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Preparing for the Worst in IT
mplex writes "How vulnerable is the internet to terrorist attack? Is it robust enough to handle an outage on a massive scale? Should the commercial infrastructure that powers the internet be kept secret? These are the sorts of questions raised by Mark Gibbs in his latest column in Network World. 'There is an alternate route available for nearly all services through Las Vegas or Northern California serving all facilities-based carriers in Los Angeles -- all interconnected at numerous L.A. and L.A.-area fiber-optic terminals supporting both metro and long-distance cable.' Given that the internet thrives on open networks, it's hard to imagine keeping them a secret. At best, we must be prepared to deal with the worst."
Why is terrorism "the worst" now? I'm much more afraid of a high-magnitude earthquake hitting the west coast of the US, or a major hurricane veering further north than usual on the east coast, than I am of some random bomb going off somewhere.
Just in the last year we've seen how a single earthquake in Taiwan can bring connectivity between Asia and the rest of the world nearly to a halt. Natural disasters like that are a sure thing and it makes much more sense to me to worry about that than about the latest episode of "24" coming true.
Which isn't to say that we should dismiss any possible threat entirely, of course -- but we should also prioritize our efforts. It's not possible to fully prepare for every possible problem.
Ironically, TFA actually claims that we are pretty well prepared.
I've been reading this site for years, and yet I'm constantly impressed by the quality exhibited.
For instance, in a story about how resistant the Internet is to attack, the editors apparently decided to demonstrate what a possible attack might look like.
Take a look!
Bravo!
Comment of the year
The perception of terrorism created by mass media is big deal, however, since that's what keeps the viewers glued to tv sets. How often do you get to watch people jump out of the buildings over 400 meters tall? The cost of lives lost is immeasurable to the immediate families, but on the national level, it was a relatively small bump (six times as many people have died in car accidents the same year). Far more damage to the country resulted not directly from terrorist attacks, but from the policies our own government has put into place: insane air travel restrictions, the PATRIOT act, the second gulf war, etc. Mass appeal madness is the one thing we do very well.
I've lived in northern California since 1976. In 1989 we suffered the only significant damaging earthquake and it wasn't a big deal in the scheme of things. The 1906 earthquake didnt damage San Francisco much, rather it was fire and lack of building code.
In CA an earthquake is no more eventful than daily tide risings.
Terrorism, on the hand, has targeted Americans more than 20 times since the 1970s. 9/11 hurt the US economically more than the 1989 earthquake or the 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles combined.
Not only that but groups like Al Quaida RELY on the internet for putting out those videos of people being beheaded, etc. They are quite net savvy themselves and know how to use it for their own purposes. Terrorists from the American Revolutionaries through the French Resistance, the Zionists and the PLO never blew up stuff they used themselves.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Terrorist may or may not attack the Internet directly. But how vulnerable is the Internet to Government attacks? Can the Internet (i.e. the end-to-end principle) survive all laws passes as a result of Governments using terrorists as an excuse to control it?
Also note that such an attack could only occur near an airport. Even Iraq which spent a decade getting bombed by the US can not shoot down a plane 5-8 miles up.