotis 5y ago
  The people who maintain the unofficial site would have, at some point, used their CTRL and C keys followed not immediately, but closely by, their CTRL and V keys.
  - junon 5y ago
    But that is copyright infringement. You're not allowed to copy some work, modify it, then slap the original copyright on it. This is an illegal website, prone to being taken down by AWS. It's just strange.
    - Acestus 5y ago
      I would be worried because getting taken down is Amazon’s speciality.
      - bsenftner 5y ago
        Actually, having a satire site taken down over copyright is one of the best ways to extort large amounts of money from the copyright holder, because constitutional attorneys will seep from the floorboards and appear in your shower trying to be an attorney on that case. Satire is extremely protected speech.
    - taspeotis 5y ago
      Yes mate, Internet Police Officer Jeff Bezos has been dispatched and will take this illegal website down right away. (Using copyrighted material is permitted under fair use; this website is a parody. I’m not a lawyer but at some level preserving the copyright notice is probably better than claiming it as their own.)
      - junon 5y ago
        This website is not a parody, and fair use does NOT permit you to retain the original copyright notice on the derived work. You may say that the original work is copyright of the respective owners and that this is a parody work. But that's not what the site is doing. The footer contains the original, unaltered copyright, creating confusion as to who owns the derived work. Amazon does not own this, nor do they endorse it, so you're not allowed to say it's copyrighted by Amazon.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        sparkling 5y ago
        oh no :o
        isoprophlex 5y ago
        Can you imagine that some might see your position as one of unmitigated pedantry unfitting in any discussion of this - clearly jocular - website?
        junon 5y ago
        Nope. Because these laws also protect people who make such websites from the corporations they're commenting on, too. The respect must be mutual, else e.g. OSS has no basis for legal protection, either. Being concerned for the proper respect of IP laws is something that benefits everyone.
    - bsenftner 5y ago
      Satire is the loophole of Copyright. If you satire ANYTHING you can use their copyrights in the satire. One could safely and legally drive an entire nation's transportation industry thru that loophole.
      - junon 5y ago
        No, fair use does NOT allow you to retain the original copyright. That would be passing off a derived work as the original copyright holder's work, which could be very damaging. This is a violation of fair use, if it could even be considered that to begin with.
        azernik 5y ago
        That's more of a trademark issue, and would require a reasonable consumer to be likely to be deceived. Which they're not.
        junon 5y ago
        No, it's not a trademark issue. They copied the work verbatim (including code, which is not covered by trademark law, but by copyright law), modified it, and then put the original copyright notice in the legalese. This is copyright infringement. And consumers are clearly deceived - hence why my original comment asking about it was written and has several upvotes.
        azernik 5y ago
        The direct copyright is covered by the satire exceptions. If you want to argue that copying the legalese is different, it's going to be on those confusion grounds, which IIUC aren't a copyright concern.
        bsenftner 5y ago
        Fair use in the case of satire is not retaining the original copyright, it is referencing the copyright. It is a legal split hair, but it stands in court.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      AWS might be smart enough not to make that strategic blunder. They won't want to draw attention to the inaccuracies of their status page.
      - junon 5y ago
        Perhaps, but the status page could exist within legal boundaries with a few trivial changes anyway. Why not just do that?
        chrisan 5y ago
        No one cares, including Amazon. This webpage isn't profiting off them. There is no valuable IP here being stolen. Amazon has much bigger legal issues to focus on than some satire.
        junon 5y ago
        Amazon has taken down trivial things before. This is a dangerous assumption to make - "it's not important to them so I shouldn't worry about the law". Those are famous last words.
    - throwaway2331 5y ago
      Drugs are illegal too, yet people do them all the time. Speeding? Basically a national past-time at this point. Misrepresentation, common fraud, and misappropriation? Par for the course in most small businesses. It's only a crime if someone gives enough of a shit to do something about it; otherwise, it's just life.
- andyjih_ 5y ago
  It's not official. The people making the page probably just copied everything, including the legalese.
- jrumbut 5y ago
  I was curious too. An HN user takes credit for it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24499159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24499159 Apparently it does some simple transformations of the actual status page, which is why the Amazon copyright stuff is in there.
- IceWreck 5y ago
  Amazon's own status page sort of lies. So someone probably wget-ed the status page, kept the same html and css and hooked it to their own API to display correct info.
- deadbunny 5y ago
  FWIW `lying.cloud` is registered with Namecheap. `amazon.com`/`aws.com`/`amazon.ca` are all registered with Mark Monitor. And I know that AWS uses ghandi behind the scenes for domain reg. Given that, I'd hazard a guess that it's not owned by Amazon. Definitely not a guarantee though.
- anpat 5y ago
  Corey Quinn (https://twitter.com/quinnypig https://twitter.com/quinnypig) runs it. He also has a decent newsletter and witty commentary, for all things AWS.
- bithavoc 5y ago
  I think it was built[0] by @quinnypig [0] https://twitter.com/quinnypig/status/1468331194471178241?s=21 https://twitter.com/quinnypig/status/1468331194471178241?s=2...
snth 5y ago
What is this website? Is there an "about" or something? What is it doing differently from the official AWS status page?

