From: Kevin L Prigge <Kevin.L.Prigge-2@tc.umn.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 22:35:17 +0800
To: wlkngowl@unix.asb.com (Mutant Rob)
Subject: Re: Internet shutdown Feb 29?
In-Reply-To: <199602280455.XAA21627@bb.hks.net>
Message-ID: <3134629847e9002@noc.cis.umn.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


A few months back, some winos took most of Minnesota off the net
for a couple days. Upset with being kicked out from under a bridge,
they started a fire that took out the main fiber cable from 
downtown to MRNet + the U of M. Backup? Due to a mistake at a CO,
the backup link was routed thru the same area, and was also burned.
Interesting scrambling as nameservers puked and died.  

Mutant Rob said:
> 
> Interesting. My ISP was shut down for a day this week because of a
> "problem with a router upstream from us". <insert emoticon here>
> 
> It would be nice to see ISPs maintain multiple paths or at least have
> a set of backup connections to keep outages like this from happening.
> 
> 
> Simon Spero wrote:
> >
> > As a matter of interest, I wonder how much of the internet could be
> > shut down by concerted effort; obviously individual services can be
> > trivially disabled by jamming listen queues (not really stoppable by
> > anything short of IPSEC w/photuris). The BGP backbone could probably be
> > disabled from within by a traitor planted in one of big companies, and a
> > confused backhoe around the MAEs could probably do a lot more damage than
> > people would like to admit. It seems that the internet is getting pretty
> > brittle- I wonder if it would be worthwhile having some sort of infranet
> > with a bunch of backups links using dial-up lines or spare transponders
> > (with a filter to block port 80 :-)
> >
> > It's probably not possible with  todays routing technology
> > (slow, flappy links with nightmarish convergence times), plus it's not
> > sexy like a nice OC-12 SONET. This is the sort of thing the NCSC should
> > be working on- something to keep the essential services flowing in the
> > early stages of an info-war, or an info truck-bomb
> ---
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-- 
Kevin L. Prigge         | "You can always spot a well informed man -
University of Minnesota |  his views are the same as yours."  
email: klp@tc.umn.edu   |  - Ilka Chase 
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