Will the H1N1 Virus Crash the Internet?

Published on October 29th, 2009

Posted by hhopper in The Internet, medical

Talk of a flu pandemic has evolved into a bit of flu panic. Rumors fly as some people die and others deny. Much of this fevered buzz is on and around the Internet. The fear that the Internet itself will crash is growing.

The alarm is based on the presumption that as the flu spreads, so does the base of home telecommuters, placing such a burden on the Internet that the whole World Wide Web will topple. But is that fear a true possibility?

The U.S. government seems to think the scenario is not only possible, but probable.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report this week warning that a bogged-down Internet could even be a matter of national security. The report officially recommends that the Department of Homeland Security should “work with other federal partners to determine if sufficient authority exists for one or more relevant agencies to take any contemplated actions to address Internet congestion.”

Is the Internet really that fragile? If so, we’re in deep doo-doo. Read the article… experts say no.

14 users responded in " Will the H1N1 Virus Crash the Internet? "

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# 1 Dallas said, on October 29th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

The internet is not quite as fragile as our power grid but at least we have a government that recognizes the issue is important.

# 2 Sister Mary Hand Grenade of Quiet Reflection said, on October 29th, 2009 at 2:54 pm

I friend of mine came down with H1N1 and I rubbed Norton Anti-Virus all over her. Didn’t work there either. I thought about praying which is a total waste of time.

# 3 rectagon said, on October 29th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

Yipes. What in the world is the angle here? Frankly, all I have to do is turn off my bittorrent and another 10,000 users will be good to go.

# 4 chuck said, on October 29th, 2009 at 3:03 pm

Quick, everyone type H1N1 into Google, all at once and crash the interwebs!

# 5 Improbus said, on October 29th, 2009 at 3:13 pm

It helps if you don’t watch the nightly ~~propaganda~~ news casts or ~~propaganda~~ news networks. Frankly, I don’t see anyone panicking except the government and bureaucrats.

# 6 ECA said, on October 29th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

1. the NET wont FAIL..
2. a few SITES might go down..
3. IF’ the USA internet is so vulnerable, Why isnt is BETTER??

I love’d it when the NET first started and it still happens sometimes, as a GAME SHOW/other program WANTS you to join them on the NET.
And the site you go to gets HIT by 1,000,000+ people “NOW”, and the site DIES..
Those ON the site LAG ALL TO HELL and get bumped out..
Those TRYING to sign in or SIGN up..CANT.
PAGE refresh is in YEARS not seconds..

# 7 bill said, on October 29th, 2009 at 3:49 pm

I need the Fiber Vaccine!!!!! NOW!!!!!

# 8 bill said, on October 29th, 2009 at 3:58 pm

Oh, remember in the office when everyone went to some website at once and crashed the whole internal network…

“Hey!!! check out ‘http://dvorak.org/blog’ !!!!!!

CRASH…..

# 9 hhopper said, on October 29th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

Bill – #8 – If you get the fiber vaccine, it will keep the fiber away. I don’t think you want that.

# 10 dusanmal said, on October 29th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

Just Govt. positioning itself to take away another liberty under the false “general good” guise.

# 11 Glenn E. said, on October 29th, 2009 at 8:45 pm

So far, only 5.7 million people (Americans?) have caught something claimed to be Swine Flu. Though I wonder if everyone of them has been tested for H1N1, or was it merely assumed to be that strain?

Anyway, of those only 21,000 needed hospitalization. Or got it, whether they really needed it or not. NOT that many died. They were just sicker than most. By my rough calculations, that’s about 1/3 of 1% of the 5.7 million. That’s far less than the adverse reaction rate of most prescription drugs.

And from what I’ve heard, not that much worse that seasonal flu’s illness rate. So why is H1N1 getting all this panic propaganda, and talk of it being a Pandemic. All the while, the government was so unconcerned by its potential, earlier, that they didn’t have enough vaccine makers contracted to fill the projected quantities that were projected. It was purely a political projection. Not based on what could actually be produced with current methods and its few makers. So shortages abound of vaccine, both for H1N1 and season flu (which the vaccine makers were told to scale back on, in order to make the H1N1 vaccine).

Also, it’s been claimed that this new swine flu vaccine is better than the 1978 version. So nobody should suffer the reactions that that older one caused. And yet a recent news report stated that the current method of incubating virus vaccine hasn’t changed in decades. Still being done in chicken eggs. So how can it be that much different that the 1978 vaccine? Very doubtfully, that’s how?

The only effect this could possibly have on the Internet, is more people will be googling and emailing from their sick beds, when they’re not feeling to badly to do even that. And it might slow down the regular maintenance done by blog masters, webpage masters, and such. Maybe a Patch Tuesday will get skipped, as happens at least once a year, anyway. But then maybe the black hat hackers will also be too ill to create new Windows viruses.

I highly doubt that a nation wide system that was designed to function even during a nuclear strike. Is going to be severely effected by a biological virus. That mostly effects just its users and programmers. There will either be a spike in usage, or a lull in usage. Or maybe both, though not at the same time. But for the government to claim more than this will happen, is just plain scare tactics. These government agencies can’t be that ignorant of technology, that they’d think a virus would cross over from the human world into the cyber world. Pul-lease! Curb your 19th century superstitions, federal agencies. Your not the “Fringe” division.

# 12 Raff said, on October 30th, 2009 at 7:18 am

So why is it supposed to topple? Because people will be using their computer from home rather than work?

# 13 Killer Duck said, on October 30th, 2009 at 8:50 am

Do you really want the department that runs the TSA and FEMA having anything to do with the Internet?

# 14 The Monster's Lawyer said, on October 30th, 2009 at 9:06 am

Follow these rules to avoid Computer H1N1:
-Clean your keyboards with anti-bacteria soap.
-Cover your mouth when sneezing at the monitor.
-Stay away from infected web sites.

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