AOL outages and service status in Ammanford, Wales

Problems in the last 24 hours in Ammanford, Wales

The chart below shows the number of AOL reports we have received in the last 24 hours from users in Ammanford, Wales and surrounding areas. An outage is declared when the number of reports exceeds the baseline, represented by the red line.

Community Discussion

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AOL Issues Reports

Latest outage, problems and issue reports in social media:

• 
  Jeremy Cherry (@CHERRY2TIMES) reported 1 minute ago

  @latimes Yep the failed Mapquest MapQuest was the original online mapping site, launched in nineteen ninety-six by a spin-off from a printing company’s cartography division. It went public, then AOL bought it in two thousand, for about one point one billion dollars. That was the peak. Google Maps launched in two thousand five and ate its lunch — free, faster, better satellite imagery. AOL sold MapQuest to AOL’s own parent in two thousand ten for about one hundred seventy million, a fraction of what they’d paid. It still exists as a stripped-down site, but it’s a ghost of what it was.

• 
  Paul Walsh (@Paul__Walsh) reported 1 minute ago

  People keep asking why Apple allowed OpenAI to build a ChatGPT integration for Messages. Do get to the point, I don’t think Apple anticipated a company using the permissions required by ChatGPT specifically to read, analyse and store people’s Messages when the Messages app includes iMessage and not just SMS. The entire point of iMessage is that it’s rich media *and* end to end encrypted. The permissions OpenAI needs exist for legitimate software, and Apple warns people before granting them. Backup software needs Full Disk Access to back up protected files. Security software needs it to inspect files for malicious activity. Disk utilities need it to search, recover and manage protected files. It’s similar to WebView. It gave developers a way to display parts of an app that could change without requiring a new app release and App Store review, such as terms of service, privacy policies and other remotely hosted content. In 2014, I predicted developers would eventually use WebView across every major app, with some apps built almost entirely inside it. I also warned this would create a security problem because WebView had no protection against dangerous links or malicious code typically found on webpages. Developers could make a WebView look identical to the native app, so people wouldn’t know whether they were using the app itself or interacting with a website. Today, in-app security is a multibillion dollar industry because it’s obvious that opening links inside an app might not be as safe as it should be. Most predictions, especially in the context of digital risk, are not believed by a lot of people. But they become obvious eventually. Today, I’m saying OpenAI’s ChatGPT integration with Apple Messages is more dangerous for some people than almost anything else on the market. Of course someone can take screenshots and send them to the FBI, repeat something they were told, or deliberately share a private conversation. That completely misses the point. None of those things is equivalent to giving an AI service automated access to read, analyse and store entire message histories involving everyone someone communicates with. Comparing deliberate human disclosure with automated access at scale ignores the capability that makes this fundamentally different. And why it removes the main benefit of end to end encryption. I can’t comprehend how security professionals can defend anything that undermines the purpose of end to end encryption by saying "but encryption isn’t broken". Protecting messages while they’re being transmitted means very little if an agent can systematically read, analyse and store them before they’re sent or after they’re received. Apple permissions have legitimate purposes. This particular use of them is the problem. During the early 2000s, I advocated for browser extensions. During the mid to late 2000s, before the first iPhone when mobile web didn't exist, I advocated for mobile web instead of WAP. In 2015, I advocated for chatbot integrations across messaging platforms and business tools. I’m a developer advocate, an open standards advocate, child safety advocate, and privacy advocate. I co-founded 2 W3C initiatives, including the Mobile Web Initiative, where I was tasked with rewriting Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of "One Web". And was a significant contributor to 8 technical specifications, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. I care about humanity. I don’t advocate for one thing in isolation from everything else. I’m a technical expert in specific areas with OSINT skills and 30 years across web, telecom, and mobile. 💡 I consider every stakeholder affected by open standards, technology, and legislation. Sometimes convenience justifies a privacy tradeoff. Sometimes privacy should take priority over security, and sometimes security should take priority over privacy. None of these should be treated as an absolute regardless of the consequences. In 2017, the PKI Consortium asked me to advise them privately and write about the impact DV SSL certificates and HTTPS Everywhere were having on anti phishing security. I faced fierce criticism from privacy advocates who argued that the connection should be encrypted even if the person on the other end was an impersonator. Those were their words. If you care, search for "Insecure Elephant in the Room". The fundamental reasons phishing works were the same when I was impersonated in 1996 when phishing was first discovered on the AOL network, the same when I wrote about it in 2017, and the same today. Now I have to argue with some security professionals defending something that undermines the purpose of end to end encryption. They need to look beyond the mechanics of software and encryption. Technology is an enabler. We need to consider human behaviour, how people will actually use a capability, and what happens when that behaviour occurs at scale. Also, the potential intent that goes beyond a website or privacy statement. I’ve faced this repeatedly over the years. Today, when I argue that government policies and age verification introduced in the name of online child safety and preventing child exploitation are actually surveillance measures, child safety advocates accuse me of not caring about children. This isn’t rocket science. Add AI to everything, even if you’re willing to accept the risks to yourself. But please don’t add AI in ways that undermine another person’s right to privacy or, depending on the context, their personal safety. Some people's lives depend on their ability to rely on end to end encryption. We're not talking about SMS. 💡Criticising the technology used to pursue an objective doesn’t mean opposing the objective.

• 
  Miss EsqHire (@MissEsqHire) reported 3 minutes ago

  Claude v Harvey: My candidate at a small, no-name firm is about to turn down an offer from an international law firm because they use Harvey and his current firm uses Claude. Apparently he cannot live without Claude. Can someone explain this to me like I’m my mom in the ’90s discovering AOL?

• 
  Michael (@Michael_Psalm51) reported 7 minutes ago

  Yahoo email I get ads in my inbox and I can’t delete them Upgrade required to go ad free. Sucks Go back to AOL 😳

• 
  Just an old Marine (@needtobuild) reported 8 minutes ago

  @theikigaiguy @amazon Yep, same thing day after day. And history will repeat. A company thinks it’s infallible, but lose one customer here another there. And it adds up. Before long they become Sears, Kmart and AOL. IMO; They will end up splitting shopping and prime off eventually.

• 
  AURI (@bossladyaurelia) reported 10 minutes ago

  AOL never asked me for more storage and I have emails for over 20 years….. why Gmail gotta do me like that 😫

• 
  Brett (@hvacguy) reported 11 minutes ago

  Remember growing up, pre internet. You only interacted with bad people by accident or bad decisions The internet added the bad people to your kids bedrooms, your phone, and your mind. I miss the AOL dialup format of the internet.

• 
  Boca G (@BocaG) reported 12 minutes ago

  @lithos_graphein @brockpierson Love it, fond memories of my BBS days. I was one of the first in my area to get a meg drive for my Commodore 64! I still dream of the sound the modem used to make. Then the Prodigy service came along and soon after the mass mailing of AOL disks! That was the end of most BBS’s

• 
  GuiDaFunkyMan (@GuiDaFunkyMan) reported 12 minutes ago

  @ArcadeHorizons @virtualmage17 No immersion issue for me in the 80s, just 2 different atmospheres and that's it. In my opinion, lots of players hate AoL either because of a group effect (especially when it comes to Y-gen players and beyond) or because they didn't get its basic gameplay mechanics.

• 
  Pixisass (@pixisass) reported 12 minutes ago

  @DrDaymarcus I did not know that AOL had dial up service until 2025. Sources?