[lug] Important Linux News

[Chip Atkinson]

It's not just cleaning -- they are actually blowing the lines
out!

Prior to the dot com implosion, most of the existing nodes in the
internet were connected either to servers or work stations, thus properly
terminating these nodes.  However, now that many of the companies have
cratered, these nodes are simply left disconnected.  With no employees to
notify the network service providers, and often nobody at the providers
to receive these notifications, the nodes are simply left dangling.

The data flowing over the internet is transmitted by electrical
or optical impulses or waves traveling over wires or glass fibers.
Anyone familiar with wave propagation knows that a sudden change in the
transmission properties of a media will cause reflection of the signal.
These reflections travel backwards down the line, interfering with the
transmitted signals.  Sometimes they cancel, sometimes they reinforce.
Nature being what it is, these cancellations and reinforcements are
rarely complete.  The result is what is commonly known as "hidden bits"
or "extra bits", collectively known as busted bits.  During normal
operation of the internet there are always a few of these busted bits
that fly around.  However, these are taken care of ICMP, the Internet
Cleaning Message Protocol.  These packets are sent around to all machines
on the internet and utter IP's own rendition of "Bring out your dead",
whereupon the busted bits are collected by the NIC driver and are sent
back in the payload area of the ICMP packet.  As the number of these
packets traversing the internet is rather limited, the busted
bits have recently accumulated more rapidly than they can be removed.

The FCC, in an effort to restore the internet to proper working order,
has now begun proceedings to purge the internet.  They will be shutting
it down 4/1/02, 23:59:00, and will use high powered net blowers to clean
out these busted bits.  Officials recommend that all machines running
Windows be powered down and have their network cables removed.  A global
email will be broadcast by the FCC that will give instructions on when
and how to power up the machines and connect them back to the network.

For additional details, see
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachomatch/FCC-01-384A1.txt

Chip

On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Nate Duehr wrote:

> Hard to do on a majordomo web interface.  :-P
>
> Happy April Fools, don't forget the Internet will be shut down tonight for
> cleaning.  ;-)
>
> Nate, nate at natetech.com
>
> Evelyn Mitchell wrote:
>
> > * On 2002-04-01 23:45 D. Stimits <stimits at idcomm.com> wrote:
> > > "Riggs, Rob" wrote:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2002-13/0063.html
> > >
> > > If it is for real, I can understand. On the other hand, it is April 1. I
> > > have to wonder if it is authentic?
> >
> > Look at the headers!
> >
> > --
> > Regards,                    tummy.com, ltd
> > Evelyn Mitchell             Linux Consulting since 1995
> > efm at tummy.com               Senior System and Network Administrators
> >                             http://www.tummy.com/
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