While doing some research about the currently active root nameservers on the Internet, the obvious end-of-the-world question popped up - "What if they went offline?" - the answer is even more obvious - panic, loss of monetary funds, inability to lurk Facebook profiles, etc. would quickly arise, thus setting a short timed ultimatum for the people in charge... What to do?
The servers themselves can rarely die all at once, since they are distributed across the world while redundancy is maintained, also they are running only BIND (or NSD), so the only attack on these kinds of data centers would only be possible through a DDoS method. A tiny number of these kinds of attacks has been registered, but a few of them were powerful enough to knock a significant count of these servers...
What I knew: These servers are serious business. They are hosted on only the finest and in most protected environments available. A few of them are maintained by the US military and the US Defense Information Systems Agency, so an attack attempt on any of them would be a pretty good reason to declare insanity on the offending party. If any attack should take place, the country of origin will do anything in their power to apprehend the attacker and neutralize him.
What I found out:According to Mark Hall (some guy from the US Defense Department), not only will the US retaliate when any of these attacks are initiated, but is fully prepared to physically remove the threat if the attacking country refuses to cooperate, and if it is impossible to produce any other peaceful disconnection procedure. We're talking real high explosive here, and I quote:
The Department of Defense is prepared, based on the authority of the president, to launch a cyber counterattack or an actual bombing of an attack source.
Wow... Well, as much as I would like to see the face on a no-life basement geek while getting his botnet DoS attack interrupted by a low-charge air to surface missile, I do hope that nobody attempts to cripple the world wide web in any way, since (fortunately) people are willing to keep it free and active, no matter what. Say what you want about US attack policies, but I would pull the trigger myself on the bastard who can even think of distinguishing the most free network on the face of the planet, and beyond.
With all the iPhone 3G hype that's been going around lately, it's quite a refreshment to be able to glaze at such a marvelous device! The HTC Touch Pro really packs a punch on the non-iPhone side of the smartphone market... Removable memory, huge 2.8 inch screen, FM tuner, GPS, 3G (with video calling, *cough*) with HSDPA, WiFi, 3.2MPx camera + flash, and a hidden QWERTY keyboard - it's loaded! The Qualcomm 528 MHz processor poweres this beast, and Windows Mobile 6.1 is just the right OS to run it on. While most of the world would consider a Windows Mobile based phone to be a productive, but ugly gadget, the Touch Pro, in combination with HTC's Touch Flo 3D, the UI looks absolotely fantastic!
It will be out somewhere in August with a price tag ranging from 600$ to 800$ (depending on the needed features that mobile operators will consider (un)necessary). Oh, and I will probably never even touch the "Touch", given that it's cost is a hefty one. Boo hoo, dammit...
I've just put this neat little app to the test, and it look sweet so far! Although the background "dotty" image formation could be a bit more realistic (more color and dots should be involved), the tech preview proves a valuable point - photo albums can become much more interactive than they currently are! Try out some default image albums already uploaded by the Microsoft team, you will be pleasantly surprised. All images are molded together into a 3D fusion that add that final missing dimension to your photos. Too bad that it requires IE6 or IE7 at the time (ActiveX sucks for applications like this... what happened to exe files?).
A farewell… For a man who did not know fear, nor did not know when to give up... for a man, a man so great, a man whose footsteps made all evil shiver in fear, whose voice was not just a sound, but a wakeup call, whose smile symbolized the meaning of progress and success, whose back you could never see. You could disagree with him, curse him or frown whenever you saw his face, but you could not close your eyes in front of his magnificent deeds, nor will you ever be able to do so. A farewell – for a man who refuses to leave us be, who gives us inspiration, who gives us strength to go on, even though he is not here with us today… a farewell to him, but not his spirit, the gift of all gifts that we will never cease to carry on with us…
While doing some research about the currently active root nameservers on the Internet, the obvious end-of-the-world question popped up - "What if they went offline?" - the answer is even more obvious - panic, loss of monetary funds, inability to lurk Facebook profiles, etc. would quickly arise, thus setting a short timed ultimatum for the people in charge... What to do?
