Posted on 12/11/2009 12:55:09 PM PST by FromLori
The 40-year-old system might be vulnerable to technical collapse or cyberattack, which could cause widespread chaos in fields from banking to health care to government.
When your Internet service goes down it's at best an inconvenience. If you rely on it for business, it can quickly cost you money.
The fight over 'net neutrality' So imagine: What happens if the Internet breaks? Picture people wandering the streets lost without GPS or maps on their iPhones, unable to pay for food or other goods with a simple swipe of a card.
Companies would have to resort to faxes and phone calls instead of e-mail; they'd quickly reach capacity and be unable to function. Credit cards wouldn't work; stores and hospitals would run short of supplies. Even electrical power to our homes could be disrupted. "It would be a mess," said Dave Marcus, the director of security research for McAfee (MFE, news, msgs). "You would be taking businesses that were designed to do all their point-of-sale and financial transactions through the Internet and going back to pen and paper and taking checks in a car to the bank. People would lose their minds."
On the 40th anniversary of the first transmission over the earliest version of the Internet, it's more than an idle question to examine the network's fragility. It's been more than 20 years since the last systemwide overhaul, and Internet infrastructure is still based on 1970s ideas about computer networks. Headline-making outages of popular Web sites such as YouTube and Twitter merely hint at the damage a full-blown failure could wreak. The Internet protocols that allow computers to communicate in networks have infiltrated every sector of our economy.
"The Internet has moved from being a toy or orn
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.moneycentral.msn.com ...
OMG...WHY DIDN'T I SEE THIS COMING?
A. Gore + Disney Aniatronics + A. Gore + Apple board + S. Jobs largest stock holder of Disney = The end of the Internet as 90% know it...
Simple, never give any of those companies auto access to your account.
“errors” always seem to end up in their favor.
For smartphones with GPS, they use the net to augment locations and provide maps. And satellite views.
Whole lot of Lori’s going on here...
What does GPS have to do with the Internet?
Then you replied ...
My question too.
Well, with GPS, all you get is some weird looking numbers... LOL...
The Internet supplies the mapping to make sense of those weird-looking numbers... :-)
I know the cost of cable is high for many now.
It's darned cheap entertainment, for the Internet and cable... I can't think of something cheaper for all that you can do... :-)
If if only slows down: spray on WD-40
I use Cox Cable for internet and TV, when you add in premium stations it isn't cheap. Heaven forbid they ever start charging by the hour for internet, lol........!!
Everyone here is worried about nothing.
If the internets break just use the world wide web instead.
Problem solved!
Silly FReepers.
Not if you have a GIS program like from ESRI. Not for a hand held device though.
Not if you have a GIS program like from ESRI. Not for a hand held device though.
Well, I've got a GPS unit, just the basic GPS itself and that's fine (it just gives me the numbers and that's it). It has bluetooth and sends the "numbers" out to anything within that bluetooth range.
And then, I've got a computer and a program, which takes these numbers and turns them into something useful... :-)
But, if you've got a phone with GPS, you're gonna have to have something that makes sense of those weird-looking numbers... and that's where the Internet comes in...
Heaven forbid they ever start charging by the hour for internet, lol........!!
Well..., they did in the beginning, when individuals could first sign up for the Internet. The cost wasn't cheap and most of the beginning services were by the minute and hour.
It was a bit later that the "all you can use" bit came into being. At first I didn't think it was going to win out, but it finally did... :-)
This all took place when the government first turned the Internet over to commercial use, as commercial use was forbidden in the beginning, on the Internet.
I understand your point - But GPS does not need the internet! Get a map.
I understand your point - But GPS does not need the internet! Get a map.
I didn't say that "GPS" needed the Internet. I was saying that the people who get GPS -- and those funny numbers -- are the ones who are going to need the Internet to make sense of it... LOL...
And, I can walk up to 100 people on the street, give them the GSP coordinates and hand them a map and ask, "Where is this?" and I'm willing to bet that all 100 could never tell you from those "funny GPS numbers".... :-)
But, I could hand those same 100 people the iPhone (for one example) and have them pull up the Google maps function and they would know exactly what to do.
In other words, the GPS funny numbers are totally useless to people -- unless -- you have something that you can use to translate those numbers to usefulness.
On the iPhone, that's Google Maps and the Internet. On my laptop, that would be the mapping program I have (and then I don't have to have the Internet).
That's just the facts of the matter... :-)
Yup. Anyone who relies exclusively on an electronic device without benefit of analog backup is an idiot. Love my iPhone, but I carry atlas and county maps or topos for anything serious. Cash performs much the same function when credit card lines are down.
Don’t forget http://www.turnofftheinternet.com either, useful for shutting it down. Saves energy, you know.
From what I understand, it wasn’t the bank account they stole from; it was this guys cell phone account.
I've always thought that A. Gore IS a Disney Animatronic robot...
The advantage to going thru the phone co. is it's your own line. Nothing slows your speed down..like on cable when too many down load movies or programs which slow your speed down.
As you see I have very limited knowledge of computer lingo....I just wanted the best price and when I start it up it goes. But I do know how to strike a deal..thus $15.
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