What happens if the Internet completely switch off?

Internet (contraction of an interconnected network) is a Connections of Networks, Servers, and End-user Machines. And Communication takes Place with their Addresses, and Connection routes. It’s the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

It’s very possible to turn off the internet worldwide. Yes, difficult but it’s possible to turn off the whole internet.

An Internet kill switch is a countermeasure concept of activating a single shut off mechanism for all Internet traffic.

The concept behind having a kill switch is based on creating a single point of control (i.e. a switch) for a single authority to control or shut down the Internet in order to protect it or its users. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Nominet Trust have criticized proposals for implementing the idea so far.

Imagine waking up one morning to discover you have no new emails, updates or tweets on your smartphone. Then, when you search for today’s news on your laptop, all you get is a pop-up sign, saying: ‘You are not connected to the Internet.’ After irritatedly turning your modem off and back on again, you’re still getting no connection. Then you realize you can’t get onto the web.

So, what happens if the Internet completely switch off?

• All nonessential access to the World Wide Web in the allied countries will be suspended.
• Everything will get disrupted and suddenly up for grabs and people have to run around doing everything they did.
• Temporary failure of the entire internet would have many terrible effects but at least it would enable us as individuals and as a society to consider how we use the web to work, play and interact with each other.
• It would prevent people from completing work in other classes, ruin their social lives, and make their friends and family worry that something terrible had happened to them.
• Shutting down domain name servers – the internet’s address books – would also cause massive disruption, preventing websites from loading, for example.
• It would also cause significant disruptions by disconnecting one part of the world from another.
• The most devastating strikes could come from space, however. A large solar storm that sent flares in our direction would take out satellites, power grids, and computer systems.
• The financial impact of an outage would surprisingly insignificant. There will effect enormous losses.
• In some cases, shutting down the internet for a short time might even increase productivity.
• Travel probably would not be affected too much in the short term, either – so long as the blackout lasted no more than a day or so. Planes can fly without the internet, and trains and buses would continue to run.
• Longer outages would start to have an effect on logistics, however. Without the internet, it would be hard for businesses to operate.
• Psychological effects, like feelings of isolation and anxiety, would hit people across the board, however.
• The feeling would be fleeting, however. Losing the internet may make people recognize its importance in their lives, but we would soon be taking it for granted again.

Why it’s important?

A recent Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report warned of the dangers of a cyber-attack “perfect storm” where an attack or natural disaster in the real world was made infinitely worse by a simultaneous assault on a country’s online infrastructure. However, it also stated that cyber-attacks in themselves were unlikely to cause the system to collapse – just individual websites.

It is only governments, then, who have the power to interfere with – or even completely turn off – the web in their own countries.

 

Some governments also have “kill switches” that can effectively turn off the internet in their country. Egypt did this during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011 to make it more difficult for protesters to coordinate their activity. Turkey and Iran have also shut off internet connectivity during protests. China is rumored to have a kill switch of its own. And American senators have proposed creating one in the US as a means to defend the country from cyber attacks.

Stock photo from elenabsl