[plq]

> The whole idea of the internet (and even some of our infra, like suburbs or highways/rail) is that there's no one single point of failure. Like designed-to-survive-nuclear-war redundant.

Sure, the routing algorithms can quickly adapt to changes in network topology, but they assume infinite bandwidth, which hasn't been the case since a long time now.

In other words, if a couple of important pipes disappear between tier1 peers, alternate routes will certainly have trouble handling all the new traffic, which would make everything grind to a halt, and will only be solved by pissed network admins null-routing that additional load.

[hughesjj]

Definitely, we've seen this in fiber cuts before. That said a degraded availability is better than no availability.

I know it's controversial in the context of net neutrality but personally I'd be okay with traffic shaping/prioritization for critical infra in cases such as this. Keep the power plants, emergency services, military, government, transit running over intsagram and netflix when things come down to it.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Does the government not maintain its own dedicated communication infrastructure between important installations? Or has it all been replaced with public connections?

[jonah]

"It depends." Two data points that I know of first hand:

1) There is a dedicated microwave link between Vandenberg Space Force Base and Edwards Air Force Base. Mil. owned and operated solely for their own use.

2) The US Federal government decided to build a standardized communications network for government/first responders/etc. This is FirstNet. They farmed the build-out to AT&T and gave them 20 MHz of bandwidth (Band 14) but it runs over their standard wireless infrastructure and network but FirstNet traffic gets prioritized.

https://www.firstnet.gov/

https://www.firstnet.com/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Responder_Network_Auth...

[runlaszlorun]

It’s been a 25 years since I’ve even been remotely exposed to them, but I believe the military currently has a non-classified NIPRnet, a classified secret SIPRnet, and a network called JWICS for top secret.

I think all three are physically seperated from the commercial internet and each other but don’t quote me on it.

Uncle Sam doesn’t mess around…