Half Of The Internet Seems To Be Down
This morning I have been noticing a lot of websites and even for a time my email was unable to connect.
Seems from what I am reading that one of the largest networks in the world shit the bed. Oops. That’s will be an interesting fuck up.
It certainly does make you wonder though, with so many “smart” devices that require an internet connection. Which how many of them really relies on a active connection do do normal things what would happen if the major backbones were taken down. How much stuff is controlled by “apps” that require servers and how many of those things have fall backs in case of connection failure?
Not that it’s that important of a device but I have learned that my Garmin watch requires the servers to process data. That’s really just an inconvenience. Even if that data were lost it would be nothing more than a frustration. At the end of the day though it’s no big deal.
VoIP could be an issue though. Imagine relying on a VOIP phone like I did with Vonage at one point and needing to call 911 or something. That was a risk I accepted though and we had a landline as a backup back then anyways. I just wanted a Philly number so my family members could call me since so many of them didn’t have long distance calling.
It’s making me think of how many people rely on something like google maps for directions. I wonder how many people can even use a paper map anymore to at least get from the general vicinity of point A to point B.
Another thing is all of the music streaming services. How many of them worked through this? I don’t know as I don’t really rely on them and only stream stuff very occasionally. Mostly I listen to our own ripped CD collection.
Technology is great but things can fail at times. Back in the early 1990s AT&T’s long distance service had a cascading failure. The power grid has had the same in areas every once in a while.