6 Threats that Could Break the Internet As We Know It
An open source developer showed recently how the Internet -- or a fairly large number of websites, at least -- could be "broken" by removing just a few lines of code. But that's only one type of threat to the functioning of a healthy Internet. Here are other scenarios that could cause the Internet as we know it to stop working.
![6 Threats that Could Break the Internet As We Know It 6 Threats that Could Break the Internet As We Know It](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt10004cb53146bd39/6538ebca19bafc4957f16f2e/GettyImages-466343211_0.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Open standards and protocols are crucial to the Internet as we've known it for the past several decades. At times, companies have tried to impose proprietary standards to gain a market advantage. They've almost always failed. (Example: the Samba project succeeded in reverse-engineering Microsoft's proprietary networking protocol, assuring that all systems — not just Windows — could use the service.) But there's no guarantee this will always be the case.
Internet Exchanges are the physical nodes where different service providers' networks meet and exchange traffic. Without them, information would stop flowing on the Internet. Since there are a number of Internet Exchanges across the world, breaking one of them would not cause the entire Internet to go down. But there are fewer major Internet Exchanges than you might think — only about a few dozen total — and large geographic regions can be dependent on a single one. So losing even just one Internet Exchange could significantly disrupt Internet connectivity for a lot of people.
In recent years, large content providers have attempted to collude with large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to purchase priority access to the Internet. That would mean that large organizations could deliver their websites or services to consumers much faster than smaller ones. It would be a crushing blow to the open Internet as we know it. So far, regulators like the FCC have resisted such attempts. But there are strong political and moneyed interests pushing against an open Internet. This threat continues to loom.
Online censorship deliberately breaks the Internet by restricting access to certain websites or applications. Censorship has long been common in places like China. But it's on the rise in more democratic societies, too. And it's no longer just about naked political opportunism: Policymakers are increasingly finding themselves choosing between policies that promote an open Internet and laws designed to protect the public against people using the Internet toward nefarious ends. For example, last fall's terrorist attacks in Paris prompted draft legislation in France that would curtail online openness. Whatever you think about the efficacy of such measures for protecting public safety, you can't deny that they would mean a less open Internet.
"Hackers" — or the kind that are up to no good, at least — have long used various types of attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assaults, to block websites or apps. Service providers and website administrators have been fighting these battles for years. Yet they still lack a good way of preventing these attacks. With DDoS attacks increasing in frequency, hackers remain a real and present threat to a healthy Internet.
As the Internet constantly grows, so does the amount of bandwidth required to access it. Since adding bandwidth requires expensive investment in infrastructure, bandwidth can't always keep up with the expansion of the Internet itself. There are already signs that a majority of U.S. consumers lack the bandwidth they need to make the most of the modern Internet. This is a problem that's only likely to get worse as existing data pipelines become ever more limited.
As the Internet constantly grows, so does the amount of bandwidth required to access it. Since adding bandwidth requires expensive investment in infrastructure, bandwidth can't always keep up with the expansion of the Internet itself. There are already signs that a majority of U.S. consumers lack the bandwidth they need to make the most of the modern Internet. This is a problem that's only likely to get worse as existing data pipelines become ever more limited.
An open source developer showed recently how the Internet — or a fairly large number of websites, at least — could be "broken" by removing just a few lines of code. But that's only one type of threat to the functioning of a healthy Internet. Here are other scenarios that could cause the Internet as we know it to stop working.
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