My, it's been almost a year since the last time Internet collapse was predicted, and here it is again:
If an attack or disaster destroyed the major nodes of the internet, the network itself could begin to unravel, warn the scientists who carried out the simulations.
The virtual attacks showed that the net would keep going in major cities, but outlying areas and smaller towns would gradually be cut off.
The researchers warn that the net has become more vulnerable as it has become more commercialised and key net cables are concentrated in the hands of fewer organisations.
Risk of internet collapse rising BBC News Tuesday, 26 November, 2002, 16:42 GMT
The article correctly says that the Internet as a whole will not collapse, but there may be disconnections.
What the researchers say is all true, but.
But the side effects of 9/11 on the Internet were more pronounced than they indicate. Internet connections were slower or not reachable as far away as Finland, Hungary, Italy, and South Africa.
And the biggest effects were not on 11 September, rather several days later.
Yet the Internet is actually more redundant now than it was in the early days of MAE-East as the major interconnection point on the east coast. How redundant? That's an interesting question, which we are exploring.
The answer is complicated and changes all the time. It has ramifications for everything from commerce to emergency responders.
-jsq
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