Internet Collapse

Category: Cool-Stuff

I've gotten some forwarded emails claiming that the Internet is doomed to collapse very soon, unless some big changes are made to the infrastructure. Is it true… is the Internet going to go poof and vanish in a cloud of greasy black smoke?

Will the Internet collapse?

Is The Sky Really Falling?

Over the past decade, there have been voices crying in the technology desert claiming that the end is near... the Internet is doomed to collapse. In these apocalyptic forecasts, the culprits range from spam to viruses to YouTube, even to all out cyber-terrorism as potential reasons for the Great Crash of the Internet. Are these doomsday warnings correct? Is the Information Superhighway headed towards a dead end?

Although the origins of the Internet date back to the late 1960's, the Internet as we know it today came to full blossom in the early 90's with the advent of the Web, graphics, audio and video online. Vint Cerf, one of the early pioneers of the Internet, said in a 2007 interview with the The Guardian that some had predicted the end of the Internet 20 years ago when people "started using it en masse." Robert Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet networking technology, famously ate his own news article in front of a live audience in 1997 after writing in the 1995 article that he would "eat his words" if the Internet did not collapse by then.

Fast forward to a few years later, even after Metcalfe had to literally eat his words; claims about the inevitability of the Internet's collapse were still resounding. A lot of these claims were made in the wake of the tragic events of 9/11. In November 2002, the BBC news ran an article online featuring researchers warning that the Internet was vulnerable to disaster or terrorist action. Concerns about cyber-terrorism became more prevalent after 9/11, prompting Internet Service Providers and webmasters to tighten up security.

Lions and Tigers and... Impending Doom!

The critics of the Internet's stability fanned the flames again in 2002, when WorldCom, then the largest global ISP, suffered major outages that left millions of business customers without web and email access for several days. Service providers blamed the hardware providers, and vice versa, prompting IDC analyst Melanie Posey to quip "There's a dead body rolled up in a rug somewhere..." It was only months earlier that WorldCom had filed for bankruptcy, in the wake of a massive accounting scandal.

In 2004, alarmists cited viruses and spam as portents of the Net's demise. Among them was Finnish computer scientist Hannu Kari who purported that malware and "bad people who want to create chaos on purpose" would be behind the Internet's collapse.

Last year, Deloitte & Touche released their take on the matter, asserting that global traffic would soon exceed the Internet's capacity. More recently, "network neutrality" has been put forward as a reason for potential Internet collapse. Network Neutrality is the moniker given to the fact that ISPs/Telecom companies do not base their rates on content or type of service. In other words, the service these companies provide is not restricted. An online Forbes article suggests that the controversy over network neutrality is the reason why many ISPs are delaying necessary upgrades to contend with the ever increasing amount of Internet users.

Video Killed the Radio Star - Is the Internet Next?

More recently, the hand-wringers are blaming the potential Internet crash on the recent popularity of videos on the web. One research firm suggested that the spike in video sites like YouTube could very well make the Internet reach its breaking point by 2010, unless backbone providers invest up to $137 billion in new capacity.

Professor Michael Kleeman of the University of California also has concerns about the fact that YouTube serves over 100 million videos per day. Kleeman is urging that more data compression should be used to reduce strain on the network, and that a system of triaging Internet traffic should be established to give priority to certain kinds of content. Without aggressive action soon, Kleeman says, video downloads and VoIP traffic threaten to overload the Internet's aging technology.

Survivor: Internet

But not everyone agrees that the Internet is destined to collapse under its own weight any time soon. John Dvorak has noted in PC Magazine that none of the many predictions of impending Internet collapse over the past 20 years have come to fruition, and reminds us that when deficiencies in the infrastructure are noted, the Internet does tend to fix itself. New ways of allocating IP addresses, and the installation of ever-faster networking equipment are cited as examples. Dvorak says that in his opinion, the worst-case scenario is scattered, occasional outages, and reminds us that the Internet is "essentially run by phone companies, who know how to keep networks up."

As time goes on, this debate will surely continue. But perhaps the most compelling evidence for the Internet's resilience is the fact that in 2008 it is still intact. Despite the best efforts of miscreant malware creators to cripple the Internet, despite the onslaught of spam that accounts for nearly 90% of all email traffic, despite the heavy demands of Internet phone calling, and a surge in the popularity of online video, the Internet seems to be saying "I feel fine!"

My opinion on this is simple. The Internet cannot collapse, because the Internet MUST NOT collapse. If that sounds too simplistic, consider this. Much depends on the smooth functioning of the World Wide Web - banking, the financial markets, shopping, shipping, entertainment, medicine, along with so many other facets of the economy and daily life. Not to mention the telecommunications industry that operates most of the Internet... There is too much invested, and too much to lose.

If new hardware is needed, it will be invented. If new software is needed, it will be developed. Whatever financial investments that are required to meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's Internet WILL be made. Agree? Disagree? Post your comments below.

 
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Most recent comments on "Internet Collapse"

Posted by:

Janet
23 Jan 2008

I agree with your opinion. The last paragraph was the best.


