Who knew that the Internet - the one thing almost everyone I know relies on and has no control over - could crash, be shut down and have to be rebooted? I didn't. It's one of those things we (I, at least) take for granted.
I often joke about the fact that I use my Yahoo mail as my backup system for novels and stories. I email them to myself and put them in a folder in my mailbox. But I'm not really joking. I figure if Yahoo crashes and can't be restored, the world as we know it will be at an end and my writing will be the least of my worries.
Once I started thinking about the Internet (the WHOLE BIG INTERNET - banking, mail, websites, shopping, information - EVERYTHING) having to be rebooted, I wanted to know exactly how it would be done. Because I want to know who has this kind of power. Scary power.
Seven people worldwide have the power and three of those seven people have to get to the places to restore the system. I know there are two sites in the US, one of the West coast, the other on the East. There are (I'm guessing) several more around the world as at least one of the seven is Anne-Marie Eklund Lowinder who lives in Sweden. If three of that seven can't get to these places (I'm also guessing that not just anyone knows where they are), there are seven alternates.
This sounds more than a bit like a spy novel - and I'm sure someone is going to write this story and scare every single user of the Internet to death. Just reading the newspaper article about Anne-Marie gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Like air and water, I took the Internet for granted. I don't think I'll do that anymore.
Kate
About Me
- Kate Austin
- I live on the ocean, write women's fiction, love to read so much that it's an addiction rather than a hobby (I read an average of a book a day). I live on the wet west coast so it's a good thing that I like to walk in the rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment