ISC - Internet Spring Clean

Public Announcement:

The Internet will shut down for cleaning throughout the world wide web over a twenty-four hour period, beginning 31-Mar-07 at 2359 hours GMT and ending 01-Apr-07 at approximately 2358 hours GMT. The shut down and rebooting throughout the Internet will occur as a result of a rolling service outage that will force the world wide web's information super highway to essentially reboot. This shutdown is necessary to facilitate cleaning and clearing of the electronic flotsam and jetsam that accumulates in the networks. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites will be purged. The cleaning will be done by five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba S1W-2274) situated around the world. During this period, users should disconnect all devices from the internet.
 

While the rolling service outage is necessary to free up system resources of the data centers, DNS centers, server warehouses, etc. across the overall Internet services, it can not differentiate between an IIS or an IP from a server over a computer. As a result, any computer and open Internet connection maintained during the scheduled maintenance of the Internet may itself undergo the same purging of files.

This message comes from the Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We also caution that all users place a plastic bag over the ends of your DSL / Cable ends to keep Flotsam and Jetsam from out of your respective connection devices during this purging period. Thank you for your understanding and prompt attention to this matter.