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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
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The Internet Under Crisis Conditions

Learning from September 11

Committee on the Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board

Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C. www.nap.edu

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
500 Fifth Street, N.W.Washington, DC20001

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

Support for this project was provided by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group in Data Communication (ACM SIGCOMM); the IBM Corporation; and the Vadasz Family Foundation, a contributor to the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board’s program on information technology and society. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations that provided support for the project.

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Cover image courtesy of Verizon Communications. Cover designed by Jennifer Bishop.

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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. Wm. A. Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.

www.national-academies.org

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

COMMITTEE ON THE INTERNET UNDER CRISIS CONDITIONS: LEARNING FROM THE IMPACT OF SEPTEMBER 11

CRAIG PARTRIDGE,

BBN Technologies,

Chair

PAUL BARFORD,

University of Wisconsin, Madison

DAVID D. CLARK,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

SEAN DONELAN,

SBC Communications

VERN PAXSON,

International Computer Science Institute’s Center for Internet Research

JENNIFER REXFORD,

AT&T Labs–Research

MARY K. VERNON,

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Staff

JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer and Study Director

MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director

DAVID PADGHAM, Research Associate

KRISTEN BATCH, Research Associate

DAVID DRAKE, Senior Project Assistant

JANET D. BRISCOE, Administrative Officer

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD

DAVID D. CLARK,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Chair

ERIC BENHAMOU,

3Com Corporation

DAVID BORTH,

Motorola Labs

JOHN M. CIOFFI,

Stanford University

ELAINE COHEN,

University of Utah

W. BRUCE CROFT,

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

THOMAS (TED) E. DARCIE,

AT&T Labs–Research

JOSEPH FARRELL,

University of California, Berkeley

JOAN FEIGENBAUM,

Yale University

HECTOR GARCIA-MOLINA,

Stanford University

WENDY KELLOGG,

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

BUTLER W. LAMPSON,

Microsoft Corporation

DAVID LIDDLE,

U.S. Venture Partners

TOM M. MITCHELL,

Carnegie Mellon University

DAVID A. PATTERSON,

University of California, Berkeley

HENRY (HANK) PERRITT,

Chicago-Kent College of Law

DANIEL PIKE,

Classic Communications

ERIC SCHMIDT,

Google, Inc.

FRED SCHNEIDER,

Cornell University

BURTON SMITH,

Cray, Inc.

LEE SPROULL,

New York University

WILLIAM STEAD,

Vanderbilt University

JEANNETTE M. WING,

Carnegie Mellon University

Staff

MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director

HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist

ALAN S. INOUYE, Senior Program Officer

JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer

LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Program Officer

CYNTHIA PATTERSON, Program Officer

STEVEN WOO, Dissemination Officer

DAVID PADGHAM, Research Associate

KRISTEN BATCH, Research Associate

PHIL HILLIARD, Research Associate

JANET D. BRISCOE, Administrative Officer

MARGARET HUYNH, Senior Project Assistant

DAVID C. DRAKE, Senior Project Assistant

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

JANICE SABUDA, Senior Project Assistant

JENNIFER BISHOP, Senior Project Assistant

BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Office Assistant

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

Preface

Although secondary to the human tragedy resulting from the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, telecommunications issues were significant that day both in terms of damage (physical as well as functional) and of mounting response and recovery efforts. The Internet has come to be a major component of the nation’s (and the world’s) communications and information infrastructure. People rely on it for business, social, and personal activities of many kinds, and government depends on it for communications and transactions with the media and the public. Thus there is interest in how the Internet performed and was used on September 11.

Unlike the situation with longer-standing telecommunications services (notably the public telephone network), there are few regulations, policies, or practices related to the Internet’s functioning in emergency situations. Nor are there many publicly available data to help policy makers or the industry itself assess the Internet’s performance—either on a continuing basis or in the aftermath of a crisis. No regular system exists for reporting failures and outages, nor is there agreement on metrics of performance.1 Some experiences are shared informally among network

1  

A pilot effort was made by the Federal Communications Commission to collect outage information under the auspices of the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, but this was limited to a voluntary trial, recently ended in 2002. Interest in mounting a new voluntary effort continues in some quarters.

Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
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operators or in forums such as the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG), but that information is not readily accessible for national planning or research purposes. The decentralized architecture of the Internet—although widely characterized as one of the Internet’s strengths—further confounds the difficulty of collecting comprehensive data about how the Internet is performing.

It is therefore unsurprising that no definitive analyses exist on the impact of September 11 on the Internet, though a few conflicting anecdotal reports about its performance that day—such as several presentations at NANOG indicating relatively little effect2 and press accounts suggesting that the impact was severe3—have appeared.

Responding to an initial request in early 2002 from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group in Data Communication (ACM SIGCOMM), the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) established the Committee on the Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from the Impact of September 11. The committee’s charge was twofold: to organize an exploratory workshop for gathering data and accounts of experiences pertinent to the impact of September 11 on the Internet, and to prepare a report that summarizes the Internet’s performance that day and offers conclusions on better preparing for and responding to future emergencies.

