I suppose the Earth is due for another Carrington Event. The globally disruptive after effects would go on for weeks or months at least, making "2020" look like a kindergarden food fight by comparison. — 180 Proof

Hey that's part of the plot line for the sci-fi novel that I never get around to finishing. I've discovered a lot of great material about those events, but also a youtube video by a telecoms engineer who says (dissappointingly) that modern comms infrastructure is actually pretty well shielded against this eventuality. (That part won't make it into the book.)

Still saying: if the US defaults on one of its obligations, then it's bunkers and soybeans.

I was just wondering about that. Are there some core servers that run the show? Is there an internet HQ? — TheMadFool

Do you know how the Internet came about? A defense project, originally under something called DARPA. The whole principle was that it was decentralised, so that there was no 'central exchange' that can be knocked out. You know what TCP/IP does? All the data is split into packets, each one individually addressed, if a router goes down on one route, it will find another. That is the genius of the internet. Thank Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, here they are getting a medal from W from having thought it up.



(That's Vint Cerf, not being garrotted by Bush.)

The fastest growing websites are all porn-related. — TheMadFool

After driving internet innovation for 20 to 30 years, being ubiquitous from the get go, and making money all these years, how are they still the fastest growing thing on line? I would think they might have plateaued somewhere along the line. Are they growing faster than YouTube? FaceBook? Amazon? Google?

I'm too cheap to buy memberships to [gay] hard core sites, but paywall sites are the wellspring. I stick to the stuff that has been circulating for years on sites like BlogSpot or Tumblr; some of the photos were first published in the early 70s, on paper!

My understanding is that it isn't expensive to produce porn. Actors and crew get paid, but not a lot, and they probably don't get much in residuals. So, are the profits in sales of content? Subscriptions to sites? Pay-per-view? Exports? Advertising on the sites for motor oil and lawn-care equipment? Viagra (fake or real)? Nitrate inhalants?

There are 13 DNS root servers that map the internet. If those are gone it's Bye-Bye internet. Other than that everything else is quite replaceable.

The entire internet shutting down would be quite a big deal. Economists would probably label it the darkest day in human history. Major loses for all the companies generating revenue through the web. I'd imagine stock markets (including all the cryptos) would crash quite gloriously. Important infrastructure would no longer be reachable - banking, cash terminals, some health and insurance services. Big troubles for logistics. And last but not least a lot of panic and "Help! I don't know what to do with my time." — Hermeticus

So the internet does have a weak spot, an Achilles heel, a HQ. I was under the impression that with all these techies constantly admonishing us for not having a backup for our e-data files some computer-wiz would've done something about it. No, huh?

Do you know how the Internet came about? A defense project, originally under something called DARPA. The whole principle was that it was decentralised, so that there was no 'central exchange' that can be knocked out. You know what TCP/IP does? All the data is split into packets, each one individually addressed, if a router goes down on one route, it will find another. That is the genius of the internet. Thank Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, here they are getting a medal from W from having thought it up.



(That's Vint Cerf, not being garrotted by Bush.) — Wayfarer

Interesting. I had some inkling about the defense angle to the internet but failed, miserably it seems, to connect the dots. The military, I believe, always has a plan B, waiting on the wings, you know, just in case, only the internet itself is the plan B. Paradoxical in my book. What was plan A I wonder.

Yeah, but we won't default. No empire willingly dismantles its own hegemony. Besides, congressional leaders are just playing a game of chicken as a negotiating tactic. Worst case scenario, Biden orders the US Treasure to mint a platinum $Tr dollar coin. :victory: :mask:

Non-resolution of the US debt ceiling impasse is both more likely and would be more devastating. — Wayfarer

I don't think so. Surely the US economics have a big impact on global economics but it doesn't compare to the whole internet shutting down for a day. While this scenario would be worse for the US, it wouldn't be worse for the global economy.

So the internet does have a weak spot, an Achilles heel, a HQ. I was under the impression that with all these techies constantly admonishing us for not having a backup for our e-data files som computer-wiz would've done something about it. No, huh? — TheMadFool

Well, not quite. 13 servers ought to be redundant enough. Furthermore, these are more like "super-servers". It uses a system called Anycast - there's 13 main adresses but a total of over 1400 nodes. Your ISP routes you through the shortest path and off into the world wide web you go.

