The Internet Could Crash. We Need A Plan B

Sounds crazy doesn't it? Surprise! It's already happened. Granted it hasn't been on a large scale but, how long should we wait for the internet on a whole to go down without preparing for?

I watched a speech given at TED Talks by Danny Hillis. Danny Hillis is an inventor, scientist, author and engineer. While completing his doctorate at MIT, he pioneered the concept of parallel computers that is now the basis for most supercomputers, as well as the RAID array.

He used a visual of a directory of all the email addresses that were in use in 1982 and the names, addresses and phone numbers of the people who owned the email addresses. He spoke about how the internet was basically built on trust and how those ideas were actually built into the protocols of the internet. "The basic idea of I.P., or Internet protocol, and the way that the -- the routing algorithm that used it, were fundamentally "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." And so, if you had some extra bandwidth, you'd deliver a message for someone. If they had some extra bandwidth, they would deliver a message for you. You'd kind of depend on people to do that, and that was the building block."

"So the fact is that there's a lot of bad guys on the Internet these days, and so we dealt with that by making walled communities, secure subnetworks, VPNs, little things that aren't really the Internet but are made out of the same building blocks, but we're still basically building it out of those same building blocks with those same assumptions of trust. And that means that it's vulnerable to certain kinds of mistakes that can happen, or certain kinds of deliberate attacks, but even the mistakes can be bad."

He gave several examples of how recently mistakes or possible mistakes have happened. How in Asia they couldn't get YouTube videos because of something that Pakistan had done to censor their county, or how a few years ago airplanes west of the Mississippi were grounded due all because of a single bad router card in Salt Lake City. He also talked about an incident that happened last April where a very large portion of the internet traffic including traffic between US Military bases was routing through China. China said how this supposedly was an honest mistake. 

We just had a bomber blow up two bombs at the Boston Marathon this week, and that was an act of terrorism. Pictures were posted of the suspects today. While we are fighting against these sorts of attacks against our country and countries everywhere why can't we start by getting proactive with our defenses. We already do this at airports. There are drills for tornado's, fires, and now lockdown drills in the wake of recent mass shootings. The police even have simulations of events where they practice what to do in the event of something happening. What are we going to do? When will we do it? Just how will we do it whatever it may be that needs to be done in the event of something happening.

There have been several instances where internet sites have gone down or a site was hacked. There was even in instance where a nuclear plant's centrifuges were damaged by in infected USB drive that was smuggled into the factory.  Banks have been hacked and personal information has been lost. Medical facilities have have been hacked and medical records stolen. You can read daily about how this site or that site is down due to hackers. As you can see mistakes happen and portions of the internet go down and attacks happen. 

We need a Plan B set up in case something happens? We need a way for our infrastructure to survive an attack against it. We plan for a lot of things but this is something we haven't given enough consideration to plan for it. The time isn't after something has happened the time is right now this very second and if enough people are talking about and worrying enough about this and most importantly speaking to their representatives about it this is something we can get to take place prior to a devastating disaster takes place.

What do you think? 

http://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_the_internet_could_crash_we_need_a_plan_b.html

Travel Sites and Social Media

I was researching (for a class assignment) social media sites and the differences between them and let's face it, almost every large company is using some form of social media. The differences between them are how well they are using it and interacting with their customers on it. 

As I sat here today and looked outside all I could think about is how nice it would be to getaway from this cold, wet, and dreary Wisconsin weather. So I chose Funjet Vacations and Apple Vacations. Both are using Facebook and Twitter besides their own websites. Both companies offer vacation packages to pretty much the same places and some of the very same hotels and airlines are offered. They are both competing for my vacation budget in hopes that I will book a vacation through them. 


