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System 7 - Extension that shows internet connection status
Posted by: cheesestraws on 2026-01-23 13:12:56
The Internet doesn't really have a concept of "being connected to the Internet" -- you can check route and quality of connection to host, and with some specialized code and hardware can query BGP tables and do large volumes of traceroutes to map existing connectivity, but that's all going to change from moment to moment.

Yes, quite. I wrangle BGP for a relatively large chunk of the DFZ for a living. It's interesting. :-D
Posted by: luRaichu on 2026-01-23 13:40:27
Yes, quite. I wrangle BGP for a relatively large chunk of the DFZ for a living. It's interesting. :-D
Duty-Free Zone? You mean like at an AirPort?
Posted by: cheesestraws on 2026-01-23 13:45:09
Duty-Free Zone

the default-free zone, the set of routers that do not have a default route, but learn all Internet routes via BGP.
Posted by: CC_333 on 2026-01-26 11:11:30
I wrangle BGP for a relatively large chunk of the DFZ for a living.
It sounds like a highly technical, but rather obscure and unknown corner of the Internet infrastructure, without which the entirety of the Internet might break.

c
Posted by: cheesestraws on 2026-01-26 15:11:35
It sounds like a highly technical, but rather obscure and unknown corner of the Internet infrastructure, without which the entirety of the Internet might break.

Obscure and unknown but, yeah. I will not say who I work for - though it is trivial to find out - but I worked out today that probably every single day my code steers at least one tcp connection from every single person I have ever known or met, the ones I have forgotten and the ones who have forgotten me alike. I cannot tell you how weird that feeling is.

Unless they've gone completely off-grid of course. Or are dead, which is the offest of all grids.
Posted by: CC_333 on 2026-01-26 19:05:16
Or are dead, which is the offest of all grids.
And most permanent; A person can usually choose to return to most other grids in life, but not this one.

c
Posted by: SkippRnim on 2026-02-04 18:12:33
I know it's not exactly what you asked for but sometimes you have to use what is available. So I have used Network Time Control Panel for this. In the settings you can have is get the time from time.apple.com and set it to check on boot and then every minute or so. If it cannot update the time it will give you an error. Simple and effective.
I was thinking the same thing, also this is also a good app to get around the Y2020 bug
Posted by: mikes-macs on 2026-02-04 18:28:54
Also, If the time and date are off you can tell that the network connection is down somehow.
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