I hear deleting system32 will fix the internet

Rather thorough research......... Are they baiting someone?

Strik3r: Rather thorough research......... Are they baiting someone?

The FBI, NSA, CIA, and those are just the US ones.

Kill this guy on Inferno Mode

Wow, that was very...thorough. This is not going to end well.

I just love the way Gawker links freeze up my browser at work with all their bullshiat scripts. Oh, wait. I mean, the opposite of that.

Some of these sites have been hardened over the years but I recall not that long ago that you could essentially drive a truck through a wall at one of these sites (not to be named) from the parking garage and it would take out the entire data center.

When the WTCs were hit there was a massive data center and switch that went with it, not to mention the Verizon CO there.

We have redundant connections that don't go through NYC for that very reason.

Wouldn't a handful of nukes used to create EMP's be more effective? A few for the US, a couple for Europe, and the evil West is back in the stone age.

The internet is secure

BigBooper: Wouldn't a handful of nukes used to create EMP's be more effective? A few for the US, a couple for Europe, and the evil West is back in the stone age.


Only the civilians, as most military hardware has supposedly been hardened against EMP. Also, it wouldn't be the stone age, just the Victorian era.

now that we have been "primed" with how it can be done

next i predict

a) reporting how some organization needs money to protect it
b) reporting how someone is cutting cables and are obviously bad guys. (in no way could it be someone false flagging)

Honest Bender: FTFA: "Remember when Anonymous threatened to destroy the entire internet?"

You mean the threat that was almost immediately found to be not from Anonymous?

But... if they're anonymous... how would you know?

BigBooper: Wouldn't a handful of nukes used to create EMP's be more effective? A few for the US, a couple for Europe, and the evil West is back in the stone age.

Obtaining nukes is still harder than parking a vehicle bomb next to some data centers I imagine.

I think it's very scary that much of our internet infrastructure is dependent on Long Island, especially the South Shore.

The Internet is more analogous -- and appropriately so -- to society as a whole. I daresay targeting a datacenter or chopping a cable would have much the same social effect of the 9/11 hijacking; the political effects would be far more destructive than the actual act. These sites are redundant, and society itself is too redundant. Taking out the Internet itself is kind of like taking out society. Someone with a good understanding of logistics and an expert at planning massively coordinated secret attacks a la Fight Club could do a lot of damage, but the goal here is essentially equal to eradication of the human race.

PonceAlyosha: Wow, that was very...thorough.

dervish16108: I think it's very scary that much of our internet infrastructure is dependent on Long Island, especially the South Shore.

I dunno. It was thorough only because the publicly available lists and stuff were thorough. I found it insightful, but more scary than reality. The various backbone ISPs peer with each other through contracts that are anything but optimized for efficiency. They're mostly structured around cost and, at best, quid pro quo. A cut cable would certainly wreak a large amount of havoc, but similar damage has been inflicted by software-based attacks like DDoS attacks on DNS servers. Within hours, traffic gets re-routed. You'll get some increases in latency -- massive increases in latency -- but this is like a traffic jam due to an accident on a major interstate. It might take you 9 hours of driving to get home from work; life sucks, deal with it. You're majorly pissed at the asshole responsible, but it's not the end of the world.

They kind of hinted it and you can figure from the lists of cables, datacenters, etc., but the Internet is massive. Like humanity itself, it's not "tough" or "indestructible" because it's a well-oiled and fiercely defended machine so much as, for all its flaws and follies, massively distributed.

BigBooper: Wouldn't a handful of nukes used to create EMP's be more effective? A few for the US, a couple for Europe, and the evil West is back in the stone age.
Perhaps. But Nuclear weapons discharge would create more pressing issues for humanity.

It's a lot easier to take out the power grid. One day maybe they'll fix it.

There's maybe 20 lines you have to cut, if you can do it pretty much at the same time it all goes boom. At least for a while.

Oh, the same transformers people worry about with big CMEs you can do in with a Lapua or a Barrett. Back to kerosene lanterns for six months.

Shiiiyiit, I remember when Kevin Mitnick said he could take down the internet.

the best way to kill the internet would be with politics. If countries could be persuaded to stop peering with each other and then if "data-taxes" or something else became common place the Internet would pretty much cease to exist.