Typhoon Morakot and the fragile Web world
- Source: Global Times
- [00:40 August 20 2009]
- Comments
We have been taking an Internet connection for granted as part of our daily life, like air and water, but the disruption of Web service caused by the powerful typhoon Morakot has reminded us of the fragility of the Internet and the danger of our reliance on Web-based communication.
After three days of suspended service, users from Beijing to Singapore finally were able to get back on MSN, access their blogs, and resume communication with clients on the other side of the Pacific. It made many realize how life has become centered on small computer screens dependent on seabed cables that could cost us dearly if they were damaged and service disrupted.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, 70 percent of North American-bound Internet traffic was disrupted as a result of a cable failure.
It’s yet another large-scale cross-border Web disaster following the one in 2006 when an earthquake in Taiwan broke 11 seabed communication cables. Full Internet service wasn’t restored until one month later. This year alone, China’s domestic Internet has suffered a loss of service three times.
While exposing the fragility of the Internet, the incident is a good reminder of the necessity for China to upgrade its own independent Web communications capability. As industry analysts pointed out, if Chinese Web users depended less on MSN, which uses overseas servers, and instead used more locally–based communication software, the disruption caused to the public would be much less.
The deep-sea cables that carry the majority of data transmission on the Internet are easily damaged by natural disasters like typhoons and earthquakes, and could also be the target of terrorist attacks. This means the government at various levels and the corporate world have to make it an urgent task to come up with an emergency data security plan.
There are currently 13 root name servers globally, scattered in the US, Europe and Japan. China doesn’t have supervision over any of these servers, which are crucial components of the Internet’s structure. To ultimately prevent Internet security threats, China has to upgrade its standing in the Web service world.
The Internet is undergoing another major evolution, which gives China a good opportunity to make up for the weakness of its technology and service. This is about more than just preventing inconvenience due to ruptured seabed cables: It’s about safeguarding China’s development from the weakness of Internet security.
