Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Service Discussion => Topic started by: vaisajne on February 12, 2014, 06:20:19 AM



Title: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: vaisajne on February 12, 2014, 06:20:19 AM
It seems that the site is not responding. The following message appears,

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, support@localbitcoins.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.


Have they brought the site down for any corrections ?


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: designbuyers on February 12, 2014, 06:53:11 AM
It's fixed now, Site are Working fine.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: dscotese on April 28, 2014, 03:31:07 AM
I figured I'd re-open this thread since LBC is giving this same error again.

While the localbitcoins.com server(s?) is down, you can watch their blogspot page since they might update us there while their main service is unavailable: http://localbitcoins.blogspot.com/

Gee, I should check my browser's cache before posting these things!

Hey Mozilla, why do you cache a 500 Internal Server Error page?  The response code is 500; kind of pointless to cache it, don't you think?  Or maybe it wasn't Mozilla?  Someone did...


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: RockHound on April 28, 2014, 03:36:08 AM
Twitter Updates here:

https://twitter.com/LocalBitcoins

Looks like they are moving to Swiss-based servers, should be back up in a day or so.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: Shogen on April 28, 2014, 07:19:20 AM
Twitter Updates here:

https://twitter.com/LocalBitcoins

Looks like they are moving to Swiss-based servers, should be back up in a day or so.

Looks like the site is back up now :)


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: hmeds on April 28, 2014, 09:56:45 AM
Done moving to Swiss-based servers, site is active. :D


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: dscotese on May 03, 2014, 06:31:26 PM
One of my customers and I are both now unable to reach the localbitcoins website.  There is no info about this on their blog (http://localbitcoins.blogspot.com/) either.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: Soros Shorts on May 03, 2014, 07:24:04 PM
One of my customers and I are both now unable to reach the localbitcoins website.  There is no info about this on their blog (http://localbitcoins.blogspot.com/) either.
Yes, down for me too. Right in the middle of a transaction too.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: Pony789 on May 03, 2014, 08:28:53 PM
One of my customers and I are both now unable to reach the localbitcoins website.  There is no info about this on their blog (http://localbitcoins.blogspot.com/) either.

The update has been put up in the blog now.
Quote
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Attack against LocalBitcoins infrastructure 3.5.2014
LocalBitcoins received a very dangerous attack against the site infrastructure on Saturday 3.5.2014.
For now

    All user data and Bitcoins are safe;
    The site will be down for a while as the system is being rebuilt

Details
LocalBitcoins hosting provided received a request to restart the LocalBitcoins.com website server and give access to the server console (root) on Sat May 3 13:32:27. LocalBitcoins team did not initiate this request. For now, it looks like the request was made using spoofed email addresses and other weakness in the hosting provider support system.

    LocalBitcoins team was alerted about the abnormal activity when the hosting provider restarted the server.
    The attacker gained a root access to the server for ~40 minutes before the attacker was kicked out and the server shutdown.
    All data on the website server is encrypted. Manual actions are needed to make this data readable, so the attacker could not gain access to the data even when having a server console access.

It is very unlikely that the attacker gained access to any data;  LocalBitcoins is still performing full investigation on the matter.

    Bitcoins in hot wallet and cold wallet are safe, as LocalBitcoins runs its bitcoind and wallets on a separate server.
    LocalBitcoins team has started to rebuild the website server on fresh hardware.

LocalBitcoins team will make further announcements when the investigation proceeds and the site becomes available again.  We expect to spend at least 24 hours on this. LocalBitcoins team apologizes the issues the downtime may cause to the users.



Posted by Andrei Zillo at 10:17 PM


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: dscotese on May 03, 2014, 09:21:37 PM
A reasonable encryption strategy is to be able to decrypt with a password of at least 12 (more like 15 - 20) characters for access that lasts a few minutes, or a much longer password (40 characters or more) for access that lasts an hour or two.  If we assume that the hacker grabbed a copy of enough information to be able to start an exhaustive search for the password, LBC knows how long we can expect his search to go on before he finds it.

If his search is ever successful, what data will be compromised?

Is there a list of BTC addresses that LBC can provide to miners, asking them to filter out transactions from them until further notice?

A protocol for that kind of lock would be nice. I would honor it if I were mining. Just a simple request "please lock this BTC addy until further notice," signed with the address would do. It could be broadcast in any transaction and thereby get to all miners.

Ahh, of course if it could be unlocked with a signature from the same address, it would be kind of useless.  But suppose it had to be unlocked with a signature from the same address that locked it?  So the attacker would need that external address' private key too.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: Soros Shorts on May 03, 2014, 09:50:56 PM
A reasonable encryption strategy is to be able to decrypt with a password of at least 12 (more like 15 - 20) characters for access that lasts a few minutes, or a much longer password (40 characters or more) for access that lasts an hour or two.  If we assume that the hacker grabbed a copy of enough information to be able to start an exhaustive search for the password, LBC knows how long we can expect his search to go on before he finds it.

If his search is ever successful, what data will be compromised?

Is there a list of BTC addresses that LBC can provide to miners, asking them to filter out transactions from them until further notice?

A protocol for that kind of lock would be nice. I would honor it if I were mining. Just a simple request "please lock this BTC addy until further notice," signed with the address would do. It could be broadcast in any transaction and thereby get to all miners.