Posted by:

Philbob
24 Jan 2008

Well, Youtube, now that Google owns it, maybe they should fix this little dilemma. There's just way too much invested that would allow a collapse. Permanent collapse, anyway. Just my opinion. In the context: "If new hardware is needed, it will be invented. If new software is needed, it will be developed..." My, how I wish this attitude could apply to the energy 'situation.'


Posted by:

Walter
24 Jan 2008

Yep, I was thinking that all along. It won't collapse, because everyone is seriously invested in making sure it will not collapse.


Posted by:

Al
24 Jan 2008

Unfortunately too many people listen to the doomsayers without even thinking about the fact that no one knows the future. There are far too many people trying to make a name for themselves by pretending to be omniscient, and this includes the "experts" in the field. If the experts were right, the United States would have accumulated about 6 computers today. Much of this is an attempt to either get famous or to raise money, or just sheer egotism..."I know more than you do, so listen to me!!. When a baby hiccups or coughs do we say that the baby will die as a result? The Internet is still a baby and still growing, despite the fact that people too often feed it the wrong food, and then have to change the diaper. Unpleasant, but necessary. Will the baby die? Possibly, but odds are that it will grow and thrive. There are millions of new users every year. Per http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=849 only 10% of the world now uses the Internet, and as long as money can be made and technology can solve problems, there is no end in sight. It's just the beginning, not the end.


Posted by:

Whipsnard Q Bimblemann, III, Esq.
24 Jan 2008

What is going to happen when December 31st, 1999 rolls over to January1st 2000?!?!? Oh, wait...did that all ready happen?

Actually, what does worry me is all the talk about large ISPs monitoring what travels on the Internet. Not that I do any peer-to-peer that is illegal, but this does concern me.


Posted by:

Bob
24 Jan 2008

I agree with you. I rememebr Metcalfe's doom & gloom prediction. I was surprised that such a bright guy would stumble like that. But he also wanted to call the web the "I-way" a very wimpy moniker.


Posted by:

John Howard Oxley
24 Jan 2008

It seems that the camelback breaking straw is the video server site like YouTube -- OK, ask this question -- how important is this in terms of e-commerce and e-government? More important than Amazon.com or irs.gov?

There's your answer -- if video on demand services are going to break the net, take them down -- if no other method will work, a DDoS certainly will.

So the idea that there will be a *general* collapse of the InterWeb, er, the NetTube, er, well you know what I mean, is pretty far-fetched.


Posted by:

Bill Rubin
24 Jan 2008

I certainly hope you're right, and it seems most likely you are. However, history contains many examples of civilizations which failed because the unthinkable was allowed to happen. See Jared Diamond's book Collapse.


Posted by:

Bob
24 Jan 2008

I suppose it's possible that a Cisco engineer could plant malicious code in their routers, and have them all go boom on a certain day. Or a particularly nasty virus could clog up the pipes to the point where no other traffic was able to move. But even these would cause only temporary (and probably regional) outages.


Posted by:

Rocker452
24 Jan 2008

I agree with your opinion on this. The Telcos have too much invested in it to let it collapse, plus technology tends to sustain its self, they are always coming up with new or improved ways of doing things. The internet will advance as the technology does. As the saying goes necessity is the mother of invention.


Posted by:

wildwilly1111
25 Jan 2008

It won't collapse - much more likely that it will become non-neutral and stifle the flattening and democratic tendencies we see today.


Posted by:

Frankie
26 Jan 2008

I love the way you stated your position in just a few lines after examining the various angles.

No, the Internet won't collapse. At least not permanently. In the event of a shutdown/meltdown, someone (like maybe the Japanese) will already have "Plan B" to execute real fast. The most that will happen is a temporary hiccup.

After the unlikely demise of the Internet, the resurrected Internet will be better, faster, bigger, and (we hope) cheaper. Sometimes something has to die, if only to give way to new (and improved) life. A total rebuild (rather than a series of upgrades) could very well be the thing that this ageing internet needs.


Posted by:

Chris
10 Feb 2008

Here's the check:

1) The internet run on lines that are also used for voice communication

2) Some traffic runs via Satellites

3) As long as those lines are maintained, expanded, improved, the capabilities for the "Internet" to carry more and more traffic are almost endless.

4) As more people begin to connect with higher speed connections, congestion will begin to dissipate. Think about your local water supply system. Water mains, neighborhood mains, house mains, then faucets. Suppose everyone was to upgrade their faucets to neighborhood mains. Sure the demand has gone up because you're sending more water, but the path to get that water there has grown dramatically as well. Same basic concept with an ISP connection. Size of the pipe goes up, so does the ability to get it there.


Posted by:

John
13 Nov 2008

You say spelling, punctuation and grammar are important, yet your second sentence begins with the word "And". I do not believe the internet will collapse any time soon.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Most of the sources I've checked with indicate that it's fine to start a sentence with "and," so long as it's not overused. Years ago, it was not considered grammatically correct, but fashions do change!


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