Have you ever typed up an important email...

only to lose it "

when trying to send it ...


"Somewhere In Time "


like that movie with Jane Seymour & Christopher Reeve


Somewhere unknown ...


your letter went out there


in the tangled web of cyberspace






Internet Full of 'Black Holes'
By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 2008-04-11 ET

You’re pounding the keyboard, double-clicking away, sighing and grumbling, but to no avail: That devilish little hourglass icon refuses to give way to the Web site you’re trying to reach. Most Internet users have encountered trouble reaching online destinations, but they often attribute the problem to their wireless network cutting out or a server momentarily going down.

Sometimes, though, the problem is more mysterious. At any given moment, messages throughout the world are lost to cyber black holes, according to new computer science research.

Ethan Katz-Bassett, a graduate student in computer science at the University of Washington, and his advisor, Arvind Krishnamurthy, designed a program to continuously search for these strange internet gaps, when a request to visit a Web site or an outgoing e-mail gets lost along a pathway that was known to be working before. To make sure the black holes they detect are not simply due to a problem with the end user or the host server, they look for computers that can be reached from some, but not all, of the Internet, meaning the issue must be occurring en route.

"We were astounded when we did an initial four-month study and we saw how many problems there were," Katz-Bassett told LiveScience. "It seemed infeasible that this could be happening so often. They’re definitely more common than we thought."

Now the team constantly monitors the Web for black holes and posts a map of where the problems are around the world at any given moment. They hope their data will help Internet service providers track down the route of problems experienced on their networks.

"Network administers are definitely interested in it," Katz-Bassett said. "I think we need to do more analysis of the data and see where exactly these problems are occurring. It would be interesting to come up with predictions about where problems were most likely to occur."

The scientists named their monitoring system Hubble after the Hubble Space Telescope, which can also detect black holes, albeit the astrophysical kind. They hope their data will help improve the consistency of the Internet, where we increasingly entrust vital information.

"I think we would like it to be more reliable," Katz-Bassett said. "It’s orders of magnitude less reliable than the telephone network right now. I think it should be pretty possible to get it closer."

The researchers will present their findings at the Usenix Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation being held next week in San Francisco. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation.


Comments...


Aquifer wrote:
I am astounded that the researchers were astounded.
Although I use this technology,
I have never been terribly impressed with it,
and think that it is highly overrated.
To think that the "primitive" telephone network
is orders of magnitude more reliable -
my, my, my.
To my mind using the web
is like playing pin the tail on the donkey....

4/11/2008 3:03:57 PM

They're being intercepted by scammers from Nigeria.

could be...


but whatever it is...


it gives me the creeps...


twilight zone kind of stuff

that happend to me the other day, i was pretty bummed out especially when you take alot time and thought into then POOF

Can you say that on here?

yes, it sure can bum a person out

when what you composed

is really irreplaceable



and then after i was on a roll,


and worded it just perfectly,


and everything was spelled correctly....


then i lose internet connection


just as i am sending it


and i didn't save it as a draft

can we say what???

Nothing scary, it is probably faulty routing tables.

awww...Spider


my Big Brother & Protector



rescuing me from the cyber boogie man...

I wonder if it could be those little programs that capture packets. Did you know that some programs you use on your computer act as a server? (Yahoo messenger is one) Packets on their way to be delivered will pass through your computer.

I stopped using instant messaging because of this. When I had a very old computer with very little space, these large packets would pass through my Yahoo messenger and totally crash and freeze my computer. When I stopped using messenger it stopped.

I had another program that started warning me that Messenger was trying to act like a server and asked me if I would allow it. I said "NO." That is when I found out what was happening.

Does anyone know anything about this?

JB

not me... i have never heard of these packets..

but i do use IM & have a windows 2000 system with DSL

I think it is ALIENS stealing all our intelligence! Or, it is part of the "vast right wing conspiracy!" Nah, it is aliens., or maybe the CIA or more likely the Bush administration trying to steal the next election. If you ask madman, I am certain he will agree to the latter.

I doubt if he will show up. politics is his bag, although he does see every fault to be blamed on the "bushies." I really think it is extra terrestrials I am looking for my tinfoil hat right now

oh, thanks bud....


you think the tinfoil hat will help ???


i wonder how much < Uncle Sam >


has to do with all of this ???


1984...revisited


in the meantime...


i'll keep my eyes open for this <madman>

It helps to save a copy of what I just wrote before pressing the [SEND] button on any form in the web browser. The [PREVIEW] button in a forum also provides a chance to grab a copy of a post I worked hard to edit. I use both techniques regularly, and lose a lot less of what I wrote, that way.

I find the best place to grab a copy of what was written is the text entry box (the one I'm in right now typing this, for example).

I've cultivated a habit of doing repair to my system on the spot, as soon as it is noticed (on theory I'd rarely go back to a to-do list and work through it, of noticed, needed maintenances). I suspect this habit translates into the one mentioned above (stopping trouble potential at the earliest intercept).

THANK YOU SO MUCH ..



WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST POST ON THE FORUMS...

Yes, it's rather frustrating, as feelings could be hurt. I've also had e-mail sent to me, meant for others, in my regular e-mail.I always send the e-mail back, letting them know it wasn't intended, for me. Once it was a serious business letter. I've tried to be private, but you have to read the first heading, anyway to reconize it wasn't meant for you & not a forward.

Happy Saturday, Nessa.

Once I spend twenty minutes writing a post and it did not get sent because of a server error. In Firefox, I hit the back button until I got to the window and my post was still there. I copied it and held it in my clipboard until I could get it sent.

Also, even if fire fox crashes it seems to save what you were doing if when you re-start and choose "restore session." Its the best browser out there, and it is surpassing Internet Explorer now in popularity.

JB

hi there, my dear friend Shari...

thank you for stopping by Dear

that is mighty nice of you to return emails

not intended for you ..

i don't think i have ever gotten one of those yet