On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen <hayden@nextlevelinternet.com> wrote:
Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic nuclear strikes)
Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take out a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few choke points?
As has been noted previously, it's all about your frame of reference. If the US is removed from the Internet, it does not mean the Internet stops working; from the perspective of the rest of the world, the Internet is still there. likewise, when Egypt shut down the internet (from their perspective), it was essentially a complete shutdown, from their viewpoint; nothing on the internet was reachable. This did not mean the Internet shut down; for most of the rest of the world, they barely noticed Egypt was gone. The Internet itself will continue to function, no matter what silliness the US political system attempts to engage in; from the perspective of those in the US, it may appear that "the Internet" is unable to survive such an attack; but from the perspective of the rest of the world, it really will be localized damage in the US, and not at all a case of the Internet being shut down. Matt