Actually, it's my IT self kicking in. I was always interested in tracing root causes of problems like this, and theorizing possible solutions. While working at Motorola, I installed a packet sniffer on my laptop and mapped the entire Motorola network one night. Watching the visual representation of the design of the network was something else. Routers: Routers are basically traffic lights on steroids. They pump data to the right highway to make sure it gets where it's supposed to go. For more on what I was referring to about the Fairbanks, AK router, check http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm. Basically, the routers you see listed are the mother of all routers and are collectively responsible for the entire N American continent. I'm guessing the people in Alaska are pretty pissed right about now. Worms: They suck. Depending on the virus writer, they can create payloads that do anything from install dozens of porn links in your IE Favorites to deleting critical system files on your PC or even orchestrating a major attack on a website. DNS: Domain Name System. Ever wonder what's behind yahoo.com? For every single web address on the internet, there is a numerical IP address associated with it. The primary IP address for yahoo.com is 66.218.71.198. Would you rather remember yahoo.com or that numerical address? :) DNS tables do the job of matching those numbers to their corresponding domain name (yahoo.com). If a DNS tables becomes 'poisoned', it pretty much means that some corrupt data was inserted into the file and completely scrambled the data, rendering it useless. I think that basically covers the more potentially confusing stuff. :) If you want to know how I learned it, I was a bored teenager, and paid University of Phoenix too much friggin' money later on. Brian Team A.I. ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert & Linda Smith To: listserv@azgeocaching.com Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 9:48 PM Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] GC.com Trisha, He does that just to make us feel uneducated I think. I know just enough about this computer to understand a little of what Brian said, But Not All Of It!! By the way, I just picked up 2 cases of soda for the event cache on July 10th. I've been watching and it looks like we will have a nice turn out. Maybe Brian can help me through some more computernees. Bob Smith, Team Petite Elite Trisha wrote: Brian....In English, please?? :-) Trisha On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 08:31:30 -0700, "Brian - Team A.I." wrote: Looks like a HARD outage in the area or something. The only major router in the country that is down is in Fairbanks, AK, but I've never tracerouted my path to the gc.com servers, so I don't know if the data passes through there or what. The more research I do, it looks as though there is a major disruption going on all over the internet. My guess is a new worm, but I could be wrong. I can't even get ping returns from the primary nameservers that gc.com uses. Overall response to my 'net experience' is slower than crap. Going back to the worm concept, it IS July 1st, which could be a trigger for it, or it could be related to the anticipated handover of Iraq (which occurred early, maybe too soon to send out a patch to the infected machines). To some these might be conspiracy theory moments, but payload triggers for past worms have been major events. It's almost as if the DNS records related to gc.com have been somehow poisoned, as it doesn't even resolve to an IP address anymore. Meh. I'll let that go for now. Oddly enough, a block of 25 IP addresses isn't even responding to my network scan, the same range that gc.com has several IP addresses for various servers. My guess is a router is sitting in a closet somewhere in the groundspeak offices smoking, waiting for the gurus to open the office for the day and inhale the stench of burnt electronics. Brian Team A.I. ----- Original Message ----- From: "ShadowAce" To: Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 5:46 AM Subject: [Az-Geocaching] GC.com Is geocaching.com down for some reason? I cannot get to any of the pages.. I am just checking to see if anyone else is having trouble or if it is my ISP.. ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com