On the one hand, one can attribute this to the wildly growing popularity of blogs.
On the other, it looks like a classic case of everyone knowing that backups are essential, but actual practice lagging a big.
And one can note, as David Berlind does, that if blogs were kept in a standard open format it would be easy to move among blogging platforms.
Me, I have a new policy of exporting a backup of my entire blog every time I post something.
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Peter Sevcik in the November BCR Magazine points out that it would be good to have more than one source, especially when the source sells devices to measure such numbers. Peter also calls for government oversight and record keeping, at least as much as the FCC already does for voice. Continue reading
Y’all come.
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8) Hurricanes such as Katrina and other natural disasters in the U.S. and around the world will compel the U.S. and other governments to look to the Internet and IP-based communications as the vehicle to improve emergency response and post-catastrophe communications.
2006 Predictions for IP Communications Industry: Coffee Talk with Jeff Pulver 6 December 2005
Considering the FCC has already announced a Homeland Security Bureau for this and related purposes, that prediction seems likely.
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I wonder if Bellsouth had gotten their DSL net back up or offered a wireless service of their own whether NOLA would have gone ahead with a municipal wireless network? I can understand how Bellsouth might be upset about loss of revenue, but when will the big mini-Bells recognize that the spread of municipal or even wireless Internet networks is a market demand appearing because they haven’t provided access to the potential customers at a price the market will bear?
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Meanwhile, back in the states, Intel, Tropos, and Pronto donated equipment to make a city-wide wireless network in New Orleans. Here’s an interesting map showing current status of Bellsouth’s telephone and DSL networks in New Orleans. Looks like a wireless network is easier to deploy quickly than DSL….
Continue readingBruce Schneier points out in Wired that not only is airline security such as is currently supplied by TSA is mostly security theater to make people feel better rather actually do anything to make them safer (he’s said that before), but he also listed numerous other problems and proposed what to do instead. I’ve got a few further suggestions.
Continue reading-jsq
My, it’s been almost a year since the last time Internet collapse was predicted, and here it is again:
If an attack or disaster destroyed the major nodes of the internet, the network itself could begin to unravel, warn the scientists who carried out the simulations.
The virtual attacks showed that the net would keep going in major cities, but outlying areas and smaller towns would gradually be cut off.
The researchers warn that the net has become more vulnerable as it has become more commercialised and key net cables are concentrated in the hands of fewer organisations.
Risk of internet collapse rising BBC News Tuesday, 26 November, 2002, 16:42 GMT
The article correctly says that the Internet as a whole will not collapse, but there may be disconnections.
Continue readingDan Geer writes:
No more: "Somebody upgraded, so now everyone has to." By making the "public" in "public record" mean something, Massachusetts gets better accessibility, plus competition–not a sole-source provider.
Perspective: Massachusetts assaults monoculture By Daniel Geer c|net news.com Published: November 29, 2005, 4:00 AM PST
Mass. is requiring state documents to be in an open format (OpenDocument) reaadily accessible via multiple vendors’ word processing software, not to mention by OpenOffice, an open source office suite.
Continue reading