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How One Clumsy Ship Caused A Major Net Outtage
Ant writes "Here is an interesting world map of various Internet connections, showing how it took just one vessel to inflict the damage that brought down the internet for millions."
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Obviously this is the result of U2 manager Paul McGuinness calling on ISP's to disconnect the evil file sharers of the world..
;)
"To great applause from the audience of music managers, McGuinness insisted that disconnection enforcement would work."
How right he was!
> I'd like to see those slashbots apologize for undermining the US at every turn and being so unpatriotic.
Not all Slashdotters are *from* the US, you insensitive clod! I, for one, am posting from Teheran University and don't see why I should have to
*NO CARRIER*
Go somewhere random
I thought we had agreed that it was George Bush that cut the cables. Did everyone change conspiracy theories while I was away?
The image linked from the summary does not depict the physical locations of cables, but is a schematic of existing connections between points on the globe. The lines in that image have not much to do with where the cables actually are. A more realistic representation of (a subset of) the world's submarine cable networks would e.g. be this big PDF or, in a more comprehensive view, that one (sold for a mere $350 :-| ).
Two in the Mediterranean, another between Suez and Dubai somewhere, which is not in the Mediterranean at all.
The nation of Iran appears to be entirely disconnected from the Internet by these events: http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Think of all the 1's and 0's flowing into the ocean right now?! The cost to the environment here is appalling. Someone turn the valves on that internet backbone, stat! Think about the animals!
Caused by politics and telco monopolies created a network without redundancy. A combination of the infeasibility, due to the political situation, of overland links through the middle east and central Asia, and the hidebound Indian telco not providing sufficient redundancy in connections out of the country, never mind the total misallocation of resources inside it, are the cause of this. TCP/IP is specifically designed to recover from link outages, if it doesn't, you've got an improperly designed and/or operated (statically, as opposed to dynamically, routed) network.
Good news for US and European IT workers though: that buffoon who offshored your jobs has to explain why the IT department has been down for a few days. I guarantee the CEO/CFO is not amused that he can't get to SAP, or that the stores can't upload, or that whatever other mission critical system is off-line isn't working.
Off into the distance you can see the anchoring area. All the cables except the one that goes around the horn of Africa go through this channel. Maybe now it doesn't look so far fetched?
They should follow the example of the telephone company. Find the owners of the ships and send them a bill for the repair costs. That will get their attention.
Actually, ships are governed by maritime law, which is designed to protect and encourage commerce; I'm not sure if they even would be responsible for damage from an anchor to a cable lying on the seafloor. From my limited recollection, vessel owners liability is generally the value of the vessel (not including the cargo).
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I believe that many/all undersea cables are mapped.
Ships/captains plying international waters must have up-to-date info. If they damage a cable that is on the maps, they are responsible.
See the great WIRED article from Neal Stephanson on the laying of FLAG:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
OK, it's an article from 1996, but it's one of the best WIRED articles (and looong) ever (back before they were owned by Conde Nast)
L. Scrub