Don’t Think the Internet Could Go Down? Here are Four Ways It Could Crash on All of Us Entirely
The internet goes down? It could happen.
Think it’s bad when Twitter and Instagram go down? Neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author David Eagleman says there is something that’s probably worse. Like the internet going down. Everywhere.
Eagleman says there are four possible scenarios that could actually cause such a disaster.
1. Space weather
Solar flares could cause satellite failures and have done so before as recently as 1998. If another significant solar flare came along, Eagleman says it would blow out transformers and melt down our computer systems.
“A major solar event could theoretically melt down the whole Internet. What earthquakes, bombs, and terrorism cannot do might be accomplished in moments by a solar corona.”
2. Cyberwarfare
Eagleman calls them the wars of the future.
“Wars of the future will be fought less by rugged soldiers in the field and more by smart kids perched in front of computers slamming energy drinks. As our dependence shifts onto the Net, so do our vulnerabilities,” he says.
“It will surprise no one that cyberwarfare of the future will involve targeting not only military and industrial targets but Internet connectivity for the general population. If you want to take down your enemy, start by shredding his Net,” he says.
3. Political mandate
We all know about how strict internet regulations are in places like China. And if you remember, during the 2010 post-election riots in Iran, the government there shut down the Internet for 45 minutes. Egypt’s government did the same during its revolution in 2011.
It could happen here, Eagleman suggests. Look up the “Internet kill switch.”
4. Cable cutting
Finally, he proposes probably the most simple of the causes: cable cutting.
“Although satellites are used for some Internet traffic, more than 99 percent of global Web traffic is dependent on deep-sea networks of fiber-optic cables that blanket the ocean floor like a nervous system. These are a major physical target in wars, especially at special choke-points in the system. And this is not simply a theoretical prediction, the underwater battles are well underway,” Eagleman writes.
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3 Responses to Don’t Think the Internet Could Go Down? Here are Four Ways It Could Crash on All of Us Entirely
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This is not true! 1. Solar flares. The Internet is a world wide system networks,satellites,buried fiber optic and copper cables.
Some of the networks could be damaged but not all. Countries and companies have been hardening their satellites, transfomers and
buildings for years. NASA has had monitoring satellites fly close
to the sun with no effect during solar flares. Last week we had
one of the strongest flares on record with no effect.
2. Cyber Warefare. This wouls be a software attack. The Internet consists of several backbones, multiple distribtuion nodes and a myriad of networks. The backbones have run continuously from day one to today. There is NO SOFTWARE CUTOFF SWITCH ON BACKBONES.Nodes and networks could be attacked but this hardly the entire Internet.
The Internet was designed to survive a nuclear war.
3. Political Mandate. The Internet is the child of the world wide communications system. Worldwide banking, transportation ,commerce
and other systems are children of the Internet.There is no political
authority that would or could order the Internet to shut.
4. Cable cutting. The Internet is designed to reroute communications if
a backbone goes down. Attackers would have to cut multiple backbone at the same time all over the world. This strain credibility. Extremely doubtful that a terror network could do this. it would not be in the interest of a nation state to do this because all their critical systems are also tied to the Internet.
Sid
July 12, 2012 at 3:23 pm
BS
PB Short
November 27, 2012 at 2:26 pm
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