IP: Scientists spot Achilles' heel of the Internet

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

>  http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2C4586%2C2607716%2C00.html

Scientists spot Achilles' heel of the Internet

New research warns that if cyberterrorists attack the Web in just the right 
spots, the whole thing could blow into isolated bits.

By Patricia Reaney, Reuters
July 26, 2000 12:04 PM PT

LONDON -- The complex structure of the Internet makes it resistant to 
errors or failure but it is also its Achilles' heel, scientists in the 
United States said on Wednesday.

Because the system is so varied, if one or more nodes -- the crossroads 
through which Internet data travel -- goes down it has very little impact.
But researchers at Notre Dame University in Indiana, who have analyzed the 
connections within the Internet, have found if the networks with the most 
highly connected nodes were attacked by cyberterrorists, it could fragment 
the Web into isolated parts.

``The Achilles heel (of the Internet) is that the structure has this double 
feature. Like Achilles it is very hard to kill it but if you know something 
about the system then you could,'' Albert-Lazlo Barabasi, a structural 
physicist, said in a telephone interview.

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