We have all faced poor internet connections. But could the entire internet ever collapse? Scientists explain whether this is possible, reports Focus.
Whether it’s a work access failure or an interruption in streaming your favorite show, the inconveniences associated with an unreliable internet connection are familiar to everyone. Major outages in recent years have reminded us that the internet can also face significant problems and paralyze everyday tasks. But is it ever possible for the entire internet, worldwide, to go down? Live Science reports on this.
The internet is often referred to as the "network of networks," as it includes networks connecting various devices in homes, businesses, public places, and so on. Therefore, for the entire internet to go down, many infrastructure elements would need to be affected simultaneously within a short time frame.
George Cybenko, an expert in information systems from Dartmouth College, says it is possible, but it would require significant resources and a tremendous number of coincidences. Thus, while a global internet collapse is a possible event, it is extremely unlikely.
According to Cybenko, from the very beginning, the internet was designed with a significant degree of "randomness and distributed asynchronicity," making a complete system failure highly improbable and difficult to induce. The scientist explains that there are local networks within homes or offices that can continue to function even if the global internet experiences a crash.
When information is transmitted over the internet, such as when a text message is sent from one smartphone to another, it is broken down into small packets of information, each of which is directed along the shortest available path in the network. This means that even if one of these routes fails, the message can still reach its destination since there is a long list of alternatives.
This alone protects the entire network from a complete failure due to physical damage, such as if an underwater cable is cut or a major internet hub loses power, or due to software damage caused by system failures or hackers. Even when a major internet infrastructure provider, such as Cloudflare, goes down, the outage may last only a few hours and not spread to other providers or systems.
If a more extensive failure occurs, such as due to a powerful and unexpected solar storm, troubleshooting may take time. However, according to Cybenko, many governments and large companies have plans for recovery after significant internet outages and for quickly resuming operations, which include cloud storage and backup power generators.
At the same time, the consequences of a large-scale internet failure could damage critical infrastructure that relies on the internet. But so far, scientists do not predict the occurrence of such a strong solar storm.
William Dutton from the University of Oxford states that as the internet expands, it becomes more resilient to potential threats. Therefore, the scientist believes that while an internet collapse is possible, he doubts it will ever happen.
