[LINK] Big email problems

[Jack Gilding]

At 06:01 PM 3/10/01 +1000, Tony Barry wrote:
>Linkers
>
>Big organisations make central failure points like tall office buildings
maybe.
>
>I run my own email server. It probably goes down more often but I can 
>fix it when it does.
>
>Distributed is beautiful and small is even better maybe ....

I would agree on principle that distributed is generally more robust but it
doesn't necessarily prevent a single widespread failure. It is very easy to
imagine a really effective sneaky virus propagating throughout the
distributed Internet and creating far more economic and social chaos
(although perhaps not the same loss of life) as a couple of highjacked
plans crashing into a multistory building - especially if it subtly
corrupted data in a malicious way over time rather than just a big bang
effect.

In principle the criteria should be average rate of failure for an
individual user, which does not necessarily favour large or small system.
But it is a fact of human nature and our media and political system that
one large disaster attracts more attention and fear than lots of little
disasters.

"In 1998 a total of 30,708 people were killed by guns in the U.S. Of these
17,424 were gun suicides, 12,102 were gun homicides, 886 were unintentional
or accidental shootings, and 316 were shooting deaths of undetermined intent."
http://www.gun-control-network.org/facts.htm
cf. about 6,000 people killed in New York.

I doubt that the several hundred deaths in the four plane hijackings has
significantly altered the relative risks globally of flying versus driving
(although I will feel LESS comfortable knowing there might be an armed
guard on future Australian domestic flights).

>5. Glitch hits Telstra mail boxes
>For the second time in seven days, Telstra BigPond Mail customers with user
>names beginning with the letters P and F are being affected by a technical
>glitch which is leading to delays in receiving e-mail.
>http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?147309


I'm sure there's a good Sesame Street joke here about the letters P and F
but I can't work it out right now.

Jack



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Jack Gilding                          mailto:jack@backroad.com.au 
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