This type of attack was predicted in the US by Richard Clark former advisor to Bush on cyber space security . This is the man that tried to warn Bush about Al Quaeda just before 9/11 and couldn't get a meeting with Bush and his cabinet of idiots. The internet is not safe, the fact that teenagers can write a virus in Asia and cause serious damage to business computers in the US and UK should have convinced people of this. Plus, if you think your system is safe on a Windows OS your wrong there too.

Mick, Los Angeles, USA

The existing topology of the internet has sufficient over-capacity and resilience to amply survive the loss of many componants within it. That is, the 'internet' for the common man. However, there are certain organisations which increase their dependence on a reduced number of componants, with tailor-made set-ups, in order to permit greater data-security. The 'country' absolutely could have it's internet-access interrupted, if specific centres were attacked (virtually as well as physically), but only if the term 'country' is reduced down to major Govt. agencies and corporate entities. I guess that by lumping all your eggs into one expensive and high-profile basket, you are asking for trouble, but I can't imagine that the Govt. is dumb enough to endanger the UKs data-infrastructure by not dispersing it's data-assets. Which means this is hype, with the purpose of generating fear, uncertainty and doubt and the promotion of policies intended to increase oppression and paranoia...

Bruce Haig, Frankfurt am Main,

It's interesting how the most damage being done by these "Islamic extremists / Islamic radicals / Islamists / Islamic (Add your own suffix here)ists" is to Islam and Muslims themselves. Countless innocent Muslims are being murdered around the world under the cover of counter-terrorism. It's like the medieval witch-burning era.

The real question is 'Does "Al-Qaeda" actually exist?’
Why would such a "clever" organisation do things that would destroy their own people and religion ? (Unless that is exactly what they want).

Think laterally… outside the tiny box that the media and the governments have created.

Dan, NYC, US

I think the government has forgotten why the internet structure was created...so in the event of a massive attack on a communications hub, information could still be transmitted due to the very nature of the internet....it is not reliant on one sole connection......

adrian, london, uk

Jim of London, please stop using the forum as a medium for promoting some commercial venture. Its too much like spamming and it sickens me. Anyone worth 2p in the industry can find themselves a contingency and disaster recovery provider. If they haven't already found one then they aren't even worth 2p.

Ricardo, Barming, UK

I know of a company called Capital Continuity that can protect and recover from these typesof attacks

Jim, London, UK

I'm glad my "websites" are hosted on "servers" in California and New Jersey.

Robert, Manchester, Manchester UK

Heh. What a complete load of rubbish. This is just the imbeciles in government scare-mongering again.

Alastair Catto, Huntingdon,

To the textbook people saying that loss of TH would not damage UK's internet are plainly wrong.

Sure, traffic will be rerouted, but to where? The bad case of the matter is that most international fiber is backhauled there without braking out. People host there because of the good connectivity. Over 98% of the UK's VOIP wholesalers is based in that building, and tons of broadband suppliers have their BT circuits backhauled there too.

Europe’s biggest “web hotel”, containing dozens of “servers”?
More like 10,000's of servers.

Why blow up TH when you can kill the local sub-stations? (much easier)

Tommy Tu, London,

The entire point of the Internet's design was multiple redundancy and automatic re-routing around damage, specifically against point-attack. That's the assumption that ARPANET, the United States military network that evolved into the Internet was specifically designed for. This is the type of attack the Internet was designed to be invulnerable to.

So, apparently, the Internet in Great Britian is vulnerable to precisely the attack which the Internet was designed to be invulnerable to. How did this situation come about?

Ian Osmond, Melrose, Massachusetts, United States

Please stop scaring the technologically uninformed. The Internet was designed to route around local failures.

Here in Silicon Valley, we have dozens of data centers. Almost all of them have a very well known Internet auction site as a customer. One would have to take down all power (they have backup generators), all data links (four different multinational high-speed providers plus satellite backups and a host of minor providers) or physically destroy every building (unlikely unless you're a nuclear power).

Even in the unlikely event of the entire Silicon Valley being wiped from the face of the map, redundant data centers around the world would pick up the load for those multinational companies who can add two and two. Florida, Chicago, the Bahamas, Japan, India . . . and I suppose, the UK.

So don't worry. The "Buy This Now" button is safe. Can't speak for the London police Web site, though.

Andrew, Santa Clara, California USA

I'm afraid Eliza Manningham-Buller is spinning. MI5, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National High Tech Crime Unit started discussions with the industry about exactly this threat and similar ones years ago. She's not set up anything new, just publicly named something that aready existed.

That Telehouse North is a worrying choke point has been known in the Internet industry for years. That is why critical infrastructure like the LINX (the principal UK Internet peering point, that interconnects different ISPs) is distributed around many colocation sites, not just one. That said, there are some ISPs with a critical relience on Telehouse, but the good ones have designed around it.

Ian Mason, London, England

Very entertaining article. I had a hearty laugh. David Leppard should write speeches for U.S. Senator Ted Stevens: "They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

Andrew W, Cambridge, Mass.

