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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2016-09-24 21:10, William Flynn
Wallace wrote:<br>
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<blockquote
cite="mid:CAO+xQEbSqaJGfNvTZMc8b+4+jO3ZFt_iO1Aq648FLgAaNPEaFQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans
ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new
roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span
style="font-size:14pt;font-family:calibri,sans-serif">Now
our entire economy will not function without it. We
definitely need some kind of workaround if some commie
figures out how to do massive simultaneous DoS attacks.<span
class="gmail-HOEnZb"></span></span></p>
<span class="gmail-HOEnZb"
style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:27.2px"><font
color="#888888">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new
roman",serif"><span
style="font-size:14pt;font-family:calibri,sans-serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new
roman",serif"><span
style="font-size:14pt;font-family:calibri,sans-serif">spike</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new
roman",serif"><span
style="font-size:14pt;font-family:calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new
roman",serif"><span
style="font-size:14pt;font-family:calibri,sans-serif">Is
there any way of knowing which other countries could
not function either? I thought the web was backed up
a googleplex of times.</span><br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
No, first the web is not backed up. The closest is archive.org,
which is a private foundation in San Francisco storing things on
tape. There are some national libraries doing partial copies of
their own domains, but much of it is half-hearted.<br>
<br>
Second, it is not the web that matters. It is the communications
infrastructure. This email gets to you through the Internet. So does
withdrawing money from an ATM. So does buying oil for your company.
So does proving that you even work for your company at the keycard
reader. <br>
<br>
The problem is basically that a lot of our supply chains now depend
on the internet. Nobody truly understands what parts could have a
non-internet substitute, since the internet dependency might exist
in a small but important subsystem. Most phones run on backbones
that may or may not be dependent. The Swift credit infrastructure
presumably has its own backbone up to a point, but it is meshed with
internet systems. A lot of smart devices (now including cars) may
have vulnerabilities to the wrong kind of outages. And even if
supply chain A works fine, it might depend on supply chain B
working. If credit payments become impossible, it soon does not
matter if there is gas in the gas station, you can't buy it.<br>
<p>Presumably different countries can handle internet outages
differently well. Poorer countries where the infrastructure is old
will be locally fine, but of course vulnerable to external shocks
due to their poverty. Countries with a strong civil society and
high trust can handle much more (during the Irish bank strike in
the 60s people used IOUs to trade for months). The places where
real trouble would strike are complex societies relying on formal
rules, with key infrastructure dependencies (e.g. energy, water in
cold or dry areas), and with lower trust ratings.<br>
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<p><br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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