Guest guest Posted April 12, 2008 Report Share Posted April 12, 2008 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350650,00.html Internet Full of Cyberspace 'Black Holes' Friday, April 11, 2008 By Clara Moskowitz 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. • Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center. 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.It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money Finance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 12, 2008 Report Share Posted April 12, 2008 Sure thing. I wasn't going to post it when I first read it a few days ago. But today I must have been hit by one because no web sites would open or anything. Logged off, waited a few minutes, then logged back on. Problem solved. Aha! I just KNEW that it was a possibility that black holes existed in cyberspace as well.Thanks for posting the article, .RavenCo-AdministratorIt's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money Finance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 12, 2008 Report Share Posted April 12, 2008 > > _http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350650,00.html_ (http://w > ww.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350650,00.html) > > > Internet Full of Cyberspace 'Black Holes' > Friday, April 11, 2008 > By Clara Moskowitz Aha! I just KNEW that it was a possibility that black holes existed in cyberspace as well. Thanks for posting the article, . Raven Co-Administrator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 12, 2008 Report Share Posted April 12, 2008 Spoiler: The Chinese government censors their part of the internet. It doesn't work so well in China. Maybe something they are finding is timeout errors and lost packets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 13, 2008 Report Share Posted April 13, 2008 I suspect that it's caused by DOS (Denial Of Service) attacks on servers along the way (data is routed through many servers along the way). It's happening from time to time with my ISP (they are willing to report it, most others don't). Randy Garrett Antioch, CA USA -----<---{(@ Re: Web black holes > > _http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350650,00.html_ (http://w > ww.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350650,00.html) > > > Internet Full of Cyberspace 'Black Holes' > Friday, April 11, 2008 > By Clara Moskowitz Aha! I just KNEW that it was a possibility that black holes existed in cyberspace as well. Thanks for posting the article, . Raven Co-Administrator ------------------------------------ FAM Secret Society is a community based on respect, friendship, support and acceptance. Everyone is valued. To contact the forum administrator, use this e-mail address: FAMSecretSociety-owner Check the Links section for more FAM forums. Our website is here: http://www.geocities.com/environmental1st2003/FAM_Secret_Society.html and you may add to it on this page: http://www.geocities.com/environmental1st2003/Main6.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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