Slashdot Mirror
Internet2 Taken Out by Stray Cigarette
AlHunt writes "A fire started by a homeless man knocked out service between Boston and New York on the experimental Internet2 network Tuesday night.
Authorities say the fire, which also disrupted service on the Red Line subway, started around 8:20 p.m. when a homeless man tossed a lit cigarette. The cigarette landed on a mattress, which ignited and led to a two-alarm fire."
Obligatory firewall joke here, please...
take out the internet... what hope do we stand against nukes?
I wonder if there will be a new Internet protocol for protection against malicious smoking hackers.
It apparently also knocked out normal service to MIT students living on the Boston side of the Charles. One of my friends called me around 9:20PM (an hour after the fire started) to see if my internet connection was down. Fortunately, I live on the Cambridge side (with the main campus) so I wasn't affected. Here's what MIT IS&T had to say.
--
Wed, May 2nd:
Internet2 Service has been restored.
We have re-routed our connectivity to the Verizon TLS service, so all ILG's should be back in service as of 01:47AM this morning.
Tue, May 1st, 2007:
There was a fire earlier this evening under the Longfellow Bridge, on the Boston side of the river. This fire appears to have destroyed electrical and communications conduits that run over the Longfellow, including fiber used by MIT and other Boston area institutions to connect to Internet2.
MIT and other New England Schools are currently disconnected from Internet2. Traffic to Internet2 institutions is being routed via the Commodity Internet, but performance may be less then normal experienced.
--
They got things back going again in less than 6 hours, even though it started in the evening. Not too shabby.
Guess they forgot to install the firewall.
It wasn't a homeless guy, it was a torch job paid for by Internet 1.
Support the mob or mysteriously disappear.
Internet2, level3? What's level3?
"Level 3 Communications cables used by the network went up in flames"
"Level 3 engineers estimate it could take one to two days to restore the circuit"
Taken out by a level 1 homeless person?
Zere vere zwei peanuts valking down der Straße, and von vas assaulted...peanut
In other news, witnesses reported a spontaneous cheer coming from the corporate headquarters of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Obviously the newly imposed mattress fire safety rules just aren't working!
Clearly the homeless are not only unsightfull to look at, they also pose a direct threat to homeland security by sabotaging our infrastructure.
It seems clear that we must *eradicate* the homeless.
(don't mod this a troll straight away)
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
The Internet was designed originally as a means of communication in the event of nuclear war.
No it WASN'T. It was certainly financed through DoD but go read a book on the subject instead of talking out of your ass. Where wizards stay up late is recommended, nay required reading.
I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it -- Groucho Marx
Only YOU can prevent Internet fires!
It could be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
From the article: "The homeless man, whom authorities identified as one Kevin Rose, was apparently despondent after the recent shutdown of his tech news aggregation site. Witnesses reported seeing him staring into the flames and rocking slowly while mumbling a series of letters and numbers."
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Sorry, but isn't a little absurd, and likely judgmental, to mention TWICE in the abstract that the fire was started by a homeless person?
If the cig was tossed from a car window would we be hearing repeatedly about how a Toyota driver started this all?
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
...US Government brought down by chili farts. Pictures at eleven.
smoke kills
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
What are cigarettes, after all?
They are tubes, a series of tubes...
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
It is still safe this was just a lucky strike.
I am reminded of This
I remember voting backhoe.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
One if by land, Two if by sea, Three if by burning mattress under a bridge! Good thing the minute men (well, 6 hour men) were on the job. But seriously, what does this say about the vulnerability of our infrastructure? I mean, a homeless guy with a cigarette?
We had the same thing happen here at LSU last Spring semester. Someone had thrown a cigarette into a drain and caught some dry leaves on fire causing some serious fiber optics damage for most of the campus. But of course not on the scale as what happened in Boston. Luckily enough it was a small fire and happened on a Friday, so they got it fixed before Monday; so only us people in the dorms felt the effects of it :(. So I wonder if there is any kind of protection that could be used to help prevent things like this in the future.
No wonder Slashdot developed Firehose....
Good call on referencing the book. When I spoke to the authors a number of years ago they were appreciative that I read it and asked me to pass the word as the sales (at least at the time) were low. It's definately an interesting read about the intents, PDPs, etc. But, if I recall (and like I said, it's been years) the actual initial thought had to do with some general not wanting to remember different passwords for two divergent systems/networks and so thought that one, large network would make things easier and allow computers involved with different projects in different locations to communicate.
From Wikipedia, "the ARPAnet came out of our frustration that there were only a limited number of large, powerful research computers in the country, and that many research investigators who should have access to them were geographically separated from them."
(I do seem to recall the bit about the lazy officer, but can't find my copy of the book.)
Bark less. Wag more.
Nightmare scenario ... they merge by some obscure genetic process (involving a spider bite or something like that) to form a backhoebo.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
INTERNET DOWN! THE experimental INTERNET that nobody uses WENT DOWN, in a fire that killed three people and did millions of damager to property.
You know cigarette smokers somehow think that flicking their butts isn't littering. It pisses me off to no end. HEY SMOKERS, YEH YOU! Put them out and then throw those butts in the trash, pathetic litterbugs. It's bad enough we have to smell your stink, we shouldn't have to look at your trash strewn all over the place.
Hopefully not too many smokers have mod points today...
-- QED