It's near impossible to murder the internet - I just wanted to highlight that there is a possibility. You wouldn't have to take down all of the servers either. This is just a guess but I'd imagine half of them would be enough to bring the internet to it's knees.

congressional leaders are just playing a game of chicken as a negotiating tactic. — 180 Proof

:pray: It's getting awfully, awfully near the wire this time around.

I had some inkling about the defense angle to the internet but failed, miserably it seems, to connect the dots. — TheMadFool

Hey here's a primer I wrote as part of my very first tech writing contract, way back in 2004 but most of the background info is still relevant. (This was written for a broadband communications company when everyone was first starting to get ADSL and cable connections, to provide background to end-users, support staff and sales channel.)

After driving internet innovation for 20 to 30 years, being ubiquitous from the get go, and making money all these years, how are they still the fastest growing thing on line? I would think they might have plateaued somewhere along the line. Are they growing faster than YouTube? FaceBook? Amazon? Google?

I'm too cheap to buy memberships to [gay] hard core sites, but paywall sites are the wellspring. I stick to the stuff that has been circulating for years on sites like BlogSpot or Tumblr; some of the photos were first published in the early 70s, on paper!

My understanding is that it isn't expensive to produce porn. Actors and crew get paid, but not a lot, and they probably don't get much in residuals. So, are the profits in sales of content? Subscriptions to sites? Pay-per-view? Exports? Advertising on the sites for motor oil and lawn-care equipment? Viagra (fake or real)? Nitrate inhalants? — Bitter Crank

According to Similarweb analysis, adult websites Xvideos and Pornhub are among the most trafficked in the United States, receiving an average of 693.5 million and 639.6 million monthly visitors respectively.

The two pornography giants (Xvideos & Pornhub) outrank a number of major services, including Netflix (541 million), Zoom (629.5 million) and Twitch (255.3 million). — techradar.com

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world [...] According to the same study "globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level (2.1)", and "in all major regions where there is a sizable Muslim population, Muslim fertility exceeds non-Muslim fertility. — Wikipedia

Go figure!

13 servers ought to be redundant enough. — Hermeticus

Copy that!

Hey here's a primer I wrote as part of my very first tech writing contract, way back in 2004 but most of the background info is still relevant. (This was written for a broadband communications company when everyone was first starting to get ADSL and cable connections, to provide background to end-users, support staff and sales channel.)
10mReplyOptions — Wayfarer

Downloaded it for reading later. :up:

Still quite in the dark about plan A and how & when it failed? It must have, why else plan B (the internet)? Perhaps the military top brass were worried about the whatever system (plan A) they were using - vulnerable in some way - and decided to transplant it, took their business elsewhere, onto a computer network à la Skynet (Terminator franchise).

To answer the OP's question, what would happen...if the internet crashes?, I'd say bedlam and chaos - think of every conceivable way you could have a bad day and it'll be actualized. No money, no food, no water, no electricity, no nothing! Where did I read that an internet shutdown would be like time travel - we'd all be sent back to, as I recall, the stone age.

At the heart of every human enterprise these days there are two must-haves:

1. (A) computer(s)
2. An internet connection

If the internet should fail, it would be as catastrophic as a world war!

You wouldn't have to take down all of the servers either. This is just a guess but I'd imagine half of them would be enough to bring the internet to it's knees. — Hermeticus

I'll correct myself here after reading an article. It looks like much less is needed. Facebook platforms being down caused 30x more traffick on one of the biggest DNS providers Cloudflare.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/

It may not have been very apparent because we're talking milliseconds here but essentially, Facebook & Co being offline slowed down the whole internet. Everytime one tries to access one of the platforms, a request is sent to the DNS server. The server tries to resolve the name, takes a little while, fails and throws the user an error. The big problem are actually apps and the internet of things. While a human may try a couple of times before accepting the fact that the target site is unreachable, apps will more or less constantly spam their requests.

