You can do anything on the Internet, I guess, but watch out for those cables

In this incredibly high-tech world, it's always good now and again to remember how vulnerable we are to "low-tech" glitches: Large sections of Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa were taken off the Internet by a speed-bump on the information super highway: Two undersea cables were cut or damaged.

I don't know how often such things happen, nor how catastrophic or long-lasting this problem will be. But it seems to me that such cables are pretty reliable. We don't often hear about Internet and/or telecommunications outages on such wide scales so we can assume the cables are generally pretty well protected and pretty reliable.

What we SHOULD do is be reminded that not everything is solved by high technology. Even the most cutting-edge, exciting high-tech developments are vulnerable to power outages, cut cables, weather interference, and out right sabotage. At some point, hopefully, we will find out what happened to the two trans-Atlantic cables. Most likely, it was a natural disaster or an accidental mishap.

But like it or not, our entire culture is built around high-technology which is at risk in many, many ways.

Ah, well, what do I know? I'm just a guy who reads the papers.
[tags]Internet outage, undersea cables damaged, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]

January 31, 2008 | Filed Under Cultural News, World News