What happens if all internet goes down?

[Aghanim]

You all probably feel it at some point when your internet goes down. But what happens when all the internet goes down? Either fiber optic, or cellular, or satellite, or even dial up. No internet connectivity at all. What will happen to our society in the first hour? First day? First week? Will there be any big disruption to normal live other than cannot check social media?

Yes, I know internet is very hard to be killed. But lets say there is a bug in TCP/IP or one of the routing protocols that cause this to happen. If they can deliver the fix, how long before we can have normal internet again?

[Bill Phil]

World War III. Someone's going to blame someone else, and the world will dissolve into chaos.

[rtxoff]

We again start writing letters with pen and paper. Also bookstores will boom again.

[*Aqua*]

What will happen to our society in the first hour?

Nothing.

First day?

People will feel annoyed.

First week?

The post system will be under immense stress. Newspapers will be sold out as people will want to know what happened.

Critical infrastructure will break down. For example the energy grids of mostly all European countries are in fact only one giant grid. It automatically reroutes energy to where it is needed on regional, national and international levels. As it is now unable to know about needs it'll break down. Everywhere in Europe. There are a lot of other systems all over the world like that which will stop working.

Will there be any big disruption to normal live other than cannot check social media?

Sure. Guess what happens when people won't be able to get their money because banks don't know who much you have because they can't connect to the mainframe.

how long before we can have normal internet again?

Within weeks. At first you'll probably concentrate on the most important systems to get them going again. Non-critical communication services like web servers will probably take years until they all recover.

[michaelsteele3]

What will happen to our society in the first hour?

Nothing.

First day?

People will feel annoyed.

First week?

The post system will be under immense stress. Newspapers will be sold out as people will want to know what happened.

Critical infrastructure will break down. For example the energy grids of mostly all European countries are in fact only one giant grid. It automatically reroutes energy to where it is needed on regional, national and international levels. As it is now unable to know about needs it'll break down. Everywhere in Europe. There are a lot of other systems all over the world like that which will stop working.

Will there be any big disruption to normal live other than cannot check social media?

Sure. Guess what happens when people won't be able to get their money because banks don't know who much you have because they can't connect to the mainframe.

how long before we can have normal internet again?

Within weeks. At first you'll probably concentrate on the most important systems to get them going again. Non-critical communication services like web servers will probably take years until they recover.

First Minute?

People with "Facebook addiction disorder" (It's something like that.) Will start to go extinct due to their habitat being disturbed.

[Scotius]

World-wide total failure of internet infrastructure? Considering the sheer number of connections and alternative routes to send data, it would probably take an Extinction Level Event - in which case we would be in so much trouble, no one would have time to update his Facebook status.

[magnemoe]

World-wide total failure of internet infrastructure? Considering the sheer number of connections and alternative routes to send data, it would probably take an Extinction Level Event - in which case we would be in so much trouble, no one would have time to update his Facebook status.

Yes, you could imagine other scenarios like some sort of virus who took out the high end routers hard as in overwrote firmware however this would be fixable in days.

[LordFerret]

Providing there's power/electricity and normal phone service is still working, I still have BBS software hanging around, so my friends/family could dial in and at least leave messages... provided they still have their dial-up modems. If that's not available, I still have a ton of ham radio equipment to communicate with.

I myself don't see it as a bad thing. Computers are a great tool, but what they've expanded into and become is not.

[cicatrix]

Nothing. I will have more time for books as it was in my youth. No, really, I remember the time when I only heard that there is something called www and one can use hypertext with it. People lived without internet for 50 thousand years and I'm sure they will live on even if it is no more.

P.S. Don't get me wrong. I see nothing bad in Internet, I'm a bit disappointed in what people have done with it, but that's normal I suppose.

[Aghanim]

World-wide total failure of internet infrastructure? Considering the sheer number of connections and alternative routes to send data, it would probably take an Extinction Level Event - in which case we would be in so much trouble, no one would have time to update his Facebook status.

Yes, you could imagine other scenarios like some sort of virus who took out the high end routers hard as in overwrote firmware however this would be fixable in days.

The very good thing is that it is extremely unlikely that the physical networks are in problem. But the biggest thing that can make this possibly happen is not a virus, but someone tampering with the routing protocol itself: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/how-an-indonesian-isp-took-down-the-mighty-google-for-30-minutes/

[Zuqq]

I was surprised to see a lot of people here saying not much would happen or that they would read some books.... I think internet death could be one of the scariest things for human kind.

