Can the internet be turned off?

[plastikaa]

I was thinking with so much that relys on the internet and the huge numbers of people who use the internet could the interent be switched off? - wouldn't it cause chaos, havok, mayhem? And with all the build up of datd on the internet are we creating 'data pollution' a lot of stuff gets duplicated and repeated and never desposed of. So how long will the internet last - forever?

When I say can it be turned off I dont mean is there like a big switch or button that simply goes 'internet on' and 'internet off' - (that would be so funny if there was), what I mean is can it be turned off a not cause any problems will it ever be able to be turned off, or will it simply evolve more and more. Books exist for thousands of years and are dug out of the ground etc. but many are destroyed, but what with our information? it just gets puts into electronic format and well what then will it always exist or what?

Have humans created something far worse that polution from fossil fuels... is everyone ignoring the obvious... we are building up huge amounts of data every day on the internet and the majority doesnt get disposed off. Maybe we will just have to figure out how to store everything in more and more comapct spaces.

I'm going tostop wiritng now its hurting my head thinking what could happen and what might happen. Im sure a load of you will have your own crazy/sensible ideas here are just a few of mine :P

1. Aliens attack realise how dependat we are on computers let off a massive EM pulse and wipe out every computer on the planet.

2. The same as above but us stupid humans do it to each other in a massive war, or a massive nuke something similar.

3. The internet evolves, computers become so ittelligent they learn to read and prune our information, and get rid of unneccessary info that is simply a duplicate of what already exists.

4. Something similar to the matrix... ignoring what actually happens in the end. (we get over run my robots/computers)

5. So much technology becomes available and we all cant cope with it at one time, as a result we simply stop using computers or we destroy them.

6. We get hit by a massive asteroid,so big that nothing can stop id... computers have nothing to do with it.

7. Computers simply stop evolving we reach what I would call "the technological limit" nothing can be developed any futher - everyone lives forever - we know everything - we control everything etc. etc. ( can this really happen though? :S )

8. Our natural resources run out, we start to use materials from space, we bring them back to earth to build mroe stuff... the build up it wieght slows the earth down and we go into the sun and get destroyed.

Cant think of any more - its crazy what will happen in the future I think 3. would be the most logical step forward but its still worrying if robots became that intelligent what they would do. Im not really worrying I dotn think I will see any of this in my life time but what does the future hold?

[snowmonkey]

Wow...

You know what, I don't have an answer for your question and I think your question deserves a great thoughtful answer (which I don't have)...... but what I wanted to say was, I always enjoy reading an objective view of a common issue that passes by us with out any attention from most of us........... what makes it most intriguing to me is: what did spark that thought ?


cheers

[davidwebb]

tricky i am not totally sure but have you got virus software installed and have you done a windows update !

[snowmonkey]

Originally posted by davidwebb
tricky i am not totally sure but have you got virus software installed and have you done a windows update !

davidwebb, did you even read the original post ??


cheers

[plastikaa]

I have all the windows updates available for XP and no viruses unless 2 virus scanners missed them and adaware. But I don't understand what that has to do with anything!

what did spark that thought ?

Well I was talking to a friend and hes not very knowledgeable about computers, then he started to ask me why a certain websites weren't working... he asked me if the internet was 'broke' or had someone turned the websites 'off'. Then that sparked the whole idea. Also after another disucssuion with someone else it came to the conclusion of it depends what you class as the internet and what you class as off?

I think we need some real big internet boffin who knows the entire workings of the internet to answer this one.

Please, oh Please I hope the answer is: "Yes there is a big red switch with on and off... very similar to a light switch!"

[snowmonkey]

Maybe we should ask Al Gore if there is such thing as Big Red Button

http://www.sethf.com/gore/

cheerw

[Jazz]

Hi plastikaa

Jees dude, what were you tripping on when you posted that message. LOL

Seriously though, check the following site out. Kind of funky, in a cool way........There again, one of my hero's is Patrick Moore.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

[banzai]

The idea that important information may exist on the Internet for a short time & then disappear has been taken seriously.

I seem to remember reading something on BBC News website in the last month that either the British Library or the British Museum was building a permanent archive of web pages which they felt offered future historians an insight into present day British culture.

