Would We Survive If The Internet Shuts Down Forever?

yetunde oyeleke

March 31, 2014 6:47 PM

We're so intertwined socially, financially and industrially that a total internet shut-down would hit the world as hard as a natural disaster...

With increasing dependence on the internet, and more people embracing the ‘www’ and its magical connections comes the founded fear of what would happen if somehow, anyhow the internet gets shut down.

This fear is not unfounded as one of the world’s most foremost experts on computer security says it is possible that hackers, terrorists, accidents could take down the Internet and cause areas to become cut off and unreachable – scary!

Be it via a terrorist attack or some technological glitch somewhere a permanent – even brief, internet shutdown would definitely have far reaching consequences that we may never recover from

According to experts, now we're so intertwined socially, financially and industrially any such shut-down would hit the world as hard as a natural disaster, experts say.

The movie series, Revolution, offers an insight into what might result.

Just imagine!

No email, no Twitter or Facebook. You can just Google up that question in your head. No online purchases anymore. No 1001 billion things anymore! It is worse than any apocalyptic prediction!

"Nobody would die, but there would be a major hassle" said computer security expert.

More than a ‘hassle’ I would say.

“[A shutdown] would be beyond catastrophic. Every single day, every single hour, if not every 30 minutes, I am using the Internet for work," Wyatt McMahon of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech University said.

What would you do if some catastrophic event, be it a massive cyber-attack, Presidential edict or natural disaster, brought down the web?

Obviously, that is like asking what we would do without any form of electricity.

So do you think we would survive a total internet shutdown?

yetunde oyeleke