Suppose World War III breaks out. Could the internet as we know it break down? And by that I don’t mean that, for example, German websites no longer work, but that nothing works anymore, nowhere in the world. Or nowhere in a large area.
Answer
The Internet was designed from the ground up to withstand local technical problems. The core of this error resistance lies in the way in which network messages find their way over the Internet: if a certain connection (or an entire sub-network) fails, alternative routes can be found. Therefore, it is difficult to “shut down” the entire Internet.
If we focus specifically on the World Wide Web, it is true that the web relies heavily on converting the names of websites to their underlying IP address (the so-called DNS, Domain Name System). DNS has a number of security flaws, which basically make it possible to redirect users to faulty servers, making parts of the web inaccessible. That is why ways have been worked out to overcome these shortcomings, such as DNSSEC (http://www.dnssec.net/dns-threats.php).
In the recent past, parts of the Internet have already gone down, due to earthquakes, hurricanes, large-scale power outages, the breaking of submarine cables, etc., but the rest of the network continued to work as usual. So the answer to your question will depend on the scale of the damage being caused.
Answered by
Prof. dr. Dr Wim Lamotte
Computer Science Multimedia Networking Internet Networked Virtual Environments
Agoralaan University Campus Building D BE-3590 Diepenbeek
http://www.uhasselt.be/
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