Ahh, of course if it could be unlocked with a signature from the same address, it would be kind of useless.  But suppose it had to be unlocked with a signature from the same address that locked it?  So the attacker would need that external address' private key too.
Hopefully they used a tiered architecture and kept most of their important data on different servers than the web server. They did say they kept their wallets on a different server, so I would hope that they kept their transactional systems and databases on a separate non-internet facing server as well. The web server is usually the first point of that is attacked, so you shouldn't be keeping anything there except the web programs to render and display the web pages and maybe some transient data.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: leopard2 on May 04, 2014, 01:46:39 AM
So worst case the attacker can get ahold of user name, password, btc address, email.

So what?

He cannot get the coins (no private keys) and it is very likely that there will be a password change at first login. Those with 2FA, don't have to worry at all - your phone is not compromised :-)

Just alot of hassle. Unless they are lying and all coins are gone ...  :-\


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: johnyj on May 17, 2014, 04:58:01 PM
Down again ???


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: merakicoin on May 17, 2014, 05:18:21 PM
Down again ???

yeah lame sauce.

Quote
12:59 < tomfoolery> edgar hylje_ moo-_- jeremias nikolaus any ideas when it will be back online?
13:00 < tomfoolery> edgar hylje_ moo-_- jeremias nikolaus imo regardless of time of day or day of the week there should be very fast responses when the server goes offline

At the time I said that it had been down for ~1 hour and 15 minutes(roughly 00:45UTC).


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: scottemick on May 18, 2014, 03:24:31 AM
It is down again now for 12 hours.
:(
The lack of news from @localbitcoins and @kangasbros is unsettling.

Scott


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: hugoc on May 18, 2014, 03:38:43 AM
i cannot access LocalBitCoins ???


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: RockHound on May 18, 2014, 05:48:58 AM
https://twitter.com/LocalBitcoins

http://localbitcoins.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/unexcepted-downtime.html

Hope nothing too serious, LBC usually pretty fast with updates/fixes


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: RockHound on May 18, 2014, 01:59:18 PM
Posted on Localbitcoins website:



Crap. The site is unavailable.

Looks like there is a network problem at our hosting provider. We are sorry for problem; LocalBitcoins team is working hard to get the site back up.

    The issue begin on the Saturday night 17.5.2014 CET.
    This is not a security issue, but hardware and network problem. We haven't received a response from the hosting provider yet.
    We are in the progress to get the site up.
    All trades and Bitcoins are safe, however we have problems to get the site to connect to Internet.
    Please follow us on Twitter for the latest updates.
    This is a temporary page and will be replaced by the real site as soon as the problem is fixed.



Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: bryant.coleman on May 18, 2014, 05:12:44 PM
This is their latest tweet: Trying to get service back up. Can't provide ETA yet. All btc is safe, all data is safe, this is not a security breach but a server problem.. The important question is, can we trust them?


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: dscotese on May 18, 2014, 05:25:44 PM
This is their latest tweet: Trying to get service back up. Can't provide ETA yet. All btc is safe, all data is safe, this is not a security breach but a server problem.. The important question is, can we trust them?
Everyone in a position to worry about that question has already answered it (in the affirmative).

While I do trust the Kangas brothers, they also have employees and local authorities, not to mention hackers and other criminals to worry about.  All those risk factors are greatly mitigated by transparency, and even more greatly mitigated by diversifying your bitcoin holdings across several wallet providers (including yourself).


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: btcguys on August 03, 2014, 04:59:40 PM
it is down again!


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: RockHound on August 03, 2014, 05:16:29 PM
Twitter Update:


LocalBitcoins.com @LocalBitcoins  ·  2m

And we are up and running! Our apologies for the downtime.



https://twitter.com/LocalBitcoins


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: closser on December 02, 2014, 01:13:40 AM
is it down again ??


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: rgenito on December 02, 2014, 05:57:14 AM
If you need to get Bitcoin with cash deposit, go ahead and save yourself time, headache, and fees: check out https://wallofcoins.com


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: sniveling on December 02, 2014, 12:41:24 PM
is it down again ??

It's working OK for me.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: bluudz on April 03, 2015, 03:24:10 PM
Is it down now?


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: Hazir on April 03, 2015, 04:24:39 PM
Is it down now?
No, localbitcoin.com is working fine now. It must be something on your end.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: dscotese on April 03, 2015, 09:05:44 PM
Is it down now?
No, localbitcoin.com is working fine now. It must be something on your end.
You can also use http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/localbitcoins.com to see if the servers there can open LBC.  It works for any URL, but I think it only checks the root domain.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: bluudz on April 04, 2015, 07:16:40 AM
Is it down now?
No, localbitcoin.com is working fine now. It must be something on your end.
You can also use http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/localbitcoins.com to see if the servers there can open LBC.  It works for any URL, but I think it only checks the root domain.

Thank you. That will do nicely.


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: Sammal on April 04, 2015, 12:32:59 PM
Works 4 me


Title: Re: LocalBitCoins.Com Site Down?
Post by: twister on April 04, 2015, 03:28:00 PM
It looks ok now but I can imagine how horrifying it must have been if you were in a middle of a trade  :o.

My question is, if they say they were moving to new servers or whatever, why didn't they informed others about this before and asked to hold off the trades for that duration?

Maybe I am overreacting but doesn't any of this seems a little odd to anyone?