The internet should have a plan B

[TaraJo]

It's called picking up a phone and calling 911.

It isn't as simple as that.

When I go around, I'm surprised how much the world depends on the internet nowadays. Even something as simple as looking for a part time job winds up being centered around the internet with all the companies telling you to apply online. Some (like Wal Mart and Target) have done away with paper applications entirely and rely exclusively on computerized applications.

I've done hospitals, so I know what the problems would be with them. And, yes, our emergency services have gotten dependent. You go to a different hospital, how do you think they get your medical records? And the big, scary part is, they no longer have the inferstructure to get those records and give them to other hospitals without the internet. That's the kind of stuff that scares me; we become so dependent on something that's so fragile.

[Walking Void]

Might You be suggesting that internet across the globe simply ceases? What would cause this? My suggestions are at a ludicrous planetary scale: aliens attack, or countries deploy massive EMP weaponry, or a cosmic body happens to enter too close to earth causing a catastrophe in the scope of electromagnetism.

And the internet is unlikely to fall altogether, after all, DNS servers are spread throughout the world. The internet is not centralized anywhere.