The Internet Patched Back Together With Duct Tape… For Now

from the we'll-splinter-it-next-month dept

Following three days of angry rhetoric between Level 3 and Cogent over whose fault it was that lots of people couldn’t reach half of the internet the two sides have come to a temporary agreement to patch the internet back together. However, if they can’t work out their differences in a month, the internet will be splintered again. Of course, you can expect that some time in the next month some politicians will pick up on this and start talking about regulations to keep the internet together.


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Comments on “The Internet Patched Back Together With Duct Tape… For Now”

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85 Comments
Stephen Pray (profile) says:

Re: Internet Patches

I switched to mozilla. when i decided to change back it had slapped spyware and trojans all over my pc. it hijacked my home page and i ended up reformatting to get rid of the last vestiges of Mozilla.. that company is a bunch of sorry c*** suckers and i dont mean that in a good way.. Its sure as hell not the answer to anything.

Rikko says:

Re: Re: Internet Patches

I can’t speak for Mozilla but it shares a lot with Firefox… Enough that I can pretty safely say that the browser wasn’t the reason you were inundated with spyware. The only reason you are going to get spyware is through negligence (eg. clicking “Yes” when you should be reading the message box first), using an unprotected Internet Explorer, or running 3rd party applications (either knowingly or accidentally via some internet worm).

But your concern is valid – as Mozilla and Firefox gain popularity, malicious coders are going to be targetting it as well as IE.

I recently switched back to Opera. It’s now free, and still the fastest and nicest looking browser around. Try it out at opera.com. It can’t handle every page out there but I can safely use it for 99% of my browsing.

AVANT RULES says:

Re: Re: Re: Internet Patches

I’m still wondering how long are you moron are going to continue using pathetic underdeveloped browsers like mozzillla, firefox or the “plain vanila” mother of all OPERA.

PEOPLE TRY AVANT BROWSER……..
http://www.avantbrowser.com

integrated window control so that nothing can hide behind the page you’re surfing, and launch crap. Build in AD blocking “…Thank GOD FOR AVANT”….. Build in Popup blocker…”…Thanks again.”

and if you would please tell me HOW IS the browser you’re using Relevant to the Problem between tier 1 providers….and NO your browser “MOZZILLA” is not the internet, or the last mile…Your ISP is the “last mile” provider…You NUBISH moron…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Internet Patches

Either you’re joking, or you’re just a dumbass:

AVANT BROWSER : Is just a wrapper for IE6.

Build in AD blocking : Can be achieved with Firefox extensions

Build in Popup blocker : All main browsers have this now.

:It was established that this was a joke.

You NUBISH moron… : Indeed.

grant says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Internet Patches

Yes avant browser comes will all kinds of features like the ability to run activeX controls to install trojans on your computer, holes that microsoft built in that are left open for malicious code and every other shortcoming that IE brings to the table. They just added more crap on top to make it act like Firefox but keep the insecure browsing environment of IE.

Ok, so it’s not worse than using IE, but it’s not better either.

Jason says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Internet Patches

You need to do your homework… Your browser is based on IE and we know how secure it is.

Is Avant Browser a secure browser?

Yes, Avant Browser is secure. Since it’s based on Internet Explorer, Avant Browser is as secure as Internet Explorer. Avant Browser supports all SSL secured websites. Avant Browser’s encryption length is the same as Internet Explorer’s.

Stephen Pray (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Internet Patches

I went thru this discussion with the ‘tech’ people… ok..you agree its all my fault..i dont, but then im not a tech..but i can read agreements, and i do. The fact remains that when all was said and done, no matter what I did, ‘some malacious nefarious and sinister group’ tried to make mozilla look ‘bad’ apparently and kept highjacking my home page and putting mozilla in its place. Im sure mozilla was aghast at such things. You’re all full of it. mozilla did it personally or paid people to do it. If i could find out where mr. mozilla lives id go over and spray paint my name on the side of his house. It’s the same principle.

