We are sitting ducks

Originally posted by leafer
Impossible to shutdown the entire internet. They would literally have to shutdown electricity altogether. Routers are setup to take the best path to get from point A to point B. When one way is broken it automatically redirects itself another way.

One major way they could do this is knock out the satellites which would cause the internet to become very localized (IF THAT).

You sir, are a fool. You lecture on something you do not understand.

The world wide web as we know it would be shut down with the removal of only the root DNS servers. Domain name resolution service is what allows people to type 'somefamilarname.extention' into their browser and have it resolve to an IP address, so the browser knows where to connect to. Remove that service and no one can use the world wide web. Sure data will still be able to be transferred, and connections made, but it will be like someone switched out the lights. You won't be able to see anything.

The second point I wish to make is this:
Very little of the internet is transmitted across satellite networks. Most is sent through undersea cables. This is because microwaves have a maximum bandwidth data carrying capacity of only several MB per second. Fiber optics carry many many times more data in one signal and can host many signal lines in one cable.

The third point I wish to make is this:
Theoretically routers may be able to find alternative routes if the backbone were shut down. But some routes would not be able to be found and this would split the internet into individually working fragments. Within these fragments the load would become to high on the alternative routes slowing connection speeds to a crawl.

So no they would not need to 'literally shutdown the electric grid,' you uneducated fool. They would only need to take out a select group of servers or fiber optic lines to render the internet completely useless.

Spread your ignorance elsewhere.