Screen Grabs: giant Linksys WiFi router is The Internet
By Ryan Block 
posted April 17th 2008 11:18PM
posted April 17th 2008 11:18PM
Screen grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.
Complete internet downtime is no laughing matter, but more frightening still is the prospect that the world's data flow is completely beheld to a giant, taciturn Linksys WiFi router. South Park clip embedded after the break -- we're still trying to decide whether this trumps the Aqua Teen episode where they meet the Wwwyzzerdd, freakish master of the internet.
Full ep here.
Full ep here.
Oh my god! MY INTERNET IS GONE! Guys do you have it?
Define the term irony. I'm using my neighbors open WIFI network to watch this episode because once again my Comcast connection is down (3rd time in 2 weeks...they need to dig up the cable outside the house and replace it.)
OH NOES DA INTERWEBS IS DOWN!
thats for that link to spam site...amazing time exiting it.....i actually just unplugged my ethernet cable....now im back to my alone time
I thought it was a series of tubes?
Actually, under the threat of retaliation from the conventional "wisdom" that pervades our self-appointed "intellectual" elitists around here, the analogy about the Internet being a series of tubes was pretty sound.
Back in the day {tamping my pipe, refilling with some fresh Dunhill, leaning back in chair}, when UUNet was about the only game in town, geeks often had to resort to the water system as an example whenever someone [read: complete n00b] asked them how the 'Net worked.
As an example, I still have this explanation that I, and many other ISP's, had to come up with back in the old days for the constant question of "how it all works":
{flashback time to around 96'}
UUNet provides the backbone, or main water line, for Florida. An ISP connects a smaller water line (usually T-1) to the main. The end consumer connects via dial-up, with a much smaller water line. Too many people connected to an ISP (read: ISP oversold his dialup ratio (which was: 8 to 1 great, 10 to 1 average and 100 to 1 meant AOL :-)) and either they could not get their water, or their flow of water trickled.
So when Florida went dark for a day or so in '97 or '98 (can't remember exactly that date ... sigh ... memory is the first thing to go), it was much easier to explain that a "valve" at the "main water line" went bad then explaining what a router was and that some nitwit placed his can of coke on top of the stacked redundant routers and shorted them all out.
Or when another nitwit in North Texas uploaded bad routing tables and took down the southeast for a day or so, it was alot easier to explain that someone put raw sewage in the line and so all the "valves" didn't work then explain what the heck routers and their routing tables were.
Neverthless, the biases of politics combined with echo chamber re-inforcement caused the self-appointed elites to laugh their @sses off
at the guy's explanation.
H3ll, there are still quite a few people that think when you call up a website, that you are connected in a straight line to that webserver.
It's kind of like the SCSI mini-flame war that happened the other day between Windows and Mac users... I'm sure the *nix graybeards read that one with quite a bit of amusement.
OK, time for my Geritol.
jsut watched it for the second time this very minute
I must remember to use the internet for porn only twice a day, MAX!
@ craig
it has to, otherwise it's copyright violation (they sued people for that IIRC)
Just finished it for the first time and discovered I'm the problem. Here I was mindlessly surfing the internet while watching TV...
With how often Linksys products die, is anyone surprised it brought down the net? I miss their Pre-CISCO days. -.-
What Randy does with his internet is exactly what I do with mine. Sometimes I CRAVE Brazilian Fart Porn, Tub Girl and Two Girls One Cup. I deprive myself for an entire month, I don't even touch my penis when I go to potty. And then ...... I .... I violate my penis and make it puke all over the place.
Great episode.
But I'm afraid the internet is people.
Thank god it's not an Apple AirPort, or we would pay 99¢ per website... isn't that cool?
Ectoplasm... everywhere...
Pshh, everyone knows that iJustine is the internet.
I thought this episode of South Park was very creative and funny at the sametime. I'm really sure people would start moving to just to find "The internet".
And towards the end, I'm really sure some SUPER router controls everything as they explained. Its funny as hell but a nice episode to watch. Gotta love the intelligence.
Cisco, wake up!
The only corporate name many people associate with the Internet is Linksys. Killing a brand with that kind of name recognition is crazy.
lol its so true about the internet. If it were gone, people would freak out.
"Simpsons did it." Years ago, The Simpsons showed all Internet traffic traversing a clearly badged Cisco (looked like an old 1000) router sitting in a cave covered in cobwebs. It was far more subtle and probably closer to the truth at that time.
Funny thing is that in reality most of the internet really could go down if the US root dns servers went belly up all at the same time ( im sure there are many things put in place to prevent this but you never know) we would pretty much lose the internet unless you did everything via IP address. But this was a great episode very creative and well put together. God I love South Park.
Actually, it's alot easier then that. There are certain rings around, ummm, "certain" cities that if one went down, the "weight" of traffic being re-routed would bring down nearly all of the 'Net here in the US until they (ICANN) effectively sent out new routing tables. Your looking at 24 - 72 hours minimum for that, and the people in the "quarantine zone" another 24 - 72 hours to have their DNS updated to new IP's outside the zone.
The re-routing of traffic built into the 'Net specs could become --- potentially --- it's undoing. There is simply too much trafffic for major re-routing these days.
On a related note: I knew a dipsh!t that didn't want to pull the requisite "where can I dig?" county and city hall requests since he was being paid by the foot to lay fiber. So he decided he could "divine" any potential dig hazards with ... wait for it ...... (just a lil longer) .... (another second) .... a FRICKING COAT HANGAR!
He took down West Palm Beach for a day or so. Cut right through a fiber pipe with his ditch-witch.
This isnt how it looks! There was a ghost, this is ectoplasm!
I practically live on the Internet, but if it stopped working completely, I'd be fine. I was fine before the Internet. I was fine before Q-Link. I was fine before BBSs.
I'd miss having the ability to reference things instantly, but I'd survive. My whole social life isn't online.
What's up with:
http://www.yzzerdd.com/
That site bombed me with 908029384029834028438 pop up ads. Fake ads, but none the less. Lame. Engadget -1.
What are you saying?
This was seriously the most epic episode ever created. I was in awe all the time.
SPOILER ALERT !
You should have mentioned it for people that have not seen it.
I did.
Well of course the internet was down. The WRT54G, and it's ilk, are some of the least dependable routers available on today's market.
Whoever chose that to represent failed internet is a comic genious.
I always thought it was a monkey riding a bicycle, wait, sorry thats what makes the earth rotate, my bad