Stephen Pray (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Internet Patches

thanx. um.. maybe you could give me a list of sites not to visit? What a lovely world if i could go to the site i wanted without having to worry about mindless juveniles and greedy scum suckers doing bad things. dont they have any ‘family values’? in bush’s third term he is going to take care of all the liberal trash responsible, im certain, god bless america. long live homeland security.

1251 says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Internet Patches

Sites not to visit? Pretty easy really. For the most part, there is nothing truly free on the internet anymore; you’ll pay somehow. The things that are free are getting fewer and further between.

General rule of thumb: P2P applications, even if they say they don’t have spyware, most likely do. Screensavers.com does not care about the damage their crap does to your PC. And, most importantly, update, update, update.

no one seemed to care says:

Re: Re: Re:4 BGP

I am surprised that no one seemed to care about this issue. Most just chocked it up to idiots with “single homed” connections.

Quick survey:
The problem was caused by:
1. every roadrunner customer in the country was an idiot for not having atleast two separate isps for their connection.

2. every level3 and cogent customer were idiots for not calling tech support and saying BGP.

3. Level3 was blocking cogent traffic across their network to blackmail them into paying for peering.

The solution to the network outage that affected every road runner customer in the country and many dsl customers was:

1. everyone signed up for a second internet connection.

2. everyone called their isp and said BGP.

3. Level 3 stopped blocking cogent traffic.

(answers 3,3)

LDB says:

Re: Re: Internet Patches

??What are you talking about?? Watch where you’re going–literally. Use proper security controls and anti-spyware tools. Update them regularly. Then you shouldn’t have these problems. Other Mozilla users have not had this problem. Perhaps they’re just out to get YOU! Actually, your claims are so ridiculous sounding that I’m wondering if you’re just joking around.

DanTheMan says:

Re: Re: Re: WTF?

Firefox, IE, Tier 1’s? What the crap do any of these have in common with the other???

To borrow a phrase from the late, beloved Jed Clampett,

“Pitiful, Pitiful”.

I can only hope (against all hope I am afraid) that some you folks are surfing on election day… the thought that some of you may actually Vote conjurs up the horror of all horrors….

Scott says:

Re: Internet Patches

I thought the readers of “tech dirt” were more educated than postings like “This is precisely why I’ve switched to Mozilla’a Firefox”. After reading that comment, I almost popped a blood vessel. The only thing that controlled the intracerebral hemorrhage was writing this reply.

What relevance does the type of browser you’re using relate to the peering issues between two tier 1 ISPs? Please explain! Or better yet, please don’t; the bleeding has stopped for now.

LOL!

AC says:

No Subject Given

Hey Mike, stop writing like a 12 year old. The internet wasn’t splintered at all. BGP routes just weren’t advertised between the two networks. If anyone had half a brain, and had multi-homed connections to support their “businesses” (read: not browsing porn at home) they wouldn’t have a problem, because other providers still had working routes between the two.
Only poorly planned setups had problems, IE: those with stupid single-homed connections.
Seems Techdirt is worse than Slashdot now with these headlines written to incite stupidity.

AC you are a moron says:

Re: BGP has nothing to do with the outage - moron.

Every dsl and every cable connection to the internet is single homed, moron. Only everyone with a connection from home was affected.

Lets see you get a phone company or cable company to multi-home your connection retard. Lets see you tell them to just change their routing, retard.

It is a backbone problem and has nothing to do with the end user, retard. When the backbone providers break their connection, everyone below them is broken until they fix it, retard.

J tothe A says:

Re: No Subject Given

“anyone had half a brain, and had multi-homed connections to support their “businesses” (read: not browsing porn at home) they wouldn’t have a problem, because other providers still had working routes between the two.”
I disagree with this, this is like saying since you had a spare tire, you never actually had a flat. It wasn’t advertised to me that my DSL provider might not be able to connect me to half the internet, I would have thought it was a _WEB_ meaning lack of single points of failure. Obviosuly something went wrong, and the backup plans you are referring to (in my experience) have never planned for teir 1 problems, just ATM failovers such as Sprint to MCI. (I’m sure they exist though) In most cases I would assume being able to route packets around with the backup plan was just coencidental with redundant providers.
Anyway, there are enough life/death and economical factors to easily justify government intervention here. Just as the government steps in with major telecommunication arguements (I work for verzion) imagine what would happen if Verizon stopped connecting people to Sprint.
Oh and uh… leave my porn out of this, I can’t think of a better reason for dual connections.

