Internet Goes Down, Gets Back Up
By now you have probably heard or read the news that Michael Jackson’s death almost brought down the Internet.
Are you kidding!?
I understand that MJ was an internationally-recognized, bona fide superstar – irrespective of his legal woes and overall craziness. However, when the death of a single individual gives us a glimpse of how our technology – technology we now depend on – can vanish and buckle under the weight of a massive event – I consider it a pretty eye-opening experience.
The real reason the Internet was created in the first place was not so I would have an outlet to speak my mind, but to create a communication network with infinite redundancy. I highly doubt that when the United States Department of Defense backed the project in the 50s, they were worried that one day will.i.am and Perez Hilton would have beef with each other.
In his final act, The King of Pop took down AOL-owned gossip Website TMZ. I can live with that. But I can’t accept the fact that The LA Times went down. Or the fact that ABC, CBS and CNN all slowed to a crawl.
(I can handle a Twitter FAIL since they’ve never shown me that they can sustain)
But major news organizations?
What if, God forbid we were at war? Or if our president was killed? Or if aliens invaded. I have to believe that those circumstances have the potential to crash the Internet like a series of Pacific Ocean waves. Imagine if they all happened at once?!
We all hope we never see anything as dark as the scenarios above in our lifetimes, but you sure hope that the Internet could handle them should they arise. Right now, I’m just not sure.
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Jack of All Blogs → Blog Archive » Internet Goes Down, Gets Back Up | Goes Down News said this on July 2, 2009 1:58 am