Internet shipwreck: Should web users sink or swim?

When the global network breakdown happened to Asia last week due to an earthquake, many "mass" technical experts quickly managed, using the available solutions to avoid network access with speed to 'brainstorm' Some people reset their computers to avoid Internet disruption by connecting directly to servers located in Europe to travel to the US, avoiding cable breakpoints in Taiwan .

Others use programs like Web2Mail, an online application that allows content to be taken from web pages and delivered to users via email. At the very least, with this method, users will also benefit from the fact that they do not have to spend hours staring at the computer screen to wait for the 'loading' of each website.

Photo: Herald Trinune Besides the long line of people waiting to stand by the preferred shared computers to recover the speed of access quickly, just as the scene of the taxi fleet must wait after an ambulance on the highway.

Although Asian experts remain insistent, the Internet traffic disaster just like this is only rare, hundreds of years once, but netizens around the world still wonder about the question: ' What if that happens again? '

It is clear that clever alternative tactics, which do not require much of the specialized knowledge of the Internet as they are used in Asia, are not easy for the vast majority of people who are constantly attached to the Internet. in daily life.

And in addition, mailing, research, conducting commercial transactions, communications, and even phone calls today are increasingly dependent on the so-called IP or 'Internet Protocol'. When a network breakdown occurs, not only does a website like BBC stop downloading data or an eBay auction is postponed, but all of those essential activities are stalled.

And so, what happens if the Internet is shut down?

Most experts will tell you that it is impossible, that what the media call a telecommunications disaster in Asia is in fact not the whole network . That they will demonstrate the "self-healing" nature of the Internet, a method of finding alternative data transfer routes when incidents occur.

Plus, we don't have too many options. The areas of trade and communications have abandoned the 'closed' real-world network with supervised, transitional and end-to-end stages, rigorously tested to move to the Internet with open nature. ', operating in the form of splitting data into multiple' bit 'packages, sending immediately through the most efficient links and then' re-combining 'at the point of receiving data.

Unlike 20 years ago, when CompuServe, Prodigy, Fidonet, France's Minitel and thousands of dial-up amateur 'billboards', freedom could become alternative networks, right now, only Some new multinational companies qualify for private and protected communications. And any government, if it is going to build an emergency backup system, will not disclose for security reasons.

Some argue that this is the "deadly" shortcoming of the Internet, personal networks will increase more and more, simply to ensure safe alternative communication channels (as well as anti-virus or spam). In the distant future, closed networks will replace Internet types that are still messy and unrestricted today.

There are those who argue that the next generation of the Internet will work towards resolving that shortcoming.

A research project called Global Environment for Networking Innovations - GENI - (roughly translated as the Global Environment for Network Innovations) has just been deployed in the US with the aim of solving this problem and capital complications. There are other of the Internet. As part of the National Science Foundation initiative, GENI will look for models and test potential structures to find a new and more radical World Wide Web.

Mr. Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet founders and technology evangelist for Google, was chosen as a consultant for the project.

Of course, it will take many more years before we can get the results from the above project. So, in the meantime, the smart and clever response of the Asian netizens with the past incident is worth considering.

Do Duong