@brian
"Something as important as the main internet connection's from the UK to the outside world"

There is no such thing as the "internet connection" from the UK to "the outside world." In fact, there is no such thing as any country's (this definition can even be extended to include cities and [probably] even large corporation's) connection to the rest of the world. The ARPANET which later became the Internet was designed by DARPA (US defense agency) to remain resilient in the event of attack. This requirement resulted in multiple links existing between nodes. Thus if one link is destroyed the other can take the traffic.

CompSci Undergrad, University Campus,

@brian
"there should be a secondry system that will 'kick in' if the main system is disrupted."

There is no need for this since there is always another route along which traffic can be routed. (Thus the secondary system is always there, even if the first is destroyed).

It is also worth noting that a single system may also have redundancy, thus if it suffers a fault the secondary (backup) system can 'kick in.' This is not very useful if the systems are stored in the same building and the building is blown up. Hence why routing traffic along different routes is desirable.

CompSci Undergrad, University Campus,

hmm, perhaps not the most acurate post in the world! Telehouse are in a very difficult position, its extemely hard to protect the facility without stopping all non staff entering. I would be very easy in my opinion (I go there alot) to get in and plant a device that resembled a peice of hardware. Not quite sure how they can stop it.

The internet connectivity would undoubtably suffer from any attack on TH as although there are other faclillities in London, most ISP's networks revolve around it as TH was one of the first and the others tended to be expansion sites.

Darren, London, UK

This article is stuff and nonsense. The editor who put David Leppard on this story should be fired. Anyone who puts server in quotes in 2007 has no place writing such a piece.

Please find a technically literate journalist to re-investigate this. Please!

Nerd, London,

This is not journalism, but the paranoid idea of an uninformed mind. There have several attacks on name servers (servers that maintains a cross-reference between domain names and IP addresses. E.g, the IP address 45.123.1.234 may resolve to "espn.com") by hackers (people with real skills in infiltrating "secure" websites) but internet has withstood all such attacks. In fact, internet grew out of computer network built to withstand nuclear war with USSR. Stop listening to such scaremongering.

Daks, delhi, India

My boyfriend works for telehouse but besides that, I have to agree with others that targetting a building like this would bring devistations to millions, not just those who have loved ones who work there. My friends for example have a business they run via the web so do many others, a move like this could affect over half the british popualtion, so we are talking well over 35million people would be affect in some way or another.

The building in question may be able to stand some forms of dmage but 'Tim from London', I don't somehow thing if a 5 tonne bomb were to go off the building would still be in one piece. Well it certainly dosent look that bomb proof from the outside (though I'm unsure as to what a bomb proof buidling should look like). And yes there may be tight security around the building, but if someone wanted to get in I'm sure they could find a way.

LJ, Romford, Essex

Is this to say there is no redundancy built into the UK's internet connectivity? I mean, what a choke point that is! I'd also like to ask just how much does connectivity mean to businesses etc. I have seen many places (banks etc) that actually use FTP (and no not sftp) for daily business. So, if they are that stupid, what else are they doing that completely relies on the internet connection?

Simon, Somewhere, USA

So a few web-sites might go down. Let's hope that the real critical services like the Police National Computer can't be knocked out to easily!

Colin Soames, Londonistan,

What an uninformed and ridiculous news post. Data centers are not only bomb proof but have extremely tight security. As for your understanding and reporting on how the Internet works, well it leaves a lot to be desired.

Tim, London,

The UK is dangerously reliant on TH. Whilst the major international carriers do have connectivity points outside of London, it would still cause absolute havoc for most of the countries connectivy (Home/SME ISPs), which mainly terminates in TH.

In response to Ian Kemmish's comment about a nameserver, this would not really cause any issues, one "comprimised" name server wouldnt need to be at LINX and could be placed any where in the world, Injecting false routes onto LINX would cause more issues, but even then this can be mitigated.

In regards to security at TH, whilst there is tight security on persons getting into the building, its still, in my opinion, extremely easy to take in any incindery device. If a terrorist was able to make a 4u case (say 20inch deep by 19 inch wide by 7 inch tall), and to place multiple devices arround TH this could in theroy total the building. Granted its extremley impracticatal to screen every device entering a data centre, but its still food for though.

WM, Reading, Berks

Europe’s biggest “web hotel”, containing dozens of “servers”
LMAO very informed .. sounds like we are safe.. !!

Jon, London, happy

Possible one of today's less well informed reports. Perhaps somebody should tell Mr Leppard about Wikipedia. Telehouse is one of several UK 'hubs' that ensure there is no single point of failure. It houses probably tens of thousands of 'servers'. As befits such an important establishment security is tight, and terrorist threats have been taken into acount in the designs of the building. This didn't prevent catastrophe in 1997, however, when a security guard purportedly flicked the main power switch and turned Telehouse off.

Peter Strong, London,

The Internet doesn't have a heart. That's the whole point of packet switching. Any company that doesn't have backups, or which chooses to put its backups in the same place as everyone else's, deserves all it gets. But that's a different issue.

And, if I were a terrorist with access to LINX, that very last thing I'd place there to cause maximum disruption would be a bomb. A compormised nameserver perhaps, but not a bomb....

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

Something as important as the main internet connection's from the UK to the outside world should be protected as well as the bank of england.even it's location should not be known to anyone that does not need to know. Also there should be a secondry system that will 'kick in' if the main system is disrupted.

brian willmer, chiang mai, thailand