What if the Internet breaks?

MSN Money ^ | 12/11/09 | Katherine Reynolds Lewis

[Sacajaweau]

We have approx. 25 stations at our library and this is just a little Town library. On weekends...every station is usually taken.

[marron]

I think Gore has a contract in place with Disney Animatronics.

He will never die. He will at some point be merged with the backbone to eliminate bandwidth issues, though.

[roaddog727]

You forgot one other key component:

Bubble gum.

Duct Tape, BUBBLE GUM, and Bailing wire......

:-)

[rabscuttle385]

So imagine: What happens if the Internet breaks?

See "The Machine Stops."

[potlatch]

I probably jumped too quick with my reply but my first thought was of the WHOLE internet going down, lol.

I have a Freeper friend, here on the forum, who frequently uses her library. They allot her one hour and she said she is surrounded by children, who are not as quiet as they should be.

It certainly wouldn’t be great for Freeping. I know the cost of cable is high for many now.

[ßuddaßudd]

The internets?

[TChris]

Everything else will just route around the break. It might be slower because overall capacity has been reduced, but it doesn't isolate them.

That's the way it's SUPPOSED to work.

But it's far cheaper to have NO redundancy or only pseudo-redundancy (redundant circuits in the same conduit, for example) and there are plenty of places on the 'net where that is the case.

[potlatch]

I just wrote to another about the library alloting one hour a day - if you are even able to ‘get’ one of their computers.

Your earlier comment made me giggle because I was thinking in terms of the whole internet being down, not just your provider, lol.

[Focault's Pendulum]

Yeah, she writes the piece as if there is some central computer that runs the entire net

There is!

[justlurking]

The root DNS servers are a potential bottleneck, but there are 12 (13?) of them. You'd have to take out all of them, or exploit a bug that is present in all of them.

I realize that large parts of the 'Net could be slowed down with targeted attacks, but complete outages are restricted to small areas. The exception is an ISP with poor geographical diversity.

A number of years ago, my company was bumped off the 'Net by a flood in a basement several hundred miles away. The ISP didn't have redundant connections to our area, with enough routing diversity to prevent that kind of vulnerability. We dumped them in short order.

[justlurking]

But it's far cheaper to have NO redundancy or only pseudo-redundancy (redundant circuits in the same conduit, for example) and there are plenty of places on the 'net where that is the case.

As I posted moments ago, there are definitely cases where this occurs. But, it's the fault of providers that have limited peering agreements.

There used to be a backbone diagram of the 'Net in the US, along with its connections overseas. There is plenty of physical diversity in the routing. The problem is if your particular ISP limits which ones it uses.

[wally_bert]

I loved “Overlogging”.

[OrioleFan]

Yes I do. And I’m only a few blocks away from the node.

[freekitty]

Those folks at A T&T are regular characters. They nothing but thieves and on cell phones will steal you blind.

My friend told me they don’t tell you; but on pay as you go phone service; if you have money in your account and they think it’s too much and you pay monthly; they will go into your account 2 days before it due or if you are monthly pay from your bank and take all of the money out. They stole 300.00 from his account.

Don’t do business with A T&T. Imagine taking your money before it’s even due. Any lawyers out there that could help this guy.

[VicVega]

Pretty rotten of them to steal from your friend. Sure it is not an isolated case.

The coverage has really going to the crap house.

Drop calls like Tiger drops his drawers.

Sorry Tiger, couldn’t resist.

[FromLori]

Your story reminds me of an old song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic

The Machine Stops.

http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html

[Moltke]

Guess someone has to point out the real problem: No more porn???!!! OMG!!!

[Nonsense Unlimited]

"You would be taking businesses that were designed to do all their point-of-sale and financial transactions through the Internet and going back to pen and paper and taking checks in a car to the bank. People would lose their minds."

Since McAfee would fold without the internet, I think he might lose his mind, but for us out here in the sticks it wouldn't change a whole lot.

[US_MilitaryRules]

You mean that you don’t have your own private room? You better go in there and demand one so you can have uninterrupted use of the internet!

[sionnsar]

What does GPS have to do with the Internet?

My question too.