Not because Facebook would be down.. But because so much of the world relys on connections. Such as: stock market, traffic lights, logistics of gas and food and other necessities, business checkouts, ATM machines, debit and credit machines, and almost anything you can think of has some root in the internet. It would be devastating within hours. Im sure riots would be instigated (lack of cameras, afterall), and the police would have a hard time considering a lot of their tools and communication are done via the net.

Not very fun to think about.

[magnemoe]

The very good thing is that it is extremely unlikely that the physical networks are in problem. But the biggest thing that can make this possibly happen is not a virus, but someone tampering with the routing protocol itself: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/how-an-indonesian-isp-took-down-the-mighty-google-for-30-minutes/

However routing problems is even easier to fix than a router firmware virus.

And face it we are very dependent on internet, facebook is not the issue, all sort of business to business communication, more important communications inside companies would be disrupted.

Take one typical example: you want an spare part, its in local storage in the same building however the storage system is online and central, this is nice as it let all the other shops know who other might have the parts, however if internet is down they are unable to find anything. This happened to me regarding car part once.

Even trough the opposition in Syria uses the internet a lot the government has not shut it down during the bloody civil war as its so vital to business.

[GreeningGalaxy]

I don't think "nothing" would happen in the first hour or first minute if the internet got shut down. There's a ridiculous number of stock trades and things happening over the internet every second, and if all of those suddenly stopped (we can probably also assume that a lot of important data that was in server memory at the time is going to go missing), there would be some issues. Probably a stock market crash in any nation that relies on electronic stock exchange, which is probably pretty much every nation that has a stock exchange these days.

That is, of course, assuming that whatever disaster wiped out the internet didn't already render the stock markets vacant on its own.

[relin]

There are huge sections of the first-world economy that would grind to a halt if the internet went down. That's more than an annoyance, and that'll happen immediately before getting worse. Beyond that, we'd survive.

[cicatrix]

May I remind you that the world did just fine without Internet some 30 years ago. Many people in the world don't (can't) use it even now. So, I feel pretty calm for our civilization. We're speaking about the lack of usual comfort, not a vital necessity.

[Zuqq]

May I remind you that the world did just fine without Internet some 30 years ago. Many people in the world don't (can't) use it even now. So, I feel pretty calm for our civilization. We're speaking about the lack of usual comfort, not a vital necessity.

There are so many things beyond comfort provided by the internet. Not to repeat myself, but traffic lights, stock exchange, banking systems, logistics and delivery systems, etc etc etc all so heavily rely on the internet.

It is much different to strip away the internet after so much has been built to rely on it, versus 30+ years ago where nothing was built with the internet in mind.

[cicatrix]

There are so many things beyond comfort provided by the internet. Not to repeat myself, but traffic lights, stock exchange, banking systems, logistics and delivery systems, etc etc etc all so heavily rely on the internet.

It is much different to strip away the internet after so much has been built to rely on it, versus 30+ years ago where nothing was built with the internet in mind.

Banking system existed back in 12th century, traffic lights can be reverted back to analog, same with the stock exchange. Internet makes things done faster and cheaper, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary. Mankind WON'T die if we wake up tomorrow and see no internet connection. It will be a crisis of sorts, but things will settle out rather quickly.

[Robotengineer]

Interesting idea, it would mean that I would get back to work instead of browsing the forums.

It depends on the length of the outage, are we talking weeks? Months? Years? Assuming a long outage, the economy would tank, paper would become popular and the USPS would finally have something to deliver. If it were to go out because of a bug, it would probably take a less than a month to fix. If it was a hardware issue, or cyber-terror attack, possibly longer.

[Zuqq]

Banking system existed back in 12th century, traffic lights can be reverted back to analog, same with the stock exchange. Internet makes things done faster and cheaper, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary. Mankind WON'T die if we wake up tomorrow and see no internet connection. It will be a crisis of sorts, but things will settle out rather quickly.

12th century banking systems didn't use massive servers to communicate between branches, execute transactions and trades. Nor did they have thousands upon thousands of branches serving millions or billions of people. (And what about all the money which isn't physical? Any electronically tracked funds not covered by gold reserves... Bitcoins..) Im sure the banking industry would adapt, eventually... But it wouldn't be "settled quickly". So many investments and funds are tracked, traded etc via computer it would be rediculous to think we would have the manpower to suddenly go analog. A lot of trading is done in an automated fashion via programs and the internet... The sheer amount of people holding an account... Economic collapse would be inevitable.

Traffic lights can be reverted, yes. Currently all traffic lights (where Im from, at least) monitor and execute light changes via cameras, communication with nearby lights, and servers to compute the data. Humans have almost nil input. So, while it may be possible to revert, it would take a ginormous amount of man power (again) and time which is not likely with everything else that would be going on. Think of the manpower that would be needed to make sure NYC funtions even at 50% of what it does now.

I'm not saying the internet is necessary for human survival. What I am saying is that the collapse of the internet, in all probability, would create mass riots, looting, destruction, etc. And it would definitely not "settle out rather quickly". Once it settled, Im sure we would all be fine. But you would be niave to assume the net dissapearing would be just an inconvenience.

Please note that those are just two examples that popped into my head... Many professions would become extinct leading to mass unemployment. Many professions would be suddenly overwhelmed and it's not like the unemployed IT techs are going to be trained in analog banking methods or logistics. The logistics industrry would collapse on itself and food/mail/equipment/water deliveries would become much harder to plan

Edit: Thought of a few more to add to the list... Blood donor banks, hospitals, power grid, construction industry, any cloud based company, insurance companies (imagine if all of a sudden everything had to be handled on paper and by hand), cellphone companies and infrastructure (much of the info is stored globally on servers), the intelligence industry (governments intelligence is oft communicated and stored via internet). Not to mention just the sheer cost of changing all these industried back to paper-based.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Zuqq

[pincushionman]

I imagine it would be akin to an extended power outage, which we have had fairly recently in the northeastern US.

But that's assuming the effect is limited to the system and the cause of that damage is not itself a disaster. The internet is the least of your worries if the problem is really a network of nuclear strikes on your territory.

[Albert VDS]

If the Internet would go down as a whole then it would be up again in no time.

No time being the amount of time it would take to fix the bug, virus or anything else.

I would say within a week.

[StrandedonEarth]

It all depends on the cause. If the Net went down but computers were still running, it wouldn't be a catastrophe compared to what could happen: a massive CME that overwhelms everything electrical. Perhaps even the solar system passing into an interstellar cloud of charged gas that overwhelms even the Sun's magnetic field. The only thing not affected would be fiber optics and anything running completely on photonics. Back to the Dark ages!

[J.Random]

I just have to.

[*Aqua*]

I imagine it would be akin to an extended power outage, which we have had fairly recently in the northeastern US.

You can't compare that with an power outage. Loss of communication quickly leads to loss of organization. Today we can't quickly switch back to messengers whose will travel the country. You can't recrute enough people for that fast enough.

That means national structures break down as goverment, police, army, everybody have no means to secure everything. If there are robbers at your door how do you want to call for help? It's impossible.

The worst is that the supply chains will break down. Especially big cities will have a problem with that as the stores will be emptied quickly. It's likely that millions will starve to dead withing the first two weeks.

Banking system existed back in 12th century, traffic lights can be reverted back to analog, same with the stock exchange. Internet makes things done faster and cheaper, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary. Mankind WON'T die if we wake up tomorrow and see no internet connection. It will be a crisis of sorts, but things will settle out rather quickly.

You are talking about structures which were already there and which were tuned to what was possible then. Today nothing of that survived, it was all replaced by the internet in a lengthly process. Or does every city and village still has two horse available for every messenger which passes by?

Don't expect them to come by car. Gas will be rare very soon.

If the Internet would go down as a whole then it would be up again in no time.

No time being the amount of time it would take to fix the bug, virus or anything else.

I would say within a week.

Do you still think nothing will get damaged by a communication loss on that scale? It'll take years to get everything running again.

[Albert VDS]

Do you still think nothing will get damaged by a communication loss on that scale? It'll take years to get everything running again.

Sure it will be a worldwide economical disaster and would cost a lot of money to get it up and running again.

But it won't be week, let alone months.

It's not like only a handful of people would be working on this problem and it's not like we need to reinvent the Internet.

The whole economical part would be a great driver to throw a lot of people and money at it.