Well, I guess we see this trend of making things less redundant and
less faithful to theory, more faithful to shaving off 1/4 of a cent
universally.
We see bomb threats pretty universally too, and not necessarily for
political reasons. Are you sure it wasn't just a kid whose computer
crashed again?
>
>> This is kinda off topic, but we've just had a bomb threat!
>> No joke! Someone phoned in, asked for my boss, and said they
>> put a bomb in the building! Why would someone bomb an ISP?
>> Other than my boss is an Afican-American... (Native of Nigeria).
>> -------
>
>A sad commentary on a form of 'techno-terrorism' that is likely to
become
>more prevalent as dependency on the 'net' increases.
>
>The commercialization of the Internet has inadvertantly weakened one of
>its major design points that was considered to be so critical when the
>first ARPA designs were worked out. That being redundancy and lack of
>centralization.
>
>Before the major commercial 'backbones' were in place, (set the
'wayback'
>machine; Sherman) most systems had multiple shared dial-up connections
to
>numerous other hosts with which they regularly shared information
(email,
>news, files, etc.)
>
>If a network connection went down, (if you even had one) or a given
host
>was offline, traffic was just routed thru another system that indicated
>connectivity to the system (or systems) that the traffic was destined
for.
>(everyone remember the periodic routing 'maps' that went around?)
>
>So... unless you lost ALL of your phone lines for an extended period,
you
>pretty much always had (some level of) connectivity.
>
>Today, on the other hand (generalization warning!) how many major
systems
>maintain dial-up inter-system capability even as a backup?
>
>The major infrastructures have tended to centralize around the
commercial
>'backbones' and carriers which make them succeptable to interruptions
of
>service when a single connection fails! (Sure... your web servers are
fed
>by dual 'T3s', but both from a single carrier thru a single POP?!?)
>
>So much in money and resources is often committed to create/maintain a
>major (high bandwidth) link onto the net, (useful) redundancy is
>frequently sacrificed.
>
>One attack on a major carrier POP (ok, definition time: POP = Point
>Of Presence) could easily disrupt Internet traffic for a LOT of people
and
>corporations.
>
>Take out a couple of the major authoritative DNS servers, and watch the
>world (generalization) start crashing down!
>
>Or sadly, target one ISP that is suspected of being a major provider?
>
>It happens... more often than you might ever imagine...
>
>-jim
>(I speak for no one but myself... YMMV)
>---
>jimw_at_agora.rdrop.com
>The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
>Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
>
>
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Received on Wed Oct 21 1998 - 16:47:54 BST