<nettime> Net blackout marks Web's Achilles heel

["Michael Gurstein" <mgurst@vcn.bc.ca>]

For much of the past week, two large stretches of the Internet turned
invisible to each other.

Unlike the electrical outages plaguing California, which no one wants, this
intentional blackout suited the purposes of one side in the collapse of
talks between two major Internet service providers, Cable & Wireless and the
financially strapped PSINet. A critical link between the two networks was
cut, blocking some companies from seeing their own Web sites, and stalling
e-mail between thousands of sources.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-6206030.html?tag=tp_pr

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