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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 6, 2008 - 09:52am PT
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Earlier this year there were a few news stories about cables being damaged or something in a small country which disrupted their connection to the internet. Some said "One damaged cable, an accident. Two, a coincidence. But this was (something like) seven cables broken."
Then the story went out of the news.
My question/point of discussion is - Can the internet be unplugged?
Is it possible to completely disrupt the thing? Partially, enabling, say, commercial and/or government agencies to retain connection but not residential use? Can regions be blocked from access; how does internet connectivity work?
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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yes - the internet has an inherent physical geometry, with several major junctions - it looks a lot like brain cells to me - check out the map :
http://www.cheswick.com/ches/map/gallery/index.html
if you took out any one of those main nodes, it would be a while before traffic returned to normal. the interweb tries to route around missing addresses/junctions and is designed to continue to function even if parts drop off, but there are some spots that are harder to deal with than others...
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Happie, those cables that were "damaged" went to Iran. The reason being that the USA was not too thrilled about Iran opening and operating their own oil bourse (an independent oil trading market). Iran has chosen NOT to sell their oil in dollars, rather they trade in Euros, Rubles, and Yuan. While Iran has a fair amount of oil to "mess with" the dollar economy, the long-lasting effects remain to be seen. Until then, oil was traded in only two "markets", both of which used dollars for transactions.
You bring up an interesting event that may or may not be significant to the US in terms of information communication.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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The short answer.
The FCC regulates electronic communications in this country. Its regulatory authority derives from Acts of Congress.
There are international laws as well. The FCC has counterparts in other countries.
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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I wish my grandparents were still alive, I'd ask them how we ever survived before the internet.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 6, 2008 - 12:15pm PT
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Chaz - Why the snarky response? What are you afraid of? So far as I know, people still have the right to introduce topics of discussion and voice their opinions.
After all, it's not like I wrote something like "The fascist regime attempting to take this country will probably disrupt email and internet access as a way to control communications and reduce dissenting opinions....."
Oh wait! I even have the right to write that if I desire.
But since you wonder - just how would you survive if one day you went to gas up you vehicle and the pump could not accept your c/c payment? You'd go in to ask what was up and the attendant would say 'I dunno. The system's down." You'd fork over the $35 or so in your wallet and get a fill up, thinking 'no big deal, although an inconvenience' since now you'd need to get to an ATM before running the various errands you had gone to town for.
Then, you go to the bank and....system's down there, too. Nobody can make a withdrawl, although the tellers will still take your deposits with hand-written slips....
You get to the office and find yourself unable to download the documents your associate had promised to email last night while overseas.
Going to your doctor appt. later that day, you encounter chaos because of the backup that's ensued due to the failure. How irritating. Especially since your doctor can't pull up the files for your visit, and can't recall what was in them. The suggestion is that you reschedule. For an appointment you waited weeks for, and took an afternoon off work to attend.
Want to check your stock portfolio? Ummmm, there's a slight delay.
Can we survive without internet? Of course we can. If we aren't dependent on the thing. Most people are, whether they realize it or not.
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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I managed to do just fine for the first 42 or 43 years of my life before I hooked onto the internet, I'm damn confident I could make it ANOTHER 42 or 43 years without it.
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AbeFrohman
Trad climber
new york, NY
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Yes you could Chaz, as all of us could, but the question is how long would it take before "No internet" became the norm again?
What would happen in the settling period?
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knieveltech
Social climber
Raleigh NC
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The map supplied up-thread is more or less purely decorative as it doesn't clearly display some of the more interesting points of Internet infrastructure. For example, if you where to map out physical connections in North America (for example) you'd quickly notice that there are a very small number of "choke points" leading off the continent. Last time I did an international traceroute (been a couple of years, I doubt anything of substance has changed) the last hop before you hit an oversea cable is a govt/military controlled router.
Another thing to keep in mind is while there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of service providers in North America there are a substantially smaller number of "backbone" hubs. Disruption of a major hub tends to have a significant impact on internet performance for large geographic areas.
Is it possible to completely disrupt the internet on a global level? Definitely, but it would take an organized campaign of undersea cable cutting (might need to snipe a couple of sattelites as well just to seal the deal), net result being the "Internet" would be split into isolated networks.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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God Happi - don't EVEN say such a thing!
Without the internet - I would be forced to actually TALK with my neighbors!
Just what I need - never ending monologues about dirty diapers and barking dogs.
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AbeFrohman
Trad climber
new york, NY
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perhaps it is the "global blackout" of the new world order we should be afraid of?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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TIG wrote
"The short answer.
The FCC regulates electronic communications in this country. Its regulatory authority derives from Acts of Congress.
There are international laws as well. The FCC has counterparts in other countries."
Which completely ignored the question. The US governments strategic policy has a stated goal to have the capability for dominance and control over the electromagnetic spectrum. The stated neo-con agenda calls for control over the internet. (see that famous pnac document
Peace
Karl
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