APRIL FOOL!
By Ali Forpol
Early this morning Somali pirates free-dived nearly 100m and hijacked the Seacom cable near the Djibouti landing point. They are demanding $1 from every internet user, a total of at least $1-billion, by noon today.
At 12.00 C.A.T., they will cut the cable and plunge the Internet into chaos unless their demands are met. They are in constant contact with their banker for payment updates.
How will this affect you the Internet user?
Although the Internet is based upon the premise that there is no single point of failure, not many people are aware that a new DNS server directly connected to the Seacom cable is particularly vulnerable to the 'Internet Cascading Domino Failure Effect' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure) and the probability exists that if this DNS server fails, other DNS servers around the world will one-by-one switch off, rendering the Internet 'off'.
Existing websites may have to re-apply for their current URL as a consequence.
All systems reliant on the internet are also at risk. Power, communications, air traffic, road traffic, maritime traffic, banking, distribution, GPS, sewerage, water reticulation, fuel systems will all be affected to a greater or lesser extent.
This is particularly true for highly developed countries. Lesser developed countries, not yet heavily reliant on the internet, may escape some of the savage anarchic consequences of an internet breakdown. To be sure, the thin fabric of our worldwide civilisation will unravel if the internet goes.
We cannot condone this blatant blackmail of the entire world by a small minority of faceless evil pirates but we are staring down a barrel and are helpless in the face of this unprecedented attack on our way of life.