From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: Web sites preparing for Starr report onslaught Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 06:40:46 -0500 To: believer@telepath.com Source: Fox News - AP Web sites preparing for Starr report onslaught 2.42 a.m. ET (642 GMT) September 11, 1998 By Chris Allbritton, Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) Web surfers hoping to view portions of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report when it goes online today instead may need to wait in line. An expert in high-volume Web sites said millions of Web surfers clustered around Web sites like people used to cluster around teletype machines waiting for the latest dispatches from news wire services probably will swamp the government's computers. "I would imagine a lot of people getting a 'Site Not Available' (message),'' said J.D. Zeeman, who coordinated IBM's Web site for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, earlier this year. At one point, the Olympics site was getting more than 110,000 hits a minute, Zeeman said. By Thursday afternoon, the crush of people visiting the House's Web site called Thomas prompted this message: "The Library of Congress is aware of public statements announcing the availability of the Independent Counsel's report at this site. As yet, the House of Representatives has taken no action regarding the public availability of this report.'' A House vote on releasing the report was planned for today. "The technology exists to handle this kind of load today, but it literally takes months to get it in place,'' Zeeman said. "Unless they've done something, I wouldn't imagine they would be adequately prepared.'' A congressional source said the House is adequately prepared, posting the report on government sites and distributing formatted copies to Web sites of major newspapers, magazines, The Associated Press and other news services, and online outlets such as America Online and Yahoo! The Web has become a popular way to distribute government documents in the past few years, but the last time a government body tried to release red-hot documents on the Web, it was a disaster. It was the case of Louise Woodward, the British au pair accused of murder. In November 1997, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Hiller B. Zobel said he would release on the Web his decision to reduce Woodward's conviction to manslaughter. Millions on both sides of the Atlantic who had followed the story eagerly anticipated the first online release of a criminal court ruling. But a power outage delayed the ruling for hours, and heavy traffic at Web sites made it almost impossible for people to read the decision once it was online. The foul-up with the Woodward decision, while embarrassing, was not unique. News sites usually slow down, or even crash, when the always increasing number of Web surfers rushes online for news. It happened during the Woodward case, after the death of Princess Diana and during the recent gyrations of the stock market. The slowdowns are just the nature of news on the Internet. The parallel is a newspaper that assigns many reporters to a major story such as the Oklahoma City bombing, or printing a lengthy report by an independent counsel. "I guess when you think of throwing all sorts of reporters on a story, you're straining resources,'' said Ruth Gersh, editor of AP's multimedia services. "If you put up the report on the Web, it uses up resources which we call bandwidth.'' Congressional leaders expect the report to be available this afternoon through these government Web addresses: http://thomas.loc.gov/icreport http://www.house.gov/icreport © 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************