Tweaked for your Pleasure

I was reading an article today (Michael Brooks. (2009). Could we shut the net down ?.New Scientist. 202 (1), pg 34.), that I wondered myself. Could we actually shut down the Internet if somebody wanted it to be ?

One person alone would very unlikely be able to shut down the internet. Reason being it is such a massive task. Either, you would have to destory all of the root servers (and there is many of them and more then 13 of them as they are mirrored) so that you could knock them offline. However, all that would do is stop it for a while. There are DNS servers that controls .com, .net, .org and many others which ain’t controlled by the root servers.

By destorying the root servers, all you would do is knock them .com etc offline, but not delete all the domains. So, what can happen is that we just bring up new root servers with the same IP address which then leads us to the next method. The next method to get rid of the internet would be to destory the hardware that controls it. Just so you understand the task of that, it is destroying pretty much a hell of alot of routers and servers.

Then, destroying them is just one part. To get to them, you will need to be able to access them and to access them, you will need to invade countries. By then, you will not only have to worry about destroying the hardware but then you will need to destory that country military which I am sure you could guess, is no way going to be easy (We only need to look at the past Great Wars). The next method would be politics. It is possible that you run for Goverment (ruler etc) and then outlaw the internet. However, it wouldn’t stop it, it would just make it illegal. You could try and block all connections to the outside world by disconnecting all the phone lines etc however, that still actually wouldn’t stop it there. Technology has allowed us to be able to connect wirelessly and it is possible that people would do just that.

It would also be hard for people to be able to be caught using wireless. So, that leaves the next method. The only actual successful method of stoping the Internet would be if no one used it.

And honestly, I doubt people will do just that.