DanTheMan says:

Re: Re: No Subject Given

For the Love of God man! No Government ever solved any problem except with a rifle (and then the results were debateble). $$$$ drives it all. No company will risk the liability associated with “life/death…factors”. Let the market police itself. Lose 20k-30K subscribers and I gaurantee you the problem gets fixed before next month. And if it does not get fixed, then the Company SHOULD go out of business.

Obviously, you have never worked for the Government. Oh and uh, when the Gov’t gets into it, you can bet you royal butt your porn will be the first to go….

phazor says:

Re: Re: wow

I agree, the reason you got spyware was natural selection. Who pays for microsoft products these days anyways? all they are going to do is siphon money out of you by telling you that you need to reactivate and when it doesn’t you need to buy yet another version…

Some advice for the true PC user is that you will have a better time on the pc, with faster games and programs, if you switch to one of the following FREE operating systems:

Mandriva
Debian
Suse
These are the top leading Linux distros and currently I use Debian. I have never had a virus of spyware EVER for years.

This still does not mitigate the fact that we are talking about internet companies cutting access between backbone servers NOT your browser or client software. If half of the world is not pingable you might as well be disconnected from the net entierly

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: wow

Mandriva
Debian
Suse
These are the top leading Linux distros and currently I use Debian. I have never had a virus of spyware EVER for years.

Got any proof to back up youyr claim that these are the ‘leading’ GNU/Linux forks?

Evans Data put FreeBSD before Debian and didn’t list Mandriva in a survey of software developers and what they use.

So, give some data to back up your claim.

HeyZues says:

Re: I bought Dell

I see you have been reading on this post and have forgoten what it was originally intended for. I shall remind you. The ISP’s had a dispute (probably wanting more money) and some people where unable to reach some of thier websites. Not about some moron who can’t tell the differance between an internet BROWSER and an internet CONNECTION. Please stop making dumb comments on here and keep the posts relavent to the topic.

Merle says:

The part that makes my day

as a conduit of video over ip/ds3/oc3(and up) is we build redunant paths through these jerk offs and they spend all hours of the day coming up with un-coordinated emergency maintenances that cause glitches through out the path, giving us operations people fits trying to line down just where and what so our clientel can go back to enjoying the “show”… life was so much more reliable when we were a satelite communications company instead of some idiots dream idea of a one stop shop…. where 7/8ths of the shop is outsourced to more companies you could list on an old fashioned fax roll.

impressed says:

Re: Re: Re: math

Wow, your powers of discourse are incredible. You almost won me over with that last post.

Unfortunately, I am still unconvinced that whining about some server not being multihomed actually fixed this problem for the end user who was unable to access said sites. Level3 was blocking cogent packets, so, um sorry, um, even “hello” just doesnt fix the problem that level3 did fix.

so, um, hello.

Jonathon Striker (user link) says:

huh?

I have no idea what exactly you guys are talking about, but if you are gonna debate about firefox vs. internet explorer, do yourselves a favor…
Firefox has an extention called IE view, so if it doesn’t look right, you can right-click and open in IE. If the page doesn’t load at all or a plug-in is not compatible, there is an option to always load the page in IE so now you have an auto-browser switch when needed. Enjoy.

to the geniuses says:

No Subject Given

Duh! You think the firefox thread is for real? Shows how stupid you are that you dont get the joke. But calling everyone in on the joke morons, wow that really shows you are clueless.

To the BGP retards, it has nothing to do with your isp, nor with whether the sites are multi-homed. It has to do with the tier 1 providers.

Phlogistic says:

Shenaningans

I didn’t have any connection problems, that’s why I use AOL to access the internet. AOL keeps me safe from spyware & they’re working around the clock to protect me from viruses that haven’t even been invented yet. Although I did pickup the “iloveubutimnotinlovewithyou” virus recently from bearshare when it installed gator

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