Carrington Event. — 180 Proof

A solar storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical grid. The solar storm of 2012 was of similar magnitude, but it passed Earth's orbit without striking the planet, -missing by nine days — Carrington Event (Wikipedia)

I can picture an asteroid missing the earth by, say, a coupla million kilometers but how does the earth miss something by nine days? Do solar storms occur patches i.e. are they restricted to certain regions of the earth's orbit and did the solar storm pass through part of the earth's orbit which earth entered nine days after the solar storm had passed by it? :chin:

I personally believe that the modern nervous system is so attuned to Internet technologies/services, that any prolonged disruption would result in withdrawal and (ultimately) utter, utter chaos. IMO at least.

Do solar storms ... pass through part of the earth's orbit which earth entered[traversed] nine days after the solar storm had passed by it? — TheMadFool

Apparently yes.

If only our phones could text and call without the internet. — Michael

Could phone and text infrastructure handle a massive synchronous increase in usage globally in the event that the internet does not provide this service. I mean there must be a limit to the data those towers can transmit at any given time right?

I would suffer traumatic brain injury if the internet crashed. Really. One of the reasons my mind appears to still be functioning is that Google search, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, and a few thousand web pages provide me with mental content. It's always there 24/7. When I'm talking to relatives and others on the phone I can fact check; look up diseases and drug side effects; find recipes they (or I) forgot parts of; check etymology; get words and phrases translated; read scattered articles from NYT, Guardian, Boston Globe, LA Times, WSJ, and the Washington Post--and porn, of course: Architecture porn, dog porn, science porn, rock and roll porn, slum porn, porn porn... And I can shop for stuff--80% of which I could probably live without.

I would be a vastly better student today than I was in the 1960s. Well, maybe. I wasted a lot of time back then and there is nothing better than the Internet for massive time wastage. But still, there is such a wealth of good information (music, history, science, philosophy fora, etc.). — Bitter Crank

My X kept the family in very remote places where no one knew of the world outside their own backyard. I thought I would lose my mind or die of intellectual starvation. :lol: We were not a good match, he resented that I read books and one day piled them in the yard when I was gone. I got home before he burned them because fortunately, our 6-year-old daughter slowed him down. I would not want to continue living if I couldn't get on the internet. I need the folks in the forums very much!

But he had motorcycle boots and a black leather jacket and that looked really good to me when I was 18. :lol:

I personally believe that the modern nervous system is so attuned to Internet technologies/services, that any prolonged disruption would result in withdrawal and (ultimately) utter, utter chaos. IMO at least. — Bret Bernhoft

I think you are right.

I personally believe that the modern nervous system is so attuned to Internet technologies/services, that any prolonged disruption would result in withdrawal and (ultimately) utter, utter chaos. IMO at least. — Bret Bernhoft

More like the Internet is attuned to the old nervous system, as was the telephone, telegraph, photograph, music, or--go back a few thousand years--writing, even language.

Disruptions to community can be difficult. The internet is now part of our community's communication system, as is television, telephones, radios, film, et al. I'd hate to lose them.

Apparently yes. — 180 Proof

:ok:

what if the entire internet shut down for a day? What would the be most major impacts/consequences for the globe in this brief but major widespread return to a pre-globalised technological dark age? — Benj96

The media hype would be enormous. Once people would get back online. Ooh, the horror, the horror.

I suppose the Earth is due for another Carrington Event. — 180 Proof

Extended outages in the Electric grid, especially in winter, are far more dangerous than the whimsical issue that Facebook or Twitter being down. With failure of the electric grid at winter many relying on electricity for heating might die. And the industrialized farming would have its problems too.

But not an issue we could not handle. And afterwards we would just make our back up systems more reliable.

As some posters have remarked, the issue seems to be accessing our very own "natural personal internet" (the network of neurons that we've labelled the nervous system) and not the "artificial computer network" (the internet). The internet amounts to zip if the nervous system isn't functioning at peak levels. What would be the point of an internet if the person utilizing it is an idiot?

What would be the point of an internet if the person utilizing it is an idiot? — TheMadFool

Well idiots need entertainment too. There’s nothing more dangerous than idiocy with too much time on its hands haha

Well idiots need entertainment too. There’s nothing more dangerous than idiocy with too much time on its hands haha — Benj96

You can say that again.