Building a Crash-Proof Internete,

On 18 July 2001, a freight train derailed in the Howard Street tunnel running beneath downtown Baltimore, spilling 20,000 litres of hydrochloric acid. The resulting chemical fire destroyed fibre-optic cables owned by eight major US internet carriers. Moments later, Verizon Communications (VZ), which operates key portions of the internet’s physical infrastructure in the US, lost links to two operations buildings and several other carriers’ networks.

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This is a section of the AllThingsD Web site featuring posts that have been curated from around the Web: pieces we’ve read, discussions we’ve followed, stuff we like. Five posts are included here each weekday, but only the headline and the first two sentences. We link to the original site for the rest. The section is explicitly labeled, so it’s clear that content comes “from other Web sites.”

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