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Why the Mediterranean Is the Net's Achilles' Heel
An anonymous reader writes "A spate of broken cables has brought disruption for many of the world's Web users in 2008 — and the Med has been at the center of the problems. For political reasons, the Mediterranean Sea is an Internet bottleneck through which the majority of traffic between Europe and Asia is squeezed. That traffic must run the gauntlet of earthquakes and heavy maritime traffic to reach its destination. Better and stronger cables are urgently needed to avoid a re-occurrence of the 2008 outages."
Why the Mediterranean Is the Net's Achilles' Heel
Becuase Radia Perlman held the Internet by the Mediterranean when she dipped it into the river Styx?
My work here is dung.
In the 90s it was backhoes. Now it's giant cable-eating squid. What next, volcanic eruptions? Really, the problem is two-fold -- first, cables break. Hey, it's several thousand miles long and several thousand feet down, and it's just laying there. Of course it's going to break. You could make the cables out of Unobtainium and they will still wither and break eventually. It's a fact of life. The real problem isn't that they fail, the problem is that the telecommunications companies don't have redundant links because of the expense. So, in summary, the problem is economics. And Cthulu. But you can't stop one of the great old ones, so let's focus on redundant links instead. -_-
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I never had any issues any of the times this happened. I was able to do all the stuff I normally do and visit all the sites I normally visits. This leads me to conclude that the solution is rather simple. The people who are affected by these outages should do something.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I thought of something that should be a pretty simple fix. Why don't they just string the wires over the Mediterranean?
This guy's the limit!
1. acquire non-sea europe to asia internet backbone
2. hire ships to "drop anchor" on internet cables
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!
- My uid ends in 69...
Instead of cables, which can be broken, they could use optical links.
Due to the distance and bandwidth needed, powerful lasers would be needed.
Since vast stretches of open water need to be covered, an aquatic platform would be needed, one that could be repositioned for optimal spacing or to avoid obstacles.
Unlike other gratuitous mentions, this really is a case were we could use some frikin sharks, with frikin lasers mounted on their heads.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Don't worry, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia! I know your Internet access hangs rather perilously, but calm yourself! I've written a song about it!
(somber, drum beat a la "Ballad of the Green Berets")
O Brave Achilles
Your packets spill
Through the Black Sea
and the Dardanelles
A hero bold
So proud and true
The finest bits
Traverse his tubes
But when the Fates
Judge the big wet
Will their fell looms
Cut the Internet?
(LUTE SOLO)
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Though there is abviously no excuse for the cables that have been there for a while with newer cables you often find that they have been layed straight through what was once an anchorage as they get closer to shore and nobody has "gotten around" to updating any of the charts yet. I had this situation in the Azores a while back when we anchored in what was shown in all charts and publications to be the only anchorage available only to be met on the dock by a not so friendly police man shouting something in Portuguese along the lines of we just laid a load of fiber optic cables through there and your anchor is on top of them... of course we moved immediately into the port which was what we planed to do in the afternoon but when we asked the Harbour Master why there had been no notice to mariners about the new cabled a shrug of the shoulders was the most informative answer we could get.
Actually gauntlet is the preferred spelling for both, although the etymology behind the use of gauntlet for punishment is different (the first meaning is from French, the second from Spanish). Gantlet is also correct, although archaic, for both.
See: gauntlet.
Maybe Cthulhu will quit trashing the lines if we offer to set him up a frame r'lyeh switch back at his pad. You know he's all about pirating the tentacle pr0n.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Fuck 'em.
:) Have a nice day.
That'll teach companies to move their jobs overseas. Those companies(and their overpaid executives) can cry a river to the employees they laid off only to give their jobs to India. Mods: I ask you to think about this before you mod me down, but if you want to waste your points, I don't give a fuck!
I considered modding you down, but decided to comment instead.
I understand your sentiment, but what you're ultimately suggesting is that we eliminate access to the internet for any country with a cheap labor pool. This punishes the citizens of those countries more than it does the execs of the major corporations that exploit them.
This story is about an international communications issue. If you want to talk about labor issues I would say this:
There are many powerful people trying to make protectionism a dirty word, if we want to fight them we have to be specific in our demands on who deserves Free Trade agreements or gets Preferred Trade Status. Protecting workers rights "over there" means increasing labor costs "over there" and makes them less appealing than local workers when you factor in communications and shipping costs (environmental protections should also figure into that equation). When they can treat their employees humanely, pay them a living wage, stop tainting the local water supply and still afford to send products to our markets cheaper than we can, then they deserve those jobs and we don't.
The problem is that we've spotted our competitors a huge advantage by not holding them to any of the standards we hold ourselves to. Which means we tied our own hands, or maybe slit our own throats.
I understand your sentiment, but what you're ultimately suggesting is that we eliminate access to the internet for any country with a cheap labor pool.
I heard it as a complaint that the CEOs are looking to short-term gains and not counting the very real risk that network connectivity from the US to India may be impaired at some points. If they didn't examine and account for that risk in their calculations, then they are incompetent or liars (or both).
When they can treat their employees humanely, pay them a living wage, stop tainting the local water supply and still afford to send products to our markets cheaper than we can, then they deserve those jobs and we don't.
Which is why the US should have tarrifs on a per-country basis related to worker conditions and environmental care. If they "externalize" industry cost by dumping toxins rather than cleaning or storing them, then we should increase the cost here by that amount. They can pay for good practices or we will charge them so that they would be making the same if they did.
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