[17]SPECIAL REPORT
48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity
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BOSTONAn Internet worm that disabled networks across the U.S. Monday
and Tuesday temporarily thrust the nation into its most severe
maelstrom of productivity since 1992.
48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity
"In all my years, I've never seen anything like this," said Price
Stern Sloan system administrator Andrew Walton, whose effort to
restore web service to his company's network was repeatedly hampered
by employees busily working at their computers. "The local-access
network is functioning, so people can transfer work projects to one
another, but there's no e-mail, no eBay, no flaminglips.com. It's
pretty much every office worker's worst nightmare."
According to Samuel Kessler, senior director at Symantec, which makes
the popular Norton Antivirus software, the Internet "basically
collapsed" Monday at 8:34 a.m. EST.
The Gibe-F worm, an e-mail-transmittable virus, initiated cascading
server failures. Within an hour, Internet service to more than 90
percent of the U.S. was disabled, either by the worm or by network
firewalls that initiated security protocols.
"Unlike SoBig or Blaster, this worm didn't harm individual computers;
it just used them as a gate to attack the Internet at the ISP level,"
Kessler said. "Computer technicians at most offices couldn't do
anything but sit by helplessly as people worked through stacks of
filing, wrote business-related letters they'd put off for months, and
sold record amounts of goods and services over the phone."
Shortly after office workers found their web, e-mail, and
instant-messaging capabilities disabled, reports of torrential
productivity began to reach corporate offices nationwide.
"My first thought was 'My God, this has to be some kind of mistake,'"
said Prudential Insurance executive vice-president Shane Mullins of
San Francisco. "My e-mail wasn't working. Nerve.com wasn't working. I
eventually found out that the company web site wasn't working, either.
But by that time, my inbox was filling up like you wouldn't believe."
The Internet outage forced a Minneapolis couple to tackle a task
they'd put off for months.
Above: The Internet outage forced a Minneapolis couple to tackle a
task they'd put off for months.
"My actual physical inbox," Mullins added. "It's this gray plastic
thing on my desktopthe top of the desk I sit at."
With workers denied access to ESPN.com, Salon, Fark.com, and
Friendster, employers struggled to keep up with the sudden increase in
efficiency.
"Our office was working at roughly 95 percent efficiency," said Steven
Glover, an advertising executive and creative team leader at Rae
Jaynes Houser. "It's problematic to have the rate jump like thatit
sets a precedent that will be impossible to maintain once the Internet
comes back."
Glover said his department failed to reach 100 percent productivity
only because employees stopped work every few minutes throughout the
outage to see if Internet service had been restored.
"This is terrible," said Miami resident Ron Lewison, an employee at
Gladstone Finance and an Amazon.com Top 500 Reviewer. "For two days,
I've been denied access to the vital information I need to go about my
workday. In the absence of that information, I've been forced to go
about my job."
According to Labor Department statistics, companies affected by the
Internet outage generated an estimated $4 to $6 billion in extra
revenue.
"Losses to online retail companies will be considerable, " said Jae
Miles, senior financial economist at Banc One Capital Markets in
Chicago. "Nevertheless, the outage's overall impact on the national
economy will be a positive one. The losses should be easily offset by
the gains to companies that depend primarily on people finishing
actual work."
As of press time, many administrators had begun to apply a patch that
combats the Gibe-F worm.
"Thank God, Earthlink service is back, and with it, online shopping
and entertainment news," office worker Emily Jaynes said at 7 p.m.
Tuesday. "I'm ready to head home now. I couldn't bear to spend another
evening repainting furniture and using my pool."
Financial experts say they hope to have detailed data on the economic
impact of the outage within the next 24 hours.
"When American office workers are denied access to vast, complex
streams of ever-fluctuating and evolving information, they tend to get
a lot done," said Nicole Dansby, a business-information analyst
employed by the New York Stock Exchange. "The extended Internet outage
may or may not have had something to do with the Dow's 278-point jump
Tuesday. I'll have to, you know, check the web for a few hours and get
back to you."
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