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Network Blackout
An anonymous reader writes "Renesys put together a special report on the effects of the recent blackout on routing and network reachability on the Internet. It includes a cool animation of networks dropping off the internet (presumably as a result of the power outage). It is interesting to see how localized some of the outage was--networks in New York state right up to the Vermont border go dark while everything on the other side of the border is quiet. New York City obviously gets clobbered."
14th 4:20pm - Power goes out, our building's generators for some reason dont kick in.
14th 4:35 - Most of us decide to call it a day and go home
14th 4:30 - I'm in my car, I realize the blackout is bad when only 2 or 3 radio stations are working and the no traffic lights are. I know it was going to be a fun drive home - thank god i live 15 mins away.
14th 4:45 - I hear the blackout expands to parts of the States. me: OH FUCK@#$@#$
14th 4:50 - My sister sms's me on my cell telling me her and my mom are stuck in the subway - they need help. Like I care, I have my own problems , traffic is a mess and there are hundreds of psychos out.
14th 5:00 - I get home, look for a battery powered radio and listen in.
14th 5:30 - I get a call from my sister - they're stuck somewhere downtown. I just wish them luck.
14th 7:00 - I realize there are no candles in the freaking house, time to look for those puppies.
14th 8:00 - Sister & mom arrive home. me: LOL
14th 11:30 - I go to bed & pray the blackout lasts until the middle of the next day, that way I get an extended weekend -wohooo, back to bed
15th 7:30am - Wake up, lights are still out - no work, home free! wohoo, back to bed.
15th 11:30 - Receive a call from my boss, asking me where the fuck i was since they got power at the office but there is a lil "issue".
15th 12:30m - Got to the office, problem: No Internet connection, seems one of the ISP's switches went bye bye after the black out. Our main app server is down. No power you think? Nope The colo company hasnt been paying their bills and WorldCom used the blackout to pull the plug on them. Server is up and running but no outside world connection. FUCK@#*$.
15th 1:00pm - We think , no biggy let's use one of our other servers and restore apps and data from backup. HA! yah right - Turns out a DNS servers for our backup machines had died and the backup script had stopped working 10 days earlier. Great.
15th 2:30 - We wait to see if Worldcom is nice enough to plug the box back in.
15th 4:30 - Yah, it ain't happening - 20+ clients are without website and apps.
15th 5:00pm - Boss and I drive downtown to the WorldCom building to download data physically off the Box.
15th 5:30 - Stop for gas - HA! huge lineup.
15th 7:30 - Get into the server room, ha! the fucking cage where our box is is locked and the key is not working. One of us climbs the cage and goes into it, runs an ethernet cable from the box to the laptop. So picture these, 4 geeks inside a server room, three sitting on the floor , one inside a cage like some wild animal. I should have brought a camera. Let the tar'in begin.
15th 9:00 - Download is completed, our asses are sore from sitting on concrete, necks hurting, and WorldCom employee happy that we're finally leaving.
15th 9:30 - We're downtown wondering how the fuck we're going to upload 2gig+ worth of data and source code to our spare server.
15th 10:30 - Since there is no inet at the office and our home's cable is too fucking slow (Rogers cable sucks!) , we decide we bring out the ghetto in us. We walk up and down Yonge street asking Internet cafe's if they could lend us some bandwith!!!. Yes, you hear me right, we were begging for bandwith in internet cafes.
15th 10:45 - We decide we're hungry, so we stop at a sushi bar. After we're done we realized it might not be a good idea to eat fish after a blackout. Fridges not working aand all. Too fuckin late.
15th 11:00 - Found an internet cafe that will let us connect the laptop to upload.
15th 11:30 - Realize we can't do shit since the computer is in Korean , have all Win settings locked and the guy taking care of the place has no clue.
16th 1:30am - I'm at my boss's house uploading 2gig+ data , will take about 27 hours. Ask me if I cared about the clients at this point.
16th 1:35 - I leave and head to my friend's place where they're having beers & bbq'in on my friend's balcony. - My weekend Begins.
Network Blackouts? Yah they suck.
[alk]