How could the US government "shut down the internet"?

[Gatopescado]

[The Waco Kid] When? [/The Waco Kid]

[drewder]

@gnoitall

The magic of routing algorithms: all providers dependent on those no-longer-available US centers would find alternate peering arrangements. And by “finding”, I don’t mean human beings getting on the phone and talking to people they’ve never talked to before. I mean the routers themselves doing the computer equivalent of a little shrug and moving down on a pre-existing list of alternate routes for everyone else in the universe.

The Internet is full of automated "plan B"s. The world’s connectivity would miss US-premise networks for approximately 10 seconds.

I disagree without the US backbone the internet would grind to a crawl as every truck on the planet would get overloaded in seconds.

[UDS]

@drewder

I disagree without the US backbone the internet would grind to a crawl as every truck on the planet would get overloaded in seconds.

You have to remember that, as well as losing all the US-based infrastructure and capacity, if the US is cut off from the internet then you’re also losing all the USbased content, and much of the user demand. So there’s less material on the internet, and less people looking for it. Americans aren’t looking for anything at all, since they are disconnected, and the rest of the world isn’t using bandwith to download US-hosted content, since it isn’t there to be downloaded.

As to whether the loss of infrastructure and capacity is a bigger factor than the loss of content and reduction in demand or the other way around, I can’t say. But you have to take both into account in assessing the overall impact of isolating the US from the internet.

And recall this; the internet was designed to be dispersed, and to be resilient to the loss of significant parts of the system. You should be able to take out huge chunks of it, and have the rest of it still work fine.

[Me_Billy]

They only shut down the internet for spring cleaning…

Internet Spring Cleaning

[doorhinge]

@JohnT

…Also, you know, Skynet could evolve. We’ll need to stop that shit in time if it ever happens, right?

Regardless, is there a way the US government can actually shut down the internet? Or is the knowledge of how to connect computers too widespread to be suppressed?

The internet is connected by wire (or glass fiber). Assuming your internet connection leaves your building, the wires are connected to some TPC (The Phone Company) switching machine. Illegally/legally forcing TPC to stop switching calls kills almost all internet traffic. As well as all phone calls and data traffic. Skynet lives.

[UDS]

@doorhinge

The internet is connected by wire (or glass fiber). Assuming your internet connection leaves your building, the wires are connected to some TPC (The Phone Company) switching machine. Illegally/legally forcing TPC to stop switching calls kills almost all internet traffic. As well as all phone calls and data traffic. Skynet lives.

But that, done by the US government, would still only isolate US-based users from the internet. It wouldn’t “shut down the internet”, which is what the OP asks about.