Facebook:

Funjet joined January 30, 2009   92,017 likes · 4,151 talking about this

Apple joined February 17, 2009  60,858 likes · 2,412 talking about this

Funjet has more likes and more people are talking about them vs. Apple as you can see but the differences between their pages is the content. They both have pictures of vacation spots and beaches on their pages. Funjet does a lot of interaction with their customers and offers discounts as well as promotions and sweepstakes from their Facebook page and encourages fans to post pictures there too. Apple has more links to their other pages such as their blog which reads more like a travel brochure than a regular blog. Apple also has a few moderators listed on their Facebook page and a live chat option. I did like that they post job openings on their page via a link to Monster. Both of them post daily on their pages and make sure to monitor their pages for any questions or problems customers have. I did notice that Funjet gives away tee-shirts to people who post pictures that they like so great job on their promotions today alone I saw three tee-shirts given away. They also had a goal (that was reached today) of 92,000 fans so they are randomly giving away 20 $300 off coupons to fans.

Twitter:

Funjet has 13,920 followers, is following 2,586 and has tweeted 2,844

Apple has 44,434 followers, is following 734 and has tweeted 4,723

As you can see Apple has done a better job with getting more followers than Funjet on Twitter. Both companies are posting daily to their pages with sales, travel advice, promotions to different places and resorts. I believe the difference is in the interactions with their fans/followers. Using social media allows both companies to give a more personal response to customers while still forwarding them to their sales on the destinations that they go to. Asking the fans for interactions such as posting to their pages or entering sweepstakes or even re-tweeting their posts allows for more people to see a sale or a spot and want to find out more information about them. Let's face it if you see a deal and you have the finances & time to go somewhere why wouldn't you? What company offered the deal to you? That is who you would book your trip through as all of the work is completed for you. 

As a customer who is responsible with her money, I would research both companies to see which would offer the better deal on the destination I want to go to. In all reality I have used both companies and love them both but, I honestly feel that Funjet is doing a better job of interacting with their customers. They also send out a ton of emails if you've signed up for their email list (so I recommend using a junk email account and check it out when you want to instead of being flooded by emails offering you deals to places when you can't go like now during school summer will be here soon enough). If one over the other sent me a coupon or offered a discount that would be a deciding factor as they both price match when possible.

https://www.facebook.com/funjetvacations
https://www.facebook.com/applevacations
https://twitter.com/FunjetVacations
https://twitter.com/AppleVacations

Why I am at MATC

I'm at MATC to get my associates degree for Information Technology Network Specialist. Now clearly I didn't just get out of high school there is a back story.

I was a professional driver for over 20 years with my last job being a Milwaukee County Bus Driver. I had been with the transit company 15 years and then it happened, my klutziness.

I was running behind schedule on my 1st part of my route and didn't have a lot of time after being relieved before I had to get another bus and start another route but, I had to walk through the garages. These garages are about a city block in length and there are 6 rows of parked buses,so I was rushing through (power walking as I call it) between the buses. Now there is only about 2 feet (on a good day) between the the rows and the lighting isn't all that great so I wasn't exactly paying attention to what was ahead of me but more where my feet were going so I didn't walk into any potholes (I didn't want to twist my ankle). I looked up and I was about to walk face first into one of the mirrors sticking off of the bus. I did what I think most people would do I quickly tilted my head the the side and in the process my shoulder popped up. Now several things played into that moment but the sad fact is I ran my shoulder into that mirror.

After 2 surgeries and many hours of physical therapy I was only able to use my right arm while driving for about 3 hours before I had to stop. So no more professional driving for me.

I started looking into the things I enjoyed and how I could make money doing them. I had always loved computers and it was my dream to go to school for computers if I had ever won the lottery. Wasn't I just given a gift? I took a few aptitude tests and it showed I would do well in this field. With the help of the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and Milwaukee Transit System here I am, an honor roll student in her last semester at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

I'm not going to lie, it's been hard but it's also been worth it especially, when you consider I was a high school drop out who thought all she would have needed in her life was her GED.

Sometimes life has a way of twisting and turning your entire world around but, if you hang on for the ride, great things can happen.