Terror and the Web Part 3

- One Year After 9/11

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Terror and the Web Part 4 - September 2011 >> 

Tuesday September 10, 2002.

1800 BST / 1700 UTC / 1300 ET

364 days have passed since the events that are now commonly known as 9/11 and we're coming up to the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US.

Most of the western world is on a heightened state of alert (BBC article) because there's an assumption that something is going to happen, and that somewhere some terrorist group is going to try to mark the anniversary by committing another atrocity.

The expectation is that there will be a further terrorist attack. Of course terrorists have a habit of turning where they're not expected, and they certainly would try to avoid heavily protected areas. Although these days the sight of a friendly jet fighter is strangely comforting, it is unlikely that they would be any use if an attack did take place, which would probably be somewhere unexpected.

Terrorists or not, there's bound to be some lunatic somewhere who will try to do something stupid, either by going postal with a gun, or perhaps some sick computer virus writer has something to unleash.

Of course, maybe nothing will happen and it will just be a day of peaceful rememberance. But I don't think so.

Wednesday September 11, 2002.

0700 BST / 0600 UTC / 0200 ET

I just dropped my wife off at the station to go to London. Not really a good day to travel, but in the UK there have been small scale domestic terrorist attacks for some decades and the British have a sense that they want to get on with it. I made sure that she had her mobile phone battery fully charged though in case of transport disruption.

Also the car is fully fuelled - ironically one of the greatest fears of the British is running out of food or fuel. In a twist, the UK had a fuel crisis in from September 7th-14th 2000, one year exactly before the terrorist attacks. Groups of protestors had blockaded petroleum distribution centres and basically the whole country ground to a halt as it ran out of gas. (BBC Article). The gas shortage was followed by a food shortage as lorries found it more difficult to get fuel to make deliveries, so people assumed that food would run out. There were scenes in supermarkets of people buying insane quantities of milk and bread as a sort of guarantee against going hungry. It's not hard to see that a terrorist attack on the UK might prompt similar panic buying.

Most of the mornings newspapers are leading on rememberance of 9/11 or "where is Osama bin Laden" stories. I still have my newspaper from 12th September 2001 tucked away featuring a huge picture of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. In a way, newspapers are a more permanent record that the web. I have noticed already that some of the links on the page I wrote back in September 2001 no longer work. Maybe I'll fix that later.

0700 BST / 0600 UTC / 0200 ET

There are various forms of on-line rememberance today. On striking one is the front page to Yahoo! - Amazon.com too has a special rememberance page.

Some sites are more subtle in their marking of the anniversary, Slashdot is carrying a simple black banner in place of advertising, which links through to a memorial page on the OSDN network.

No doubt other major web sites will mark the day in a similar way. Google, though renowned for commerating significant events remains unchanged so far, so we have to see if they will mark the anniversary in some way. [Note: they were showing a commerative ribbon for visitors from the US, but nothing for non-US visitors it seems]

1300 BST / 1200 UTC / 0800 ET

Less than an hour to go now before the exact time the planes struck the twin towers. There are a number of ceremonies around the world (BBC Article). The only significant event so far is a man being arrested wearing a Saddam Hussein mask at the US Embassy in Singapore (Ananova Article).

Like many places of work, the US-owned firm I work for will be holding a minutes silence. Our head office is in New York, on Long Island, which is some way from Manhattan, but all New Yorkers were in shock after the events of last year. It was difficult to know what to say when talking to our HQ except that we were very sorry. I can't help but think how difficult it will be today for New Yorkers travelling to work.

1800 BST / 1700 UTC / 1300 ET

So far the day has passed without major incident. Of course, we have redefined what is a major incident since 9/11. Eighteen people died, including a government minister in shootings in Kashmir, an attempted bombing by ETA in the Basque region, suspected terrorists being arrested. This is normal these days. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

2200 BST / 2100 UTC / 1700 ET

The BBC is part way through showing the Naudet brothers film 9/11 which is a truly awesome piece of documentary making. It feels as close as you can be without actually being there. The sound of the thud of bodies hitting the ground, the fear and panic in the eyes of the firefighters, the stunned survivors. Horrific.

2345 BST / 2245 UTC / 11845ET 

So far the day seems to have passed peacefully.. but there's a while to go yet, and then we will see whatever tomorrow brings.

Thursday September 12, 2002.

0700 BST / 0600 UTC / 0200 ET

Sometimes no news is good news. Yesterday was September 11th 2002 and nothing much happened, relatively speaking.

There are indications that Bush is going to make a strong pro-war with Iraq speech today as Tony Blair tries to win support for a pro-war stance in the UK too. Ironically, after watching the Naudet brothers' film last night, one of the things that might prevent UK military involvement in a war is the threat of a national firefighter's strike over pay. After seeing 9/11 last night, frankly I think that we should be a damn sight more grateful to these firefighters, no matter where they are, as these are the people who we'll always rely on to get us out of danger, the people we'll always send into the most horrific environments imaginable. I think they deserve every penny.

1300 BST / 1200 UTC / 0800 ET

I just got news that my cousin had a baby boy yesterday.. born on September 11th with the initials WWW. I guess that's a connection between September 11 and WWW I wasn't expecting!

1830 BST / 1730 UTC / 1330 ET

George Bush is threatening Iraq with war (BBC Article). A BBC Online poll of 65,000 visitors indicates that 67.7% of those polled don't want a war with Iraq.

In the meantime, deleted domains are being published for those sites registered on 9/11. Some of the names are bizarre, some are obvious but what is strange is that anyone should have registered most of them in the first place.

All these domains were deleted on 9th September 2002 which means that they would have been registered on 9/11 itself. Some of the names like nycterrorism and wtcsurvivors are obvious enough names, perhaps with good intentions, but it's hard to see the point of the domains listed below..

Perhaps it's fortunate that the registrant's name gets deleted with the domains. Remember, all these domains were registered on 9/11. Who's thoughts would rurn to xrated911.com (or worse) as being a good domain name to have on a day like that?

Added 7/04:  this list has been up for two or so years - in the meantime some of these domains have been re-registered by parties unaware that they were originally registered on 9/11 - of course, 911 is the phone number for emergency services in the United States, and some of these domains have been picked up and innocently registered by parties looking for a snappy domain name - please bear this in mind before judging anyone too harshly.

<< Terror and the Web Part 1 - September 2001
<< Terror and the Web Part 2 - December 2001
Terror and the Web Part 4 - September 2011 >>