Blackout Shows Net's Fragility

It doesn't come easy wrote to mention a ZDNet article discussing a recent outage between Level 3 Communications and Cogent Communication. A business feud inadvertently highlighted the fragility of the Internet's skeleton. From the article: "In theory, this kind of blackout is precisely the kind of problem the Internet was designed to withstand. The complicated, interlocking nature of networks means that data traffic is supposed to be able to find an alternate route to its destination, even if a critical link is broken. In practice, obscure contract disputes between the big network companies can make all these redundancies moot. At issue is a type of network connection called 'peering.' Most of the biggest network companies, such as AT&T, Sprint and MCI, as well as companies including Cogent and Level 3, strike "peering agreements" in which they agree to establish direct connections between their networks. "

No worries

[WormholeFiend]

The pr0n industry was designed to find alternative routes of delivery in case of Internet outages.

Background info

[NicolaiBSD]

Hey, I've found some interesting background info on this novel story here [slashdot.org].

Peering

[Neurotoxic666]

At issue is a type of network connection called 'peering.'

In other news, the RIAA announced they've stopped an extremely large P2P network.

Re:Background info

[KDan]

I think this source is blocked by the filters the editors use when selecting stories... It's pretty untrustworthy and contains lots of potentially inappropriate material...

Daniel

It's dupealicious!

[mrpotato]

But for easy karma, just go get a +5 comment in the other thread, and repost it here without attribution.

Not that I would ever do such a thing...

Re:The small should pay for the big?

[Daniel Boisvert]

Am I missing something here?

Yes. :)

Re:The small should pay for the big?

[hkmwbz]

Ah, thanks! That certainly made it clearer ;)

Re:Call the helpdesk...wait, THEY don't even know!

[peragrin]

You want scary, I can show you scary. I emailed Roadrunner saying I would drop them if they couldn't due something.

I got a semi canned response but it did have some techincal details. It also stated that if you wish to discuss the techincal nature of the problem go to www.ask.slashdot.org With a full link to the other article.

Yep Roadrunner sent me to slashdot to get more information.

Re:A solution can be...

[cloudmaster]

Be sure to let the UN know about that - this is surely something they'll want to take care of when they take "control of the Internet" away from the US. :)

North Pole Run coming soon

[davidwr]

As soon as all that pesky arctic ice melts away, it'll be cheap enough to run cable across the pole.

As a bonus, Santa's new underwater toy factory can tap into it.

Woo-hoo, faster email to Santa! Hope the jolly old elf doesn't discover online pr0n or he'll never get those presents made on time.

Re:This is so strange...

[cloudmaster]

Knowing that it pissed Howard Stern off and wasted some of his time, I now feel much better about this outage.

Re:A solution can be...

[Angostura]

Wow, that's a nice idea. That'll mean that all I have to do is run a bit of Ethernet into a peering point and I'll get free connections to all the tier ones. Fabulous.

Oh - hang on, if someone else runs a bit of Ethernet in, do I have to connect to them? Damn.

Re:No worries

[JPriest]

And slashdot runs redundant stories on the same thing in case the first one is lost on the way.

Re:The small should pay for the big?

[NanoGator]

"NANOG has been on fire with posts about this issue over the past few days."

WHat?! No! I haven't said a word about it!