[Lazamataz]

I am a computer developer by trade. I am here to assure you that no upgrades, no backups, no 'drills', no 'testing' like this happens on active-users-on-system time. These sort of things occur only on off-hours. All the explanations offered so far DO NOT MAKE ANY SENSE to this computer developer with over 20 years in the field.

Furthermore, such a large system is NOT centralized. Have you ever heard of an entire large portion of a banking system going down? An entire branch of a phone system? No, you have not. That is because any large and complex system has many different branches or nodes of operability. The concept that one mistake brings it all down -- or even a lot of it -- is impossible.

This is clearly a deliberate act, even looking at it from a purely technical basis.

This will happen again. And soon. And nationwide.

[Travis McGee]

This was a test of the National EBT Shutdown System. This was only a test.

A test, and a very dangerous warning shot to the GOP to accede to Obama’s demands for an infinite debt limit increase, “or else.”

The “or else” is an EBT system shutdown, and cities on fire from coast to coast.

All blamed on those Evil White Racist Republicans, who wouldn’t give Obama his money, and made little babies go hungry. Damn those evil white racist Republicans!

That’s the game plan.

http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/bracken-when-the-music-stops-how-americas-cities-may-explode-in-violence/

“Will Obama stop the music this November?” (FR thread from last week about an intentional EBT shutdown.)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3076688/posts

[matt1234]

This is clearly a deliberate act, even looking at it from a purely technical basis.

I wonder if obama ordered a rogue NSA spook to initiate the outage so that the action could not be traced back to obama.

[Southack]

I sort of wonder if the outage is related to the hacker group Anonymous being on trial at the moment.