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Preface

This story was originally written in 2001, which is why you will find such quaint terms as 'modem' and 'pay phone' and 'post' in the story. The basic premise, though, is still valid.

There are nefarious people out there that are probing the Net, looking for vulnerabilities and ways to exploit those vulnerabilities. And there are governments that are trying to (and have) limit or totally block access to the Net.

All while modern society is becoming more dependent on the Net for basics.

So, as you read, 'modernize' some of the terms in the story: "modem" = "DSL" or "broadband", "pay phone" = "cell", "post" = "blog", etc.

But realize that the concept is still valid.

Everything we do is on the Net.

And what happens if the Net "dies"?

Disclaimer

Although there are some real locations in the story, this entire story is fictional. Any relationship to actual places or people is coincidental, etc, etc, blah-blah-blah. It is fiction, folks.

Although I still do have a craving for some oatmeal-raisin cookies from Hilda's.

Rick Hellewell

March 2011

www.digitalchoke.com

Post 00.00

It's been quite a while since I've been able to connect to the Net, ever since The Problem started. The Net has been almost unusable since "The Problem" hit, over 18 months ago. As you know, the high unavailability of the Net has affected the entire world. I don't have to tell you about all the difficulties there have been in just surviving since the Problem. You've probably experienced them yourself, and it's taking a lot of time for things to get better.

I knew about the Problem before it happened. I knew it was coming. It was sort of inevitable. I was able to prepare myself better than most. Although my life after the Problem hasn't been easy, it's been bearable. I made a couple of excursions out there just after the Problem, and saw more than I wanted to see. So I've been laying low here.

Now, eighteen months later, the Net is only available for a short period of time. I've been able to connect to some other locations and have seen some reports from others about the results of the Problem. The descriptions of the living conditions have been quite depressing. I want to go out and help, but the Problem just caused too much damage. So I've just been able to sit here and think about what happened, how we got to this point, and how the Problem happened.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that it was a story that had to be told. I wasn't sure how to tell it, the conventional means of telling people about the Problem are very unreliable. Even CNN is not very reliable, and they don't have as many people working there as they used to. It was only as I noticed the Net getting stronger, although very slowly, that I thought that the Net might be the way to tell this story.

After all, we used to use the Net to talk to other people all the time. You probably remember those days. Chat rooms, email, web pages, 'day note' sites, etc. People were talking to other people they had never seen before, and probably would never see, but they were developing relationships through the Net. Everyone spent a lot of time communicating through the Net. So the Net seemed like a good place to try to tell the story about the Problem.

The Net's still a bit fragile, though, not like it used to be. I'm not sure how long it will take to get this story out there. I suppose that you can help out, if you can. If you've been able to restore your connection to the Net and can get to your old 'home' page, maybe you can put a link to this page. And you can tell others about this site, and ask them to put links back to this page. It's not necessary to "mirror" this site; the server it lives on it more reliable than most of the servers since the Problem hit.

I'll try to do daily postings of this story. If you've discovered this site since I've started this, it's still best to start at the beginning post, right here. Then read the postings in sequence. There's a lot to tell, and I sometimes ramble a bit. But I'll try to tell you the information you'll need to know in each posting, so you probably don't want to skip around, but read them in order, like a book.

There will be more to come. But I want to get this posted on the Net while it's still available. Connections aren't as reliable as they were before the Problem, and connection speeds are much slower than they used to be. So this posting will be a bit short.

And I have to be careful with my use of electricity. That's not very reliable either, and part of the story.

I'll post more later. I need to upload this to my sites. And then hope that someone notices. It's an important story to know about.

Post 00.01

It's been a couple of days since I posted the first message, which I hope you read. And I hope that some of you were able to pass along the link to these pages, so that others will be able to read this. Make sure that you link to the beginning of these posts, so that others will read the posts in the same order that I upload them.

To help with that, I've started numbering the posts; this one is 00.01. I guess that it's sort of an introduction, since there isn't really a chapter '0' in most books. Unless you think of a book's prologue as a chapter 0.

But computers use 0 as their first number, so I thought I would too. Anyhow, the numbering system will always be of the format nn.nn. Think of the first two digits as the chapter, and the last two numbers as a section of the chapter. So that would make this posting 00.01; the first posting, which I assume that you have already read, was 00.00. So you can use the posting numbers to make sure that you are reading the story in the proper order.

Enough of the business end -- on to more interesting stuff.

I was going to tell you about me, but that's probably not interesting enough. Maybe I'll get to that in another post. You already know about the Problem, since you are living with the consequences of the Problem. If you are fortunate, and I assume that you are because you are reading this now, you've been able to survive the Problem. I count myself as one of the fortunate ones, since I was able to prepare myself and my surroundings for the Problem's problem. (Hmm ... a little redundant and repetitive there.)

On a previous post I told you that I had taken some field trips after the Problem, and what I saw then was not very pretty. One of those trips was almost my last one. I was just barely able to escape with my life. After that trip, I've stayed here. I might take another trip later, but that last one five months ago was not very fun. Another trip then might have been my last one. I'm not sure how things are now; I'll have to investigate further before I attempt another trip. Luckily, I have plenty of supplies, and the winter wasn't too bad this year. And I'm remote enough that there's little chance I'll be found by any wanderers. I'm ready for them, though.

