What's protecting the internet?

[El Güero]

If the net goes down we're screwed, big time.

The economy is largely shut down. Many people are sick. We charge everything or use a debit card. Without the net we won't be able to buy gas or anything else IF anyone has goods for sale.

What's preventing the collapse of the www?

 

[S-Bigbottom]

Nothing!

 

[Gorn]

Fear and anxiety. It's important to think about this often and share your dread with others so it spreads. That oughtta do it.

 

[MonetBass]

This isn't 1980. Sure, there are major internet backbones, but there are a ton of redundant sites. Taking all of them down at once would be an impressive feat to say the least. Not saying it's not possible, just highly unlikely.

 

[El Güero]

Fear and anxiety. It's important to think about this often and share your dread with others so it spreads. That oughtta do it

I knew I could count on you for a worthless and prickified comment. Don't ever change.

 

[Mushroo]

If you are genuinely curious about this topic, a good place to start your research might be incidents such as the 2019 Cloudflare outage, the 2019 China Telecom outage, or the 2017 AWS outage. These incidents are all well-documented, with lots of articles out there.

 

[Sid Fang]

The Internet was originally designed to be a military command and control network that could survive a nuclear attack. Take out an element, and the protocols will automatically route around the hole. It was never envisioned to operate at the scale it has today (which caused it to start running out of internet addresses a few years back, requiring the update to "IPv6"), but the design principles were sound, and the damned thing still works. The biggest risk in the US would be if Comcast shut down completely, as they provide the internet infrastructure for many American homes and businesses, but the internet would continue to work, via AT&T, Google, and other infrastructure providers, albeit with reduced capacity.

 

[ddnidd1]

There's a LOT of topics to be concerned about currently.

A widespread internet outage isn't one of them.

 

[El Güero]

2019 Cloudflare outage, the 2019 China Telecom outage, or the 2017 AWS outage.

Thanks for that. I had no idea where to begin.

 

[Alkali Ike]

A few weeks ago a group of countries in the EU asked YouTube, Netflix, etc. to temporarily reduce the quality of streaming video in order to relieve the strain on bandwidth. This hasn't been necessary in the US (afaik) but it's a tool in the toolbox for keeping the Internet running well.

Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Apple to slow down streaming so internet doesn't overload

As the coronavirus outbreak forces people to work from home and children to stay out of school, Netflix and Amazon Prime agreed to a European Union request that streaming services switch from high definition to standard in an effort to reduce the strain on the internet, as previously reported by CNN and the Guardian. Apple is doing the same with Apple TV+, as reported earlier by 9to5Mac, as is Google-owned YouTube.

 

[MJ5150]

This individual has it under control........

-Mike

 

[El Güero]

This individual has it under control

I'll sleep like a kitten tonight.

 

[sharkbait130]

I lived 3/4 of my life without internet or computers. If they all went away tomorrow , it would be a bit inconvenient for me but quite survivable.

 

[El Güero]

There's a LOT of topics to be concerned about currently.

And many have a common denominator. The writing's on the wall.

 

[S-Bigbottom]

Last year a squirrel took out my internet for a week, it chewed through the fiber optic cable. It took a week because that was when the ditch drilling crew could get out to drill and lay a new fiber optic line.
They can not patch fiber optic, they have to replace the whole line from pole to the house.

According to the repair man this is common in some areas. Said the south side around 5th street they replace 10+ lines in the summer that have been chewed by squirrels.

 

[MJ5150]

Last year a squirrel took out my internet for a week, it chewed through the fiber optic cable. It took a week because that was when the ditch drilling crew could get out to drill and lay a new fiber optic line.
They can not patch fiber optic, they have to replace the whole line from pole to the house.

According to the repair man this is common in some areas. Said the south side around 5th street they replace 10+ lines in the summer that have been chewed by squirrels.

As a former cable puller, I had to chime in on this one.
Fiber optic cable can be repaired without replacing it pole to pole.
It's not nearly as simple as repairing copper, but it can be done with the proper (expensive) tools and skillset.

-Mike

 

[S-Bigbottom]

As a former cable puller, I had to chime in on this one.
Fiber optic cable can be repaired without replacing it pole to pole.
It's not nearly as simple as repairing copper, but it can be done with the proper (expensive) tools and skillset.

-Mike

Frontier would rather pull and lay new line.
They have done it three times for me.
At least the last time they did not use the trencher making a slit in my driveway again, but the underground drill and layer. Much better.

 

[ajkula66]

As a former cable puller, I had to chime in on this one.
Fiber optic cable can be repaired without replacing it pole to pole.
It's not nearly as simple as repairing copper, but it can be done with the proper (expensive) tools and skillset.

If it's a visible break, re-splicing and adding heads on both sides mated via an APC will do it. I would, however, have concerns about placing such a splice in a ditch. My take would be to run a fresh drop as well.

I, for one, would rather be splicing fiber than copper but to each their own.

 

[MJ5150]

Frontier would rather pull and lay new line.
They have done it three times for me.
At least the last time they did not use the trencher making a slit in my driveway again, but the underground drill and layer. Much better.

Yeah, that's cool and the better way to do it.
Kudos to them for being responsible and doing it the right right way.

-Mike

 

[Michedelic]

Then there would be growth potential in franchising “Treatment Centers for Talkbass Addiction”.