shibumi@farcomp.UUCP (Kenton A. Hoover) (10/26/89)
During hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, one item that always becomes at a premium is PHONE SERVICE. News of the problems quickly increases the strain on phone services, due to emergency use, welfare inquiry (i.e. calling the folks to say "I'm fine!") and sell orders to your broker (:-). Often, power gets knocked down, and the local telco must fall back on their own, limited battery resources to run the phone system. However, computers, provided there is power and phone service running them, still continue calling other USENET sites, relaying mail and news. Each connection costs a phone call, which can be an expensive phone cal for other, in terms of power and perhaps, a needed bit of CO switching time. I doubt that anyone really questions the need for uninterrupted "rec.humor.funny" service during a period of local emergency. I propose that there be an disaster plan for USENET that entails its being "turned off" in local areas during periods when utility services are suffering excessive loading. Flame on, people. -- | Kenton A. Hoover | | Postmaster General shibumi@farcomp.UUCP | | Farallon Computing Inc. +1 415 849 2331 | | "Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb" |
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (10/26/89)
>I propose that there be an disaster plan for USENET that entails its being >"turned off" in local areas during periods when utility services are >suffering excessive loading. >Flame on, people. No flames, but a counterpoint. I agree that it's silly to ship lots of USENET data around during an emergency. But I think shutting off the nets during emergencies is a bad idea. One of the things the network has allowed us to do is reduce the amount of panic-phoning that was going on. Case in point: One of the SFWA members on the Outside immediately organized the various SFWA on-line contingents into an information gathering unit. As people were found to be okay, this data was passed to everyone involved and spread through the grapevine, reducing by a large amount the number of phone calls necessary to get that information out. It also allowed me to make a single phone call outside the emergency area and pass along status information to someone who would then use their phones to call people I wanted to know I was okay -- wtihout me having to do it directly. End result: a lot less overall phone time. Also, people on the Outside who were unable to contact people on the inside would queue up messages, whcih would be picked up in a batch (single phone call, maximize the efficiency). Being Inside, we'd have a better chance of getting phone calls through while not utilizing the over-stretched long-distance wires. Once we made contacts, we could queue that information back out with another single phone call. I know of a number of people and groups who did this. If you simply shut down the nets for the duration, you've immediately cut off information flow from Inside to Out (and in the other direction). A single message on USENET saved me a hundred phone calls by letting me broadcast status information. Seems like a good tradeoff. A reasonable analog would be what the Hams do during an emergency. We're not nearly as well organized as they are, but nobody would consider telling the hams to shut up until the emergency was over. Better would be to consider how to properly use the network in times of emergency. What we can do, what we should do and how to implement it. They can be very useful and important -- if we choose to. It definitely makes sense cut out the flow of trivial information, but that isn't as easy as it sounds. Worth looking into, though. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking] Trust Mama Nature to remind us just how important things like sci.aquaria's name really is in the scheme of things.
tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (10/27/89)
Kenton's quite right, this is a serious issue.
I agree with Chuq that the net shouldn't turn off completely because of
disasters. But it's still a good point that telephone and other
bandwidth resources become precious in emergencies and we shouldn't
waste them.
To that end it makes sense to have "emergency versions" of such key
files as B news "sys" and HDB UUCP "Systems", specifying important
hierarchies or newsgroups to pass on, and modified calling schedules
for emergency affected areas.
These would be easy to "swap in" on sites actually in the areas.
It would be a more complex operation for well connected sites to
selectively modify their Bay Area feeds, for instance, to handle
an earthquake without touching other areas. (I assume it would be
undesirable to throw the entire world net onto emergency status
every time ANY regional emergency occurs.)
One approach to solving this would be to chop up the country and world
into emergency management zones (emz's) and assign zone ID's to existing
and new nodes. Then you could support selective zone control directly
within the net software. If a hurricane hit Hawaii for instance, a
master control message placing that zone on Emergency status could be
issued. Perhaps this could be done with existing state and country
subnets once those are in place, or maybe they'll never be sufficient.
The other thing to add would be an "emergency broadcast system" (ebs)
hierarchy, to be used only in emergencies. This hierarchy would
obviously lead the list in any abbreviated "sys" file.
--
I'm a Leo. Leos don't believe * * * Tom Neff
in this astrology stuff. * * * tneff@bfmny0.UU.NETeps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (10/27/89)
In article <103@farcomp.UUCP> shibumi@farcomp.UUCP (Kenton A. Hoover) writes: >During hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, one item that >always becomes at a premium is PHONE SERVICE. Ok. >I propose that there be an disaster plan for USENET that entails its being >"turned off" in local areas during periods when utility services are >suffering excessive loading. > >Flame on, people. At your service. The MAJOR news flows in the USA are *not* uucp-over-switched lines. They're NNTP over Internet, and shutting them down can only aggravate things. Go ahead--turn off your transport, but keep your "good intentions" off MINE. -=EPS=-
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/27/89)
In article <103@farcomp.UUCP> shibumi@farcomp.UUCP (Kenton A. Hoover) writes: >... Often, power gets knocked down, and the local telco >must fall back on their own, limited battery resources to run the phone >system. The telcos have about as much faith in the power company as in the Easter bunny. The battery resources are indeed limited, but they are backed up by emergency generators capable of running the system for days. The telcos may have problems with damaged cables and massive call congestion, but the system keeps running. For the most part, only the military is more paranoid than the phone company. >However, computers, provided there is power and phone service running >them, still continue calling other USENET sites, relaying mail and news. >Each connection costs a phone call... Let us look at numbers. The only real expense of those phone calls is the contribution they make to congestion. How many Usenet sites were trying to call the Bay area after the quake? Be generous and call it 1000. Now, how many *people* were trying to call the Bay area after the quake? Right. Numerically, our contribution to the problem is insignificant. -- A bit of tolerance is worth a | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology megabyte of flaming. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (10/27/89)
USENET is not an essential service, of course, but computer calls are actually a more efficient use of the phone system. One call can send 100 "I'm ok" mail messages in a minute or so, or distribute info to thousands of people, while a voice call gets one message to one person. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Lyndon Nerenberg) (10/28/89)
In article <103@farcomp.UUCP> shibumi@farcomp.UUCP (Kenton A. Hoover) writes: >I propose that there be an disaster plan for USENET that entails its being >"turned off" in local areas during periods when utility services are >suffering excessive loading. Well, the first thing we did was shut down our link with decwrl. This is just plain old common sense. It turned out that decwrl survived and continued polling us through most of the aftermath, even though we couldn't get a line in to them. My understanding is that Pacbell simply disabled the incoming LD trunks to ensure local bandwidth would be available in the affected area. Something similar happened in Edmonton a couple of years ago when we were hit by The Tornado. In that instance, nearly all of the system administrators had the foresite to shut their modems off as well. What would you propose as a disaster plan? and how would you ensure the majority of sites were aware of it? Do you expect a "global" plan to be applicable in the majority of cases where the disaster is (relatively) local in scope? I feel that such planning is a good activity to be undertaken at the local "users group" level, since the vast majority of uucp connections are made with sites inside a local toll area. You should take into account the existance of sites with leased line connections outside the potentially affected area that might survive the disaster. These sites could become hubs capable of feeding other sites during the wee hours of the night when the load on the telephone network is substantially reduced (0100-0500). You would probably want to shut down all news except for regional groups, and perhaps have one or two people near the affected area post regular updates to the mainstream groups to try to cut down on the number of "what's going on out there" requests that inevitably flood the net. Most of this problem is due to propogation delay; As the updates flow out, they pass the sea of incoming queries. The UUCP Mapping Project was also very much on the ball during the earthquake. As sites were verified as non-operational, they were marked as dead in the d.AProject file, and updates were forwarded into comp.mail.maps on a regular basis. This allowed the well connected sites to rapidly reconfigure their routing tables. Of course, the mail had to eventually bottleneck *somewhere* (I would be interested in hearing from anyone who had this problem). Hopefully someone from the Bay area can summarize what actions were taken. This should give us a good base to start working from. I'm sure the people in Vancouver would be willing to beta test whatever we come up with in a year or two :-) -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University {alberta,decwrl,lsuc}!atha!lyndon || lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA The Connector is the Notwork.
marc@noe.UUCP (Marc de Groot) (10/30/89)
In article <103@farcomp.UUCP> shibumi@farcomp.UUCP (Kenton A. Hoover) writes: >I propose that there be an disaster plan for USENET that entails its being >"turned off" in local areas during periods when utility services are >suffering excessive loading. Of course, such proposals are more likely to get you flamed than get you results. Right after the earthquake my computer went off hook and dialed without being given a dial tone. When it got no answer, it hung up again and waited an hour. Offhook time was about thirty or forty seconds per hour. No connects were made. When I consider the activities of people on the phone after the quake, who became human auto-redialers until they got through, I think the load my machine put on the phone system was minimal. Perhaps you will do better by proposing that dialing scripts not overdo it on redial. Just my $0.02 -- Marc de Groot (KG6KF) These ARE my employer's opinions! Noe Systems, San Francisco UUCP: uunet!hoptoad!noe!marc Internet: marc@kg6kf.AMPR.ORG
lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Lyndon Nerenberg) (10/30/89)
In article <35944@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >A reasonable analog would be what the Hams do during an emergency. We're >not nearly as well organized as they are, wanna bet? [ 0.5 * :-) ] > but nobody would consider telling >the hams to shut up until the emergency was over. That's not the point. If the hams were tying up the phone lines needlessly they would (should) be told to shut up. The reason the hams start up is because they often have the ONLY communications line (radio) in the first few hours after a disaster. In many areas there are no provisions for guaranteed access lines during high usage periods. This can cause emergency related phone calls to wait in line for a trunk along with the low priority stuff. This is *not* what you want to have happen. During the first few hours after a disaster, nobody really knows what's going on, therefore it's pointless to try to call anyone in the area for information. If everyone *does* call, it's counter-productive since they are just making it more difficult for the emergency response people to do their job, part of which is to determine who is alive (and who isn't) and get that information out to the relief agencies that are set up to distribute it as fast as possible. Of course, all this applies to the dialup phone network. If you have a leased line that's still working, by all means *use* *it*. You'll help cut down on needless telephone calls. (I'm thinking Internet vs. UUCP style connections here.) -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University {alberta,decwrl,lsuc}!atha!lyndon || lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA The Connector is the Notwork.
djaggard@wheaton.UUCP (Deborah Jaggard) (11/04/89)
The Postmaster General's suggestion for the shut-down of USENET lines during natural disasters which would be considered "emergencies," is an excellent idea. It would provide more local power to the area in order that people can call relatives, and important news can be passed on.
jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeffrey M White) (11/14/89)
In article <1371@wheaton.UUCP> djaggard@wheaton.UUCP (Deborah Jaggard) writes: > >The Postmaster General's suggestion for the shut-down of USENET lines >during natural disasters which would be considered "emergencies," is an >excellent idea. It would provide more local power to the area in order >that people can call relatives, and important news can be passed on. In theory this is probably a good idea. However, I question how much difference it will really make. After all, how many usenet sites would be affected (i.e. trying to call into/out of the emergencey area)? 100? 1000? Now compare that to the user population. I can't see that amount getting anywhere near a substantial amount. Jeff White University of Pennsylvania jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
gary@sci34hub.UUCP (Gary Heston) (11/14/89)
In article <1371@wheaton.UUCP>, djaggard@wheaton.UUCP (Deborah Jaggard) writes: > > The Postmaster General's suggestion for the shut-down of USENET lines > during natural disasters which would be considered "emergencies," is an > excellent idea. It would provide more local power to the area in order > that people can call relatives, and important news can be passed on. No, it's a LOUSEY idea. E-mail is a very efficient means of moving a lot of information in a small amount of time. A far more rational plan would be to organize news or sys admins who could queue up a batch of inquiries, send them off to a disaster-area site via a backbone site (to prevent congestion by systems trying to call in, and also probably go thru leased lines or satellite links, not the phone co.) and let someone in the area contact people. Then, a batch of mail can be built up, sent back out to the areas needed, and the net/sys admin can them call and report the contact. I'd have no problem doing that; I'd have LOTS of problems with cutting off the fastest, most efficient, and least loaded communications system when it can do the most good. -- Gary Heston { uunet!sci34hub!gary } System Mismanager SCI Technology, Inc. OEM Products Department (i.e., computers) Hestons' First Law: I qualify virtually everything I say.
dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt) (11/16/89)
In article <16848@netnews.upenn.edu> jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Jeffrey M White) writes: >In article <1371@wheaton.UUCP> djaggard@wheaton.UUCP (Deborah Jaggard) writes: >> And several others talk about shutting off uucp links. My reading of the articles in Communications Week and other places which describe the planning the various phone companies have done and the things they did during the earthquake make me believe that they are better placed to control the situation. Since we are talking about a very small number of calls in the first place it really won't make much difference in the load. But I suppose that if you want to feel like a hero there is nothing to stop you from closing down your links. -- Dan Schlitt Manager, Science Division Computer Facility dan@sci.ccny.cuny.edu City College of New York dan@ccnysci.uucp New York, NY 10031 dan@ccnysci.bitnet (212)690-6868
adnan@sgtech.UUCP (Adnan Yaqub) (11/22/89)
In article <3743@ccnysci.UUCP> dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt) writes:
And several others talk about shutting off uucp links.
My reading of the articles in Communications Week and other places
which describe the planning the various phone companies have done and
the things they did during the earthquake make me believe that they
are better placed to control the situation. Since we are talking
Amen! The phone companies have spent lots of dollars building in the
ability to control and manage their network. They have such things as
"cancel to", "cancel from", and "limit operator attempt" controls.
(We have all experienced the "We're sorry, but due to heavy calling
your call did not go through. Please try again later. This is a
recording." messages.) Since they know what the actual load is on the
network, they are in a much better position to apply back pressure to
the system, including back pressuring persistent UUCP links. Why not
just consider our UUCP mail as an application and let the phone
network, as our underlying communications layer, manage the flow.
--
Adnan Yaqub
Star Gate Technologies, 29300 Aurora Rd., Solon, OH, USA, +1 216 349 1860
...cwjcc!ncoast!sgtech!adnan ...uunet!abvax!sgtech!adnan