A diverse group of industry representatives and researchers participated in the workshop (see Appendix A). They were invited to share information candidly, with the understanding that the organizing committee would take care not to publish sensitive or proprietary information. Consequently, although the committee has strived to present as much detail as possible, specific figures or names of organizations have been omitted in some instances. Following the workshop, the study committee decided to supplement what was obtained there, so additional information in several areas was gathered from a number of sources.

2  

North American Network Operators Group 23rd Meeting, October 21-23, 2001, Oakland, Calif. Presentations available online at <http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0110/agenda.html>.

3  

According to an article in ComputerWorld: “Extent of cyberinfrastructure devastation on Sept. 11 unprecedented, officials say. For several tense hours on Sept. 11, the nation was deaf, dumb and blind due to the ‘absolutely massive’ loss of communications infrastructure resulting from the collapse of the World Trade Center, a senior government official said last week.” The article goes on to focus on consequences of damage to a Verizon central office but implies much wider impact. Dan Verton. 2002. “Digital Destruction Was Worst Imaginable,” ComputerWorld, March 4. Available online at <http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/recovery/story/0,10801,68762,00.html>.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

The overall human and economic costs of the September 11 attacks— which dwarf in significance the attacks’ effects on the Internet—have been widely covered and are not examined here. Instead, this report focuses on three issues related to the Internet: (1) the local, national, and global consequences of the destruction that occurred in New York City; (2) the impact of the crisis, including the actions of users as well as the effects of the physical damage; and (3) how people made use of the Internet in a time of crisis.

The project was small—reflecting its relatively narrow focus and the objective of producing a report quickly—and had limited resources. These considerations, combined with the relative paucity of data, mean that the committee’s assessment was not comprehensive. Instead, the committee examined several sources of data that revealed the overall status of the Internet on September 11 as well as shortly thereafter, and it drew on the detailed experiences of several Internet service providers. This was sufficient to derive a rough sense of that day’s impact on the Internet infrastructure nationwide—and worldwide.

The committee and the CSTB acknowledge the financial support provided for this project by ACM SIGCOMM, the IBM Corporation, and the Vadasz Family Foundation. Their support enabled but did not influence the outcome of the committee’s work.

The committee also wishes to thank the workshop participants for their thoughtful contributions and for their comments on a draft of this report. Responsibility for the report, however, remains with the authoring committee.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

Acknowledgment of Reviewers

This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:

Geoffrey Baehr, U.S. Venture Partners,

Steven Bellovin, AT&T Labs—Research,

Scott Bradner, Harvard University,

Geraldine MacDonald, America Online, Inc.,

Udi Manber, Yahoo! Inc., and

Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota.

Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Robert R. Everett, Honorary Trustee of the MITRE Corporation. Appointed by the National Research Council, he was responsible for making certain that an

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
×

independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2003. The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10569.
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The Experiences of Other Communications Networks: Telephone, Wireless Voice and Data, and Broadcasting,

 

36

   

Telephone,

 

36

   

Cellular Telephones,

 

37

   

Broadcast Television and Radio,

 

38

3

 

THE USER EXPERIENCE

 

40

   

Impact on Business in the Immediate Area,

 

40

   

People on the Net,

 

41

   

The Internet as a Source of News,

 

42

   

The Internet as a Means of Communicating Between Individuals,

 

44

   

The Internet and Community,

 

47

   

Overall Use of the Internet,

 

48

4

 

PERSPECTIVES ON THE INTERNET EXPERIENCE OF SEPTEMBER 11

 

49

   

Other Outages: Operator Errors and Infrastructure Faults,

 

49

   

Operator Error,

 

50

   

Infrastructure Faults,

 

51

   

Attacks on, or with, the Internet,

 

53

   

Baseline: Effects of Damage on September 11,

 

53

   

If the Internet Were the Target, Would There Be Greater Impact?,

 

54

   

Possible Effects of a Deliberate Electronic Attack with the Aid of, or Against, the Internet,

 

57

5

 

MEASURING THE INTERNET

 

61

   

Network Measurement Methods and Tools,

 

62

   

Active Measurement Tools,

 

63

   

Passive Measurement Tools,

 

64

   

Measurement Challenges,

 

67

   

Proprietary Data,

 

67

   

Consistency in Data and Analysis,

 

67

   

Representativeness,

 

67

   

The Future: Targeted Assessment During a Crisis,

 

68

   

Global Network Monitoring,

 

68

   

Targeted Measurement During a Crisis,

 

69

 

 

APPENDIXES

 

 

   

APARTICIPANTS IN MARCH 5-6, 2002, WORKSHOP

 

73

   

BCOMMITTEE MEMBER AND STAFF BIOGRAPHIES

 

74

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This report presents findings of a workshop featuring representatives of Internet Service Providers and others with access to data and insights about how the Internet performed on and immediately after the September 11 attacks. People who design and operate networks were asked to share data and their own preliminary analyses among participants in a closed workshop. They and networking researchers evaluated these inputs to synthesize lessons learned and derive suggestions for improvements in technology, procedures, and, as appropriate, policy.

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