Internetul, paianjenul care stapaneste lumea

February 01
Ni se pare normal (take for granted) ca sa reusim, cu ajutorul catorva clickuri, sa luam legatura nu numai cu cineva de la antipod, dar chiar si din cealalta emisfera. Cati se gandesc (eu una nu) ce munca enorma, cat efort necesita din partea, poate, a sute de mii de oameni (sa nu-mi spuneti ca totul e automatizat, eu aici vorbesc despre toti cei implicati in ce inseamna internetul, incepand de la profesorul care invata copiii sa scrie, continuand cu cercetatorul care descopera lucruri noi si ne invata cum sa le aplicam, dar si cu armata de truditori care aplica aceste descoperiri) aceste clickuri simple.
Un articol citit recent mi-a mai luminat cate ceva:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080131/ap_on_hi_te/internet_outages_cables
Finger-thin cables tie Internet together
The foundation for a connected world seems quite fragile, an impression reinforced this week when a break in two cables in the Mediterranean Sea disrupted communications across the Middle East and into India and neighboring countries.
Yet the network itself is fairly resilient. In fact, cables are broken all the time, usually by fishing lines and ship anchors, and few of us notice. It takes a confluence of factors for a cable break to cause an outage.
Nu mi-am pus nicodata problema pe unde circula informatia
By an accident of geography and global politics, Egypt is a choke point in the global communications network, just as it is with global shipping. The reasons are the same: The country touches both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, which flows into the India Ocean.
The slim fiber-optic cables that carry the world's communications are much like ships, in that they're the cheapest way for carrying things over long distances. Pulling cable overland is much more expensive and requires negotiation with landowners and governments.
So fiber-optic cables that go from Europe to India take the sea route via Egypt's Suez Canal, just as ships do.
Si pe unde circula ele?
With two of the three cables passing through Suez cut, traffic from the Middle East and India intended for Europe was forced to route eastward, around most of the globe.
The main route goes through Japan and the United States, crossing both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
....
The other route from India to Europe goes over China into Russia and along the Trans-Siberian railroad.
Egypt is not the only check point in the global network. The ocean just south of Taiwan proved to be one in December 2006, when an earthquake cut seven of eight cables passing through the area, slowing down communications in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia for months.
Another possible vulnerability is the U.S. island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. It is the spider at the center of a web cables from the United States, Japan, Australia, the Philippines and China.
Both cables that connect the United States to Australia and New Zealand run over Hawaii, creating another choke point.