Slashdot was all abuzz today with its usual chaotic self-congratulatory fervor on the news from two groups of mathematicians that the Internet could survive the removal of some very large fraction of its hosts and still remain generally connected. Which says, I think, not that the Internet really is hyper-connected and super-redundant so much as that the overwhelming majority of sites on the Internet just don't matter and could disappear tomorrow without hurting anyone's connection but their own.
Ninety-Nine and Forty-Four Percent Connected