Internet life-support failure: August 12, 1996 issue of New Thinking

August 12, 1996 New Thinking:
Internet life-support failure

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August 12, 1996

Internet life-support failure

By Gerry McGovern

We should not fear the Internet failing in 1996. Rather, we should fear it failing in 2000, or worse, in 2010.

Last week, Internet Sales, a quality email discussion group I subscribe to, had mysterious problems. On one day, email No. 268 was received twice by many subscribers, although it was only sent once. One of those copies stated that it had an ‘attachment.’ No attachment had been sent, and on investigation, none was received.

Perhaps the problem has been isolated and resolved at this stage, but for a few days at least, it had some very clued-in Internet minds puzzled.

Respected commentators such as Bob Metcalfe, believe that the Internet will go into meltdown in 1996. He points out that the present Internet infrastructure was simply not designed to take its ever-growing traffic. However, he feels that after meltdown, a new, more solid infrastructure will be put in place.

I am drawn to the Internet like it is my magnet. However, I worry that the further I am drawn into the network, the more dependant on it I become. I worry that there may come a day when I will be so dependant, that should the network fail big-time, I will have lost my financial life-support machine, as well as an important part of my social one.

We are on the border of fundamental questions here.

Marshall McLuhan talked about tools/machines being “extensions of man.” In early societies, such extensions were very much external and were very obviously physical. Clothes, houses, hammers and forks extended our ability to live within and control a particular environment.

For most of the 20th Century, our extensions while still external, were not so obviously physical. (I held a hay-fork, then stuck it into a row of hay, so as to lift that hay. I merely hold a phone; sometimes I don’t even do that.) The telephone greatly extended our ability to communicate and carry out commerce over long distances. The television brought us information and entertainment. The computer allowed us store and interrogate information.

As we edge closer to the 21st Century, our extensions become less physical, in the sense that we physically interact with them. More and more, we will activate them by touch or speech. They are becoming smaller, more powerful. We will wear them more. Ultimately, we may have some of them implanted.

As such extensions become more important to the running of our daily lives, the stark irony is that we know less about how they work.

Right now, we can live without the Internet. However, as this giant network of networks extends its reach and usefulness, as it extends its ability to wrap the world up into one pulsing Global Village, what will we do should the pulse fail?

The solution probably lies in embracing the principles of redundancy. Accepting that progress in the future will be technology driven, it must not become one-technology dependant. Email cannot become the only communication, the Web the only information medium. No matter how wonderful the Internet may become we should be able to live and do business without it.

Gerry McGovern

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Right now, we can live without the Internet. However, as this giant network of networks extends its reach and usefulness, what will we do should the pulse fail?