Researchers think they know how the entire internet could be taken down. Fortunately the only people who have the resources to do it right now are happy with their existing criminal enterprises.
I’ve always joked that the only way we’ll ever see civil unrest in America is if someone figures out how to shut down all television programming for about twenty four hours. But given the explosive growth in the number of web users in the states – according to this source the number has nearly doubled in ten years – I think the same result could be achieved by depriving people of their ability to upload their kids’ photos as their profile picture on Facebook or struggling to get the barcode reader to work on their smartphone at the grocery store. The recent internet shutdown in Egypt was probably the first time that people became aware that the web could be shut down on a large scale. Since most users don’t understand the first thing about how it works, they tend to take it for granted, like running water. But would it be possible to shut down the ENTIRE internet? According to this NewScientist piece, yes. But it wouldn’t be easy, requiring at least 250,000 computers to do it. But wait. Wouldn’t a cybercrime group like the amusingly-named Russian Business Network have these kind of resources? Of course they would. But much like the Doomsday device in Dr. Strangelove, what would be the point? If all your income is derived from selling hacking tools, serving up child porn, and hiring yourself out as a political “DOS gun for hire”, why would you want to shut off the internet? At least ALL of it, anyway. Besides, if you REALLY want to shut off the internet, you can just cut some wires. Here’s a map. Now all you’ll need is some deep sea equipment and the ability to get it to dozens of locations around the globe simultaneously, and voila! No intranets. So I think we may be okay for a while.
The aren’t that many cables, and the deepest ones are as small as 10mm in diameter…
Source
