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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: [OT] Crash of 98??
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 11:39:41 +1000
Oh no, it's already happening...

As I write this, the major routers of the Internet backbone in the US are
falling over. You may never see this email (which begs the question of why
and how are you reading it). This could be an interesting source for a case
study on how dependent the US and world economies are on the Internet.

>Uunet advised Optus engineers of a major routing problem on their
>backbone affecting their whole network. This is also degrading other US
>routers.
>
>No ETA for fix provided at this time. Optus are attempting to place
>workarounds where possible.
>
>Fault has been escalated to Senior Uunet engineers.

So if you're wondering where your bandwidth got to, well, this is where.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 2
From: Starjammer <starjammer@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: [OT] Crash of 98??
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 22:19:35 -0500
At 11:39 AM 11/9/98 +1000, you wrote:
>Oh no, it's already happening...
>
>As I write this, the major routers of the Internet backbone in the US are
>falling over. You may never see this email (which begs the question of why
>and how are you reading it). This could be an interesting source for a case
>study on how dependent the US and world economies are on the Internet.

<snip UUNet outage report>

>So if you're wondering where your bandwidth got to, well, this is where.
>
>--
>.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com

Feh. This is nothing, happens all the time. Favorite ISP industry
nicknames for UUNet: YoYoNet, ScrewYouNet, Uh-OhNet... You get the
picture. It's a capacity issue, when one server goes down during
high-usage times it usually leads to cascade failures and major slowdowns.
Most major networks have similar outages from time to time.

No, when The Crash happens, you'll KNOW it.

Starjammer | Una salus victus nullam sperare salutem.
starjammer@**********.com | "The one hope of the doomed is not to hope
Marietta, GA | for safety." --Virgil, The Aeneid
Message no. 3
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: [OT] Crash of 98??
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 07:51:16 -0500
Quoting Starjammer (starjammer@**********.COM):
> Feh. This is nothing, happens all the time. Favorite ISP industry
> nicknames for UUNet: YoYoNet, ScrewYouNet, Uh-OhNet... You get the
> picture. It's a capacity issue, when one server goes down during
> high-usage times it usually leads to cascade failures and major slowdowns.
> Most major networks have similar outages from time to time.
>
> No, when The Crash happens, you'll KNOW it.

I'm with Starjammer on this one. Actually, though, it sounds like
a route problem - if a few of their routers' management cards go flaky,
they can start spreading corrupted routing data, that will eventually
(if they don't fix it) potentially affect other networks.
Back when I worked at the NOC (Network Operations Center) at Tech,
we used to see mail like this from BBN Planet (now 'GTE Internetworking')
all the time. Usually, their problem was 'router flapping', where a couple
of routers kept changing their minds about which way data should go, instead
of settling into a semi-stable pattern, thus causing routers that talk to
them to spend more of their time updating route tables and less pushing
packets.
IMHO, the real Crash will be a result of all of the major ISPs
merging, giving us a single point of failure somewhere...probably an
administrative one. The local ISPs are springing up all over the place, but
the backbone providers are consolidating at a frightening rate.

--Sean
--
Sean McCrohan (mccrohan@**.gatech.edu) | "He uses his folly as a stalking
Grad Student, Human-Computer Interaction | horse, and under the presentation
Georgia Institute of Technology | of that he shoots his wit."
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~smccrohan | _As You Like It_, Act 5 Sc 4

Further Reading

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!