NET WORK

The day the Internet died

Pundits often predict that the Net
will soon grind to a hat under an
intolerable burden of spam, newbies
and Web pages that rant about
Microsoft. It hasn't happened yet -
but in late April the Net suffered a
near-death experience when 40 per
cent of it went offline. For details on
what happened on!, The Day the
Internet Died see http ://fkix.flirble.
org/. The page has links to news stories about the crash and apologies
from the company that caused the
mishap. The only other time the
Internet came close to collapse was
when a computer student, Robert
Morris, unleashed a worm virus. For
More iformation on what happened
see http-//wwwmathcs.carleton.edu/
students/darbyt/kges/worm.html.

Future of the Net

A week is a long time in politics and a
lifetime on the Internet, where technologies and companies spring up
and wither away with alarming
rapidity. Given that everyone was
caught napping by the explosion of
interest in all things Internet, it is
unlikely that any predictions about it
will be accurate. However, there are
some foolhardy folk sticking their
necks out. The OECD (the 'club' of
leading capitalist nations) has put its
predictions about what the Web will
look like 20 years from now on the
Net at http://www.oecd.orglsge/au/
highligh.htm. It talks about the tech
nical and political hurdles that will
have to be overcome for the Net to
continue growing.

Promising the moon

For a lesson in how not to establish a
new world, the pages at http://www.
moonshop.com/ take some beating.
The pages offer plots of land on the
moon for sale. Anyone tempted to
buy one might care to read the text
of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
Articles I and 11 declare all celestial
bodies to be the common property
of mankind. See for yourself at
http://www.iasl.mcgfll.ca/space_law/
outersp.html.