junon 5y ago

Can anyone explain the affiliation of stop.lying.cloud to Amazon? All of the legalese in the header/footer seem to indicate it's actually owned and run by Amazon. If so... why? Why not just... use the real status page? I mean I'm glad it exists, don't get me wrong. Just weird that they'd have two status pages, one seemingly existing only to sort of 'mock' themselves...

taspeotis 5y ago
The people who maintain the unofficial site would have, at some point, used their CTRL and C keys followed not immediately, but closely by, their CTRL and V keys.
- junon 5y ago
  But that is copyright infringement. You're not allowed to copy some work, modify it, then slap the original copyright on it. This is an illegal website, prone to being taken down by AWS. It's just strange.
  - Acestus 5y ago
    I would be worried because getting taken down is Amazon’s speciality.
    - bsenftner 5y ago
      Actually, having a satire site taken down over copyright is one of the best ways to extort large amounts of money from the copyright holder, because constitutional attorneys will seep from the floorboards and appear in your shower trying to be an attorney on that case. Satire is extremely protected speech.
  - taspeotis 5y ago
    Yes mate, Internet Police Officer Jeff Bezos has been dispatched and will take this illegal website down right away. (Using copyrighted material is permitted under fair use; this website is a parody. I’m not a lawyer but at some level preserving the copyright notice is probably better than claiming it as their own.)
    - junon 5y ago
      This website is not a parody, and fair use does NOT permit you to retain the original copyright notice on the derived work. You may say that the original work is copyright of the respective owners and that this is a parody work. But that's not what the site is doing. The footer contains the original, unaltered copyright, creating confusion as to who owns the derived work. Amazon does not own this, nor do they endorse it, so you're not allowed to say it's copyrighted by Amazon.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - sparkling 5y ago
        oh no :o
      - isoprophlex 5y ago
        Can you imagine that some might see your position as one of unmitigated pedantry unfitting in any discussion of this - clearly jocular - website?
        junon 5y ago
        Nope. Because these laws also protect people who make such websites from the corporations they're commenting on, too. The respect must be mutual, else e.g. OSS has no basis for legal protection, either. Being concerned for the proper respect of IP laws is something that benefits everyone.
  - bsenftner 5y ago
    Satire is the loophole of Copyright. If you satire ANYTHING you can use their copyrights in the satire. One could safely and legally drive an entire nation's transportation industry thru that loophole.
    - junon 5y ago
      No, fair use does NOT allow you to retain the original copyright. That would be passing off a derived work as the original copyright holder's work, which could be very damaging. This is a violation of fair use, if it could even be considered that to begin with.
      - azernik 5y ago
        That's more of a trademark issue, and would require a reasonable consumer to be likely to be deceived. Which they're not.
        junon 5y ago
        No, it's not a trademark issue. They copied the work verbatim (including code, which is not covered by trademark law, but by copyright law), modified it, and then put the original copyright notice in the legalese. This is copyright infringement. And consumers are clearly deceived - hence why my original comment asking about it was written and has several upvotes.
        azernik 5y ago
        The direct copyright is covered by the satire exceptions. If you want to argue that copying the legalese is different, it's going to be on those confusion grounds, which IIUC aren't a copyright concern.
      - bsenftner 5y ago
        Fair use in the case of satire is not retaining the original copyright, it is referencing the copyright. It is a legal split hair, but it stands in court.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    AWS might be smart enough not to make that strategic blunder. They won't want to draw attention to the inaccuracies of their status page.
    - junon 5y ago
      Perhaps, but the status page could exist within legal boundaries with a few trivial changes anyway. Why not just do that?
      - chrisan 5y ago
        No one cares, including Amazon. This webpage isn't profiting off them. There is no valuable IP here being stolen. Amazon has much bigger legal issues to focus on than some satire.
        junon 5y ago
        Amazon has taken down trivial things before. This is a dangerous assumption to make - "it's not important to them so I shouldn't worry about the law". Those are famous last words.
  - throwaway2331 5y ago
    Drugs are illegal too, yet people do them all the time. Speeding? Basically a national past-time at this point. Misrepresentation, common fraud, and misappropriation? Par for the course in most small businesses. It's only a crime if someone gives enough of a shit to do something about it; otherwise, it's just life.
andyjih_ 5y ago
It's not official. The people making the page probably just copied everything, including the legalese.
jrumbut 5y ago
I was curious too. An HN user takes credit for it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24499159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24499159 Apparently it does some simple transformations of the actual status page, which is why the Amazon copyright stuff is in there.
IceWreck 5y ago
Amazon's own status page sort of lies. So someone probably wget-ed the status page, kept the same html and css and hooked it to their own API to display correct info.
deadbunny 5y ago
FWIW `lying.cloud` is registered with Namecheap. `amazon.com`/`aws.com`/`amazon.ca` are all registered with Mark Monitor. And I know that AWS uses ghandi behind the scenes for domain reg. Given that, I'd hazard a guess that it's not owned by Amazon. Definitely not a guarantee though.
anpat 5y ago
Corey Quinn (https://twitter.com/quinnypig https://twitter.com/quinnypig) runs it. He also has a decent newsletter and witty commentary, for all things AWS.
bithavoc 5y ago
I think it was built[0] by @quinnypig [0] https://twitter.com/quinnypig/status/1468331194471178241?s=21 https://twitter.com/quinnypig/status/1468331194471178241?s=2...

snth 5y ago

What is this website? Is there an "about" or something? What is it doing differently from the official AWS status page?