Sep 19, 2012 11:40 AM
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Could someone really destroy the whole Internet?
In just 40 years, our whole civilization has
become dependent on the Internet, in more ways than we could count. So
when you hear activist groups threatening to crash the whole thing, or doomsday preppers warning of a global Internet failure, it's pretty scary.
But could someone actually bring the entire Internet down? We asked an expert.
Taking
down the Internet is a lot easier said than done, according to IT
expert Dewayne Hendricks, and the Internet is very much here to stay.
Known as the "Broadband Cowboy," Hendricks has worked with AT&T, Cisco, WorldCom, and Lucent, and is currently CEO of Tetherless Access Inc.
"The first thing you need to know about the Internet," Hendricks tells io9, "is that there is no such thing as ‘the' Internet."
Simple, independent, and distributed
The
Internet, says Hendricks, is "merely a series of highly distributed
packet switchers." Most people get this wrong, he argues. "People tend
to think it's this one thing — and it's not — it's important to get this
idea across that it's thousands of independently owned and operated
networks — networks that are tied together by physical connections that
use a common protocol."
It's this very quality that has endowed the Internet with the capacity
to not just remain live and active under extreme circumstances, but to
repair itself and adapt when necessary. Taking the Internet down,
therefore, is very much like trying to herd cats. It's essentially a
network of networks.
And indeed, there has been some speculation
about what it would take to bring down the entire Internet. Earlier this
year, Gizmodo's Sam Biddle made a heroic effort at trying to figure out
how to destroy the Internet,
suggesting that it could be done (however unlikely) by cutting all the
cables that bind the Internet together, ruining the root servers, and
destroying all the data centers. Assuming this could be done, all the
world's digital data would be left frozen on local machines. "Nothing
can get anywhere, because all the roads, bridges, and traffic lights are
in ruin," Biddle writes, "All that's left of the Internet is your
office intranet, or the file-swapping in your dorm. The tiny shreds.
There are nets, but none of them are inter."
Unfortunately — or
fortunately depending on your persuasion — Biddle is not exactly
correct. What he failed to realize is that, where there's people,
there's an Internet.
Countermeasures and adaptations
Taking
a step back from Biddle's quasi-apocalyptic scenario, and assuming the
onset of more modest attacks against the Internet, there's no question
that disruptions can and will happen. Parts of the net do go down from
time-to-time, making it inaccessible for some — albeit temporarily.
"Eventually the information will route around the dead spots and bring
you back in," says Hendricks.
And indeed, people are constantly
trying to develop new technologies that can take out increasingly larger
swaths of the Internet — but their efforts are as futile as they are
naive. "There are attacks all the time, [but] all that needs to happen
are mutually agreed upon countermeasures," noted Hendricks.
For
example, he explains how there are currently two Internet protocols in
play, IPv4 and IPv6. Should someone be successful at taking down all the
addresses of IPv6, there's still IPv4 as a backup. Moreover, anyone can
run a DNS server and establish a root DNS to create a database of URLs
and corresponding IPs.
Hendricks also describes how adjustments
like configuration changes to routers, the use of alternative root
servers, and other on-the-fly adaptations make things like Denial of
Service (DOS) and other cyber attacks merely temporary inconveniences.
They're like mosquito bites on an elephant.
Hendricks points to another very real example: The Darknet. This
private, distributed peer-to-peer filesharing network has eluded law
enforcement officials who are trying to develop new technologies to take
it down. But by using non-standard protocols and ports, and by using
anonymous routing techniques, the Darknet remains unhindered.
There's
also the issue of China — a country that has tried to block-out large
swaths of the Internet — and not very successfully. "There are a good
number of people who have the technical skills to get around their
blocking measures," noted Hendricks. Quoting computer scientist John
Gilmore, he noted that "The net interprets censorship as damage and
routes around it."
Like fighting the Borg
"The Internet works like the Borg Collective of Star Trek
— it's basically a kind of hive mind," he adds. Essentially, because
it's in everybody's best interest to keep the Internet up and running,
there's a constant effort to patch and repair any problems. "It's like
trying to defeat the Borg — a system that's massively distributed,
decentralized, and redundant."
Like the Borg, the Internet simply mounts resources and finds a way to
bring itself back. It also learns and adapts — like ensuring that
packets aren't routed to networks that aren't trusted. "The Internet is
people," said Hendricks, "and it works like a hive mind."
Ad hoc communications
The
ability to retain access to the Internet's resources is essentially
about maintaining connections — and as Hendricks notes, there's plenty
of ways to do it. Just because physical cables and wires can be cut, and
root servers and data centers gutted (even en masse), this doesn't mean
there still won't be ways for people to re-establish connections. In
the event of a catastrophe and severe damage to the IT infrastructure,
it's likely that people hell-bent on getting the Internet back up will
successfully do so through informal ad hoc communications.
For
example, there would still be the low-Earth communication satellites
that allocate a portion of bandwidth to regular IP traffic. These
comsats could establish connections between wireless devices or any
other terminal that still has access to fiber cables. As an example,
this is how the military re-established connections after the 2006
tsunami disaster in Thailand — they set up a satellite connection from
one point, sent their signals up into space, and then down to a
receiving terminal. Instant network.
But assuming these satellites could somehow be taken down (which would
really require military action), there's still the potential for single
packet radios — a form of packet-switching technology that's used to
transmit digital data via radio or wireless links. If enough people have
access to these devices, and each unit is within range of at least one
other packet radio, there will still be an Internet. And according to
Hendricks, devices like these are the real deal, with over 4,000
wireless IPs in the United States alone. Such devices could be propped
up in weather balloons or UAVs, and tracked using GPS.
Now, this
may not be ‘the' Internet that we're familiar with today, but it'll be a
network that connects people nonetheless. These "seed" networks might
start out small, but they would grow over time — especially when they
start to come into contact with other recovering networks.
The Internet is people
Hendricks
points to real world examples in which IT infrastructures were severely
compromised, including New Orleans after Katrina, and Egypt during the
uprisings. Both of these regions had temporary disruptions, but were up
in a startlingly short amount of time. These examples bring another
aspect of the Internet to mind — the idea that people will quickly
scramble to restore damaged infrastructure. Now that we have the
Internet we have become like ants who have had their ant hills swept
away by a storm; we quickly scramble to work and restore the network.
Thinking more catastrophically, we asked Hendricks what would happen in
the event of a massive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) as a result of
either a malicious attack or a super solar storm. It's thought that such
an event would bring down electrical grids and render all electronic
equipment useless. "No global EMP or cascade is going to cover the
entire planet," he answered, "the Internet will survive even local
EMPs." He believes that the portions of the world who did still have the
Internet would send supplies to areas that didn't, and quickly
re-establish a communications infrastructure. "The Internet would be up
much quicker than we think," he said.
"The Internet is not just
technology, it's people — you can trust people, they're resilient," he
said, "look at what they do in emergencies — we always answer to a
greater calling."
Pausing for a moment to reflect, Hendricks
closed our conversation by saying, "The only way to bring down the
Internet is to get rid of all the people."
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