i just laugh and somehow cry if hackers decide to hack the internet and destroy the internet, but i would laugh at they stupidy to hack the net and destroy.. and how else they will contuine they hacking work.

but without internet it will suck, but at least "Technology" wont die

The point is in this discussion as I have probably already mentioned in some other post of mine more about semantics. Since we are all talking about destruction of the internet, and that is OK. However some of you are talking about destruction of the internet in the sens of viruses produced from hackers companies that produce antiviral software governments and so on. And some of you are talking about hardware like fiber optics microwave dishes and so on.

So the point here is to express your opinion in the right way otherwise we will go on and on, and no one would be able to find the right answer someone might write good thing and then someone else comes and says it cannot be destroyed. My point is that everything human has mad human can destroy. And this has proven several times over history and in fact troughout history when people were talking this cannot be destroyed and so on. Eventually human find a way.

Now on the topic again.

So hardware I will repeat this once more hardware can be destroyed in the sens that you would explode nuclear bomb on certain high that would as repercussion produce EMP pulse or more correct electro magnetic pulse. And this would destroy all electronics equipment in reach that is all electronics equipment with integrated board. I had once opportunity to see simulation in which EMP pulse would destroy all technology in the North America. Also I would use this opportunity to note that anyone interested in similar science fiction post apocalyptic stories should watch Jericho television series from CBS.

And onther important thing is to destroy internet backbone. You do not have to destroy real every single fiber optics and server in the world you may destroy just internet backbone and it will prove as enough to prevent internet from working on the international and essentially world bases. Some local and localized networks might work. However they wouldn't have connection to the outter world

Now the other important question is about software and this might prove more difficult. Since it would require much more knowledge and much more preparations. Why? Well simple fact comes from the point that internet is made from computers that function on different perating systems and the one thaa t woud like to destroy internet or make it unworkable should be able to write cross platform virus and this is really hard in the essence probably for the next few years impossible.

This is all for now. But nontheless this is really interesting discussion.

i don't think that they can destroy the internet.. powerful countries will not allow it.. and lastly, if they destroy the internet what will they get in the first place?.. destroying it makes no sense at all.. at least on my own opinion

Well you should set up your case in a bit smarter way that is in the more explanatory way. It depends who would like to destroy internet since many contries will gain by destroying or at least blocking something.

The point I would like to explain here is somewhat connected to the basic theory of economy and it is actually economy problem studying the gain from certain action. So the thing is that government of certain country. I will take here to examples mainly United States and let's say Jordan. Since I assume Jordan has not so much influence from the internet and internet based companies and further on. And it is well known fact that they had some connections to the terrorist activities. (Please not that this is just example and do not discuss any further this as this topic oughts to be connected only to destruction of internet.)

So let's say they weight their options out and figure out that they would be able to harm western world more in case of destroying or better to say disabling New York's Stock Trading Market (commonly known as Wall Street.) So Jordan decides to harm western world harm economy and so on and finances terrorist group to organize cells and works from underground to disable the Wall Street.

Now we have target (United States of America) and we have financial source (some stash funds of Jordan) and we have people to do job some angry terrorists who would like to harm wester civilization and way of life (terrorist group) and we have also more specific target (Wall Stree). And I forgot to mention reason (harming western way of life). This fulfills all the reasons why would someone like to do this. Now let's continue and work some feasible plan that this group could do.

Let's say New York and Wall Street dependencies. New York needs interruptible power supply at least Wall Street needs it. Then they need the same internet connection to the internet.

One way to kill these two needs is to attack heavily secured systems. Which is problematic needs a lot more planning and furthermore it may be impossible after 9/11.

On the other hand they could attack systems that are not defended however these are of the importance to the working of the other systems. So let's say they would kill several electrical (hhmmm, I have figured that I cannot remember this word in English so I will describe it: you have these electrical connections on the columns (polls) that are used for transferring electrical power from power plants. Hopefully it was clear enough.) The point is they would bomb several of these and hamper power supply. Then they would set several bomb all over the city. That would explode and they would send someone of them to go to certain location where he would certainly be caught and then when someone would question him he would give targets like some important buildings and one of them would be Wall Street. No one would risk that so they would have to close it. However since Wall Street is able to function remotely that is you can access all the information over the internet. They would have to hamper internet servers or something. So hampering power supply is already really good blow. Now there they could cut some cables this is really accessible system and can be done simulationusly.

this would further traffic bandