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  1. #1

    New York destroyed - how's the internet?

    HYPOTHETICAL:

    A small nuclear fission device has been detonated in New York City. The damage is small but extensive, not least because of the electro-magnetic pulse during detonation.

    The purpose of this hypothetical is to collect opinions on internet performance after such an event.

    Questions -

    1/ How functional will the internet be after such an event, especially in terms of capacity?
    2/ Will the east coast USA be essentially severed from Europe excepting through re-routing through Asia?
    3/ What are the direct and serious consequences to the internet after such a catastrophic event?

  2. #2
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    I don't know but wasn't the internet, or then ARPA, created for such an event? That the network would run on nodes so that if one node is taken down the rest of the network can run unaffected?

  3. #3
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    1. I don't think anyone would care about the Internet after a nuclear blast like that.

    2. It'd most likely route through Washington, DC before routing through Asia (especially if coming from the West Coast).

    3. Major news Web sites collapsing due to the load from users getting news about the NY blast, extreme slowness because the DC pipe would need to handle at least 2x the load it'd normally handle, etc.

    Hope that helps.
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  4. #4
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    I live in Wash DC... Hope we dont get bombed!

  5. #5
    honestly, physically the net would hold out well, sites in ny dc's woul dbe out, the problem would be the heads of many companies would get wiped out, many many staff would be lost besides localised outages all traffic should reroute but the issues would be more financial \ political \ economical then the actual hardware being compromised.
    now if you were to say bomb reston then there would be troubles, thats a major transit point out of the usa to europe if im not mistaken. Hit the net at a weak point like that and whilst data would reroute there would be significant disturbances.
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  6. #6
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    New York City is already on it's way to being destroyed by it's mayor. So, any nuclear blast would just add insult to injury.

  7. #7
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    Originally posted by I, Brian
    A small nuclear fission device has been detonated in New York City.
    [...]
    What are the direct and serious consequences to the internet after such a catastrophic event?
    Disruption will be minimal, because Bruce Willis will have everything back to normal within two hours.




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  8. #8
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    Originally posted by JayC
    Disruption will be minimal, because Bruce Willis will have everything back to normal within two hours.




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    Personally I would have used Arnold or Jean Claude (you know, it's only foreigners that save the world ).
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  9. #9
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    I think the 'super three' would come together: Bruce Willis, Arnold, and Jean Claude.
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  10. #10
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    and the X-men!

    just watched X2
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  11. #11
    Originally posted by lightnin
    New York City is already on it's way to being destroyed by it's mayor. So, any nuclear blast would just add insult to injury.
    I'd say its one Senator causing the damage there and no, not Schumer....

  12. #12
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    Re: New York destroyed - how's the internet?

    Originally posted by I, Brian
    HYPOTHETICAL:

    A small nuclear fission device has been detonated in New York City. The damage is small but extensive, not least because of the electro-magnetic pulse during detonation.

    The purpose of this hypothetical is to collect opinions on internet performance after such an event.

    Questions -

    1/ How functional will the internet be after such an event, especially in terms of capacity?
    2/ Will the east coast USA be essentially severed from Europe excepting through re-routing through Asia?
    3/ What are the direct and serious consequences to the internet after such a catastrophic event?
    You are only asking with land/submarine access in mind.....dont forget now satellite access is also being used. I think most datacentres for critical applications [banking, stock trading etc] have backups in geographically different locations to safeguard againt this kind of situation.

  13. #13
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    Re: New York destroyed - how's the internet?

    Originally posted by I, Brian

    2/ Will the east coast USA be essentially severed from Europe excepting through re-routing through Asia?
    Now that sounds interesting! You're getting me sold on this!
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  14. #14
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    OMG,, lol,, going to set off a nuclear bomb in your competitive area's are you? LOL, i knew this market was competitive, but cheesh!

    I agree, i dont think anyone would really care about that after a nuclear blast, the only thing on our minds would be...

    1.) Lets find out what poor, illiterate, ran down, screwed up of a culture country did it and...

    2.) How do we want to wipe them out..

    But i do believe that we will see it one day, one day New York will be no more... Our enemies are bound to succeed not because we cant stop them, but because our politicians are too stupid to.. and the first target will probably be N.Y.

    They will never close the borders to this country.. because we would all loose money, and we all know that they would rather see some one named amodenaze cordelepitame quozimotoezboy defulson kill billions then for someone to loose money in the whitehouse..

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  15. #15
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    Originally posted by Watcher_TVI
    I'd say its one Senator causing the damage there and no, not Schumer....
    Nah, she does the same nothing in Albany that her husband did in Washington. Pataki and Bloomberg are the ones who actually appear to be TRYING to destroy us. Schmuck Schumer is actually starting to make some sense of late. (scary to type that)

  16. #16
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    Why would anyone entertain such a scenario?

  17. #17
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    Originally posted by lightnin
    Nah, she does the same nothing in Albany that her husband did in Washington.
    Well, she can't really be expected to be effective in Albany, because she's a U.S. Senator... and they work in Washington.

    But actually I was guessing he meant Joe Bruno, who has a lot more to do with New York's fiscal situation than either Clinton or Schumer... and who does do his legislative work in Albany.
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  18. #18
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    Actually, she works in Albany as well. They aren't in Washington all year. Just for you, I'll say she does nothing in Washington as well.

  19. #19
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    Originally posted by mina_babe
    Why would anyone entertain such a scenario?
    Noone is "entertaining" the scenario. It's a hypothetical and a damn good one too. I'm sure the USA government has such a hypothetical for the exact scenario.

    IMO, such an incident is a likely probability.
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  20. #20
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    Re: New York destroyed - how's the internet?

    Originally posted by I, Brian
    2/ Will the east coast USA be essentially severed from Europe excepting through re-routing through Asia?
    Considering one of the largest links to the EU from the East Coast is from NYC, it would very likely not happen.

    Originally posted by lightnin
    New York City is already on it's way to being destroyed by it's mayor. So, any nuclear blast would just add insult to injury.
    Ouch!

  21. #21
    IMO, such an incident is a likely probability.
    Actually same here. I'd hate to be grouped in the "doomssayer" crowd, but considering the state of world politics and terrorism, I'd say there's a very good chance of NYC or Washington DC being targeted for a small nuclear terrorism attack.

    Whether it happens or not is another issue.

    In practical terms I was wondering about whether to ensure I used a more local European server, in the event of "catastrophic data center failure". Currently setting up plans in NYC and Texas - figure I ought to spread the site redundancy across continents.

    Btw - an EM pulse weapon alone could destroy the electronic infrastructure of a city - every single non-shielded electrical component blown. Somehow I'm not sure that terrorism is that sophisticated, though.

    Don't have a bad day, though, folks - remember, Russia had most of the USA targeted for nuclear destruction for around 50 years, and that never happened, either.

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