But I may need some information from you who are reading these postings. There's no reliable way to contact me, and any contact will have to be very secure. I think that sharing information about current conditions world-wide might be useful, though, so I'll work on setting up some sort of message group system. It may take a while, though, so I'll let you know when I've got things set up.

In the meantime, if you can, try to keep connected. Posts here will be as regular as I can make them, at least on a daily basis. There might be some days when I'll get several posts up, and some days when I'll only be able to get a short one up.

The posts will have to be short, due to connection speeds and erratic connections. Long posts will probably have more chance of corruption, short ones are best for now. Maybe as the Net gets a bit more stable, I can try longer posts.

For now, though, it's time to send this post. Keep in touch (well, since I don't have the mail server set up yet as of this posting, just keep connecting to where you are reading these posts), and try to survive. I know it's hard. But it is worth it.

POST 00.02

Last night I was sitting in my cabin thinking about this post. I was remembering how I came up with this idea. It's not original. I guess that it's been around for ages.

Posts such as these probably got more popular in the late 1990's and later. At least, I remember several places on the web where you could get daily journals from various computer geeks. One of them was called the "Daynotes Gang", as I remember. My first connection with computer journals was in print, though, not on the Net.

Do you remember Byte Magazine? It was a good magazine before they folded (although they later came back as an e-magazine, but it still wasn't the same as the hard copy). They were really popular in the 70's and 80's as the place for computer hobbyists and professionals to get information about new computer stuff. There was a lot of stuff in there that I didn't understand, at least at first. Some of it got really technical. I was in my teens when I started reading it in the mid-70's.

But I guess that I mostly enjoyed reading about Jerry Pournelle. He was -- is? Don't know if he survived the Problem. I'll have to look around for him on the Net.) -- a science fiction author, really into the space program, and wrote a regular monthly column about his experiences with computers.

I liked his writing style, since he was sort of mucking around with computers trying to make them work like the rest of us in those early days. Then he'd tell you about all the mucking around he did to get something to work. He used to say something like "I do this so you don't have to".

Of course, he had a bit of an advantage over most of us, since he was able to get demo stuff and gifts of equipment from manufacturers that were hoping for a positive review of their products to help their sales. Some of the stuff he got worked and some didn't. And Jerry would tell you about his experiences in working with the stuff. He wasn't shy about telling you stuff to avoid, and stuff to get. You might remember his "Onion Awards", which wasn't the kind of press that most vendors wanted.

Anyhow, I'd been thinking of his "Chaos Manor" articles in Byte, and how much I enjoyed them. There were others that did similar things; some of them were on the Net towards the end. I used to enjoy reading the postings from Tom up in Canada, Robert on the East Coast, and Brian out in Silicon Valley.

So these postings will be a bit like that. But they are going to concentrate on how I found out about the Problem, how I was able to track the source of the Problem. And how it got out of control, and the damage that it caused, which is why you and I are in the mess we are in.

And maybe this story will help prevent it from happening again. Although it will be a long recovery, I think that we can make it happen.

POST 00.03

After I sent up that last post, I got to thinking. There's lots of time for thinking now.

There's a word near the end of the last post. It's "you". There was a big assumption there. I assumed that there is a 'you' out there reading these posts. I guess that I'll have to work on the mail server. That will help me know if there's a "you" out there. If there are enough "you"'s, we can work together on this to fix the Problem, and to maybe help it from happening again.

So this post is a bit short. I need to use some of my limited Net time to set up a secure mail server. It may take a while to find one of my systems that are still active, and then set up the server and mail forwarder so that we can communicate.

I think that I like the 'we' word better than 'you' or 'I'. There's more hope in the 'we' word.

POST 01.00

Good news! After the last post, I spend some "quality time" with my modem and terminal program getting deeper into the Net than I usually go. It took a bit of effort, but I've found one of my old systems still running. The log files indicate some interruptions, but I had set up the system to recover gracefully from various types of failures. There's not much activity on the system, as shown by the log files. It doesn't really look like the people that worked for the company that owns the system survived the Problem. But it's a good place to set up the mail system for these postings. There's plenty of data space, and the system's connection to the Net seems pretty stable.

It will be a good place to set up my first mail system, and I can use it to jump around the Net into other systems for backup mail systems.

The operators of the system don't seem to be around. I don't see any root user activity like I'd see if things were normal. This system was at a fairly remote physical location (I don't think I should tell you where it is), and had good physical security. And it was built for a lean operation. It could go on doing its job unattended for a long time, which I guess it is still doing.

All it needs is power....electricity. I recall it having a good connection to the power grid, and a high priority on the 'keep power on' list. Even though the physical location of the site is remote, its power grid 'location' is pretty near a reliable source. Even so, I think that I have to keep its description pretty generic. Not just for obvious reasons, but because it's the first system I've found. I've got to get this one set up first, and then find some more systems for backup purposes and get them set up. Once that is done, I can tell you the mailing address so that we can start communicating.

But I wanted to get this post up there so that you knew I had a bit of success. I've found this one system, and I'll start working on getting it set up. Then I'll have it look for some other systems, and I'll get it set up. Once I get three or four systems set up, I'll tell you.

(end of the sample)