According to Twitter’s status page, Twitter (now) says that it is/was under a denial of service attack (Wikipedia entry for Denial of Service Attack).

In a statement to CNN, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (Wikipedia entry for Biz Stone) said:

“There’s no indication that this attack is related to any previous activities. We are currently the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we defend and later investigate.”

Twitter now claims that the web site is now back up… however, somecanuckchick (still) cannot access Twitter, via the web site, TwitterFox, TwitterTools, etc.

In the meantime, here is a list of alternative things to do.

Update, from Twitter’s post regarding its recovery from the DoS attack:

“As we recover, users will experience some longer load times and slowness. This includes timeouts to API clients. We’re working to get back to 100% as quickly as we can.”

Now, Twitter Giveth Back… Kinda.

Twitter claims to have learned a lot between yesterday and this afternoon.

Twitter now has a band aid solution in place to #fixreplies.

As of today, updates beginning with @username—that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon—will be seen by everyone following that Twitter account.

Twitter also says that a new feature—which will give folks more control over what they see from the accounts they follow—is being designed.

In short, Twitter will not be reverting to the previous @replies system.

Twitter acknowledges that while Twitter users loved the feature, it was confusing and caused a sense of inconsistency.

What do you think of the band aid solution? Do you think Twitter can do better than the previous @replies system?

Let somecanuckchick know!

Initially, Twitter claimed that this update removed an undesirable and confusing option for the Twitter newbies and the Twitter illiterate who could not grasp the concept of those one-sided, fragmented conversations sent via @replies to Twitter users they were not following but still appeared in their respective timelines.

*cue the Twitterati, and the more seasoned Twitter users of the Twitosphere*

For those who have not been paying attention to the topics (#fixreplies, #twitterfail) currently trending, the Twitterverse was, is, and will continue to tweet their disappointment, disgust, and disparage regarding the changes to the @replies system.

Twitter has acknowledged the voluminous amount of [negative] feedback, and now claims that the changes to the @replies system had little to do with the Twitter newbies and the Twitter illiterate, but rather there were serious technical reasons why that @replies setting had to go.

Can you say back-paddling, ladies and gentlemen?

So, the Twitter response to #fixreplies is that they cannot… not yet.

What do you think of the #twitterfail, with respect to the @replies changes and subsequent controversy? Let somecanuckchick know!