Of course they only save what they like, so if they were working in the seventies the Sex Pistols. Clash etc. would have been consigned to the bin, but at least its a start.

[blizey]

How is all this info stored? Can you give me a link that explains it? It's hard to believe that, whatever a person types onto the net will remain as a permanent record for eternity.

My theory is that someday soon, there will be a big crash...and whoever didn't think to backup (it could be small businesses or large corporations), who took the internet for granted and they will be scratching their behinds. Because the people that are "growing up" with the internet might see it as a constant.

There is only so much space. The molecular construction of this world is only so big. There must be a limit, because trees in a forest will die out if there isn't any space, animals will die out, if their place is taken over by development. You have to wonder how all the electronic devices are affecting the area that we live in.

[RTJ232]

well the 'pipelines' could surely be shutdown by whoever owns them. Isnt the internet just a massive network. Made up of hubs and leafs. If enough hubs are turned off there is no network. It probely isnt as simple as this but thats my theroy. So if whoever owned the lines that the internet is run on shut them off we would be stuck right? anyway jus my 2 cents

[plastikaa]

Originally posted by RTJ232
well the 'pipelines' could surely be shutdown by whoever owns them. Isnt the internet just a massive network. Made up of hubs and leafs. If enough hubs are turned off there is no network. It probely isnt as simple as this but thats my theroy. So if whoever owned the lines that the internet is run on shut them off we would be stuck right? anyway jus my 2 cents

thats hell of a lot if you want to shut them all down... it really depends what you count as the internet though I think... or should that be Internet. Yep supposedly if you write internet its a smaller network possibly between a large company with a few factories or something across a country. While you are currently on the Internet. (if you are confused at what i just wrote look at the caps of the letter i infront of internet.

[ritarita]

5. So much technology becomes available and we all cant cope with it at one time, as a result we simply stop using computers or we destroy them.

The above statement has already happened to several friends of mine. They are so overwhelmed with technology the computer sits unused or is destroyed when they can't figure out how to check email or can't even get on the internet. go figure

ritarita

[escherplex]

Dr. Plastikaa, I presume

Here you've conflated the physical Internet with its information content, right? And you've got all this binary encoded information either zipping around in packets or lying resident in some archives somewhere, correct? Now you're wondering whether there is a plausable scenario in which all of this data and its support infrastructure can go away? Well, as you know, IP packets have a TTL (time-to-live) parameter so that they can't reasonably be expected to float around forever. And the archives on HDs have to be stored somewhere (tapes, optical disks) which in turn have to be nursed along, error checked, and recopied every decade or so because the physical media deteriorates. Which in turn requires competent human technicians tasked with that functionality. And that last link in the chain is the problem worrying all the academics I know who even bother to think about the future. Right now in the US the National Education Association bemoans the fact that the functional illiteracy rate is pushing 55 percent (!). Functional literacy is defined as the reading skills required for an entry level clerical job and the average high school graduate can't even meet that milestone. If this trend continues worldwide then who's going to be around in 20 years to maintain and run all the machines? The information space will just fade away.

On that gloomy note, I kind of liked the alien invasion idea better

[Kyliefan001]

It would be possible to shut the internet down but nobody has even come close to doing it.

There are 13 so called super nodes or servers that keep the internet traffic going, 7 in the US, 2 in Australia, 1 in Japan, 1 in the UK, 1 in Sweden and 1 in Germany. The internet requires only 4 of these to be fully operational to run smoothly. The closest anyone has come so far to shutting these servers down was a DOS attack which knocked out 3 of them for just 30 seconds.

These servers have so many lines of defense that the actual odds of shutting enough of them down for a sufficiant time to completely turn off the internet is 250 Trillion to 1. Even the worlds fastest computers combined couldn't do it!

Possible Yes, Probable NO!

[s7p9a2m4]

I think Plasticaa's very philosophical post is brilliant. (Or he's been reading too much sci-fi).

It makes one think. It makes one ask questions.

I see human-kind moving forward, adapting, exploring, surviving, and succeeding. Its our nature. There will always be pitfalls.