The Internet: Serving the Original Purpose

Since its conception the internet was intended to be a redundant medium in which if one part of the internet was broken it could route information or traffic around the problem to the traffics intended destination.

According to a prepublication from The National Academies Press entitled “The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11 (2002)” The researchers who have studied the effect of the WTC destruction on 9/11 have concluded that due to the resilience of the internet most people were unaffected by the attacks. The report said the due to the fact that hardware and software changes made soon after the attack rerouted information away from failed devices (like those in tower one and two) most people outside of th New York area didn't notice that americas largest internet hub had just been destroyed. The prepublication also noted that better contingency plans are needed incase of more extreme/distributed attack.

Links:
The Washington File