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[Brave Blue Mice]

When you think apocalyptica, the survivors turn to tried and true, often hundreds of years old systems for living: oil lamps, small communal crops, bake your own bread, churn your own butter, etc...

To theorize how a group of users might keep accessing, think about the birth of the Internet.

Way back, it was a bunch of turbonerds dialing into remote servers to leave messages a lot like this one. Once there was a formal system for passing hypertext, the Internet as we know it was born. Hackers of the early web had many manuals and books, usually self published or stashed online for download that outlined the architecture of the early net, like a book of maps. So your idea of setting it up from an email is possible, but difficult to keep in check.

I would allude to a master manual that a turbonerd put together in the early days that outlines connection to a sattelite based Provider, and this nerd could still be running a rudimentary node from his holed up location. As long as all of the people on your network was able to scrounge a sattelite uplink, and each had the protocoll to access duckyweb, there would be. Way for survivors around the globe to communicate.

At what level all depends on how big of a fanatical turbonerd Ducky is.

BBM

[Winter]

When you think apocalyptica, the survivors turn to tried and true, often hundreds of years old systems for living: oil lamps, small communal crops, bake your own bread, churn your own butter, etc...

To theorize how a group of users might keep accessing, think about the birth of the Internet.

Way back, it was a bunch of turbonerds dialing into remote servers to leave messages a lot like this one. Once there was a formal system for passing hypertext, the Internet as we know it was born. Hackers of the early web had many manuals and books, usually self published or stashed online for download that outlined the architecture of the early net, like a book of maps. So your idea of setting it up from an email is possible, but difficult to keep in check.

I would allude to a master manual that a turbonerd put together in the early days that outlines connection to a sattelite based Provider, and this nerd could still be running a rudimentary node from his holed up location. As long as all of the people on your network was able to scrounge a sattelite uplink, and each had the protocoll to access duckyweb, there would be. Way for survivors around the globe to communicate.

At what level all depends on how big of a fanatical turbonerd Ducky is.

BBM

There's an interesting idea. A nerd survivalist holed up in some remote location with his own satellite-linked server farm?

Regards,
Ryan

[Bobbie]

It's all so confusing, Wayne.  I'm thinking it might be best to toss up that bit of the prose--him linking and being linked--to see if it sounds plausable to someone in the know.  Does that help?

[Brave Blue Mice]

I would allude to a master manual that a turbonerd put together in the early days that outlines connection to a sattelite based Provider, and this nerd could still be running a rudimentary node from his holed up location. As long as all of the people on your network was able to scrounge a sattelite uplink, and each had the protocoll to access duckyweb, there would be a way for survivors around the globe to communicate.

There's an interesting idea. A nerd survivalist holed up in some remote location with his own satellite-linked server farm?

Regards,
Ryan

Essentially, yes.  I used to host a server farm in the basement of that old house you stayed at.  It was primarily just a web host farm for a select few clients, but in the end, I would rather do just about anything but run a server farm.  But some of my friends, on the other hand, run their own service providers and servers (I recently ran into some of them who run their own proxy servers at home so they can terminal into them from work and Facebook from work without the work IT folks seeing it.  Fascinating!).

Heck, I know a few guys who are so chickenshit that they'd lock themselves in a server room at the first signs of a zombie takeover.  They'd probably call me to help them get food and stuff, and I suppose if they kept themselves useful, I'd help maintain their node.

The same could really be said for cellular technology.  As long as someone keeps a node up, you could use a cellphone within five miles of it.  Imagine having a small commune at a datacenter with coordinated cellular striketeams.

I like where this is going.

~BBM

[Camaris]

Interesting concept.

On a kind of related note:

Would it be fair to say that with the internet being essentially a combination of millions of servers, that as things got worse you would see a huge immediately loss in pages available, then a gradual loss of site after site as invidual servers and links went down?

With Google caching so much stuff now, and the sheer size of their operation I wonder how long they would stay up and therefore keep a lot of info available?

Good reason to download an offline copy of wikipedia etc from time to time lol

[JW Schnarr]

If any of you are old enough to remember the BBS networks pre-internet, there was one in calgary and like IRC chatrooms and stuff. I think the best way to figure out how the internet might work sans world wide web status is just to go back to the late 80s/early 90s.

I think thats the kind of stuff Gerg was talking about.

 Also, you can check this out, written by me way back in the day when I used to pick up gigs writing web content (don't laugh! they used to pay 5 cents a word before writers started allowing web designers to dictate the prices...) the date on it says 2008 but they've been using it since at least 2005. A brief history of the internet: http://www.thehistoryof.net/history-of-web-hosting.html

[HOO-HAA]

Everyone, thanks so much for all the info and advice.

Greg, I may approach you later to run a few things by you, if that's okay? There'll be a free copy of the book in it for you and a thanks in the end credits.

Thanks again everyone - your time and expertise is very much appreciated.

[Brave Blue Mice]

Anytime, Chief!

[HOO-HAA]

Anytime, Chief!

Much appreciated. Until then, consider yourself a-praiseth! 

[Victorya]

I loved reading this thread, learned so much. Also, my mind immediately went to the South Park ep when the net went down.  "Did anyone think to unplug and plug it back in?"

[HOO-HAA]

Okay, I'm in the nitty-gritty of this so let me ask you guys something: my understanding of Local Networks would be this (thanks to Jacob) - if the internet went down (ie. google etc. no longer working) and you had the web address of a local network (eg. http:///blah.blah.blah) then you would simply type that into the url box and it would connect you to said local network? I seem to remember AOL giving me a http: address with numbers and dots to type in when my connection with them died. Also, a place I used to work gave me a similar code to enable me to connect to my work outlook account from my laptop, even when out and about. Would those have been local network codes? 

(does any of that make sense?)

[Brave Blue Mice]

Yes.

There are servers out there called DNS servers that pair up the names you type in with the actual address.

When I registered my website, "www.bravebluemice.com", the lookup server needed both my web name and the address, "97.74.214.52".  Either way will get you there.

That's why when you type in a bogus web name you get a DNS error, because the Domain Name Server can't match up the domain name you typed in with a physical address.  DNS servers are the phone books of the internet.  They take "Starbucks" and match it up with the "phone number" so you computer knows where to call.

The structure of an IP *(Internet Protocol) address is any number between 0.0.0.0 and 256.256.256.256.

Commonly used ones are: 192.168.1.1 - That's the machine that is closest to the internet on your own personal network.  Usually that ends up being the router.  I use this a lot when doing network maintenance.

Knock yourself out and punch in some random IP addresses into your browser.  On the chance you hit one, you'll get some fun results.

Good luck!
BBM

[HOO-HAA]

Thanks, Greg. If you don't mind, I would still like to run a couple of excerpts past you once I'm done with the first draft. Cheers!

[Brave Blue Mice]

Another interesting thing you may want to consider.

I've noticed that real intellectual property that mentions websites is entertaining when the websites offer auxilliary content.

Such as - When Grand Theft Auto 3 hit the shelves, players could tune into radio stations in the cars they stole.  One of the radio stations aired an ad for a video game called pogo the monkey.  The radio ad ended with a URL, www.pogothemonkey.com.  I went to pogothemonkey.com and it had a fun little flash game and some cutesy BS that actually contributed a lot to the flavor of the game.

Or when the Venture Brothers television show aired an episode on Testicular Torsion.  In the episode there was a reference to more information available on an "interweb site", which actually existed, created by the creators of the show to add some good side jokes.

Things like this can add a tremendous amount of personal branding, and a whole lot of extra fun for the reader.

Perhaps as a fun way to grab a little more attention for the book, tossing up a simple, cheap website that only uses its IP address as a fake "hacker's compendium for the apocalypse" might be a neat street team style gimmick that will help draw your readers in.

I'd be glad to help you with it in any way I can, Wayne.  I like your work, and will do anything I can to help it rock properly.

[HOO-HAA]

Thanks, Greg - really appreciate that man. I must admit, I was thinking the exact same thing when we were talking about web addresses. Why not have one in the book, I thought, that people will inevitably look up.

You're an absolute star, Greg. I'll have something to run by you real soon.