From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Aug 09 2003 - 13:33:57 MDT
At 12:29 PM 8/8/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Outside the usual aid, making sure the disaster does not spread and
>so on, it seems that we are ill prepared to deal with large
>simultaneous fluctuations in the global webs. What incentives can
>we set up to make these webs more resilient?
The Internet is essentially a set of self routing nodes. You determine a
route based on first path to respond and use it. So if one node on that
path fails, you try again and use the next path.
There are major pipes extending through the US that provide the major
connections from Europe to Asia and South America. If they were to vanish,
everyone would try to reroute through other paths, quickly overwhelming them.
The protection would be to have backup connectivity via alternate
geographical routes that would be capable of picking up the traffic as it
rerouted. Certainly non-trivial and not cheap.
Here are some sites where you can get maps of the Internet that show some
of the complexity involved. Some of these are truly fascinating.
< http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/casa/martin/atlas/isp_maps.html >
< http://cybergeography.planetmirror.com/ > or
< http://www.cybergeography.org/ >
< http://eserver.org/internet/maps.html >
Scott Peterson
Logic is a systematic method of coming to
the wrong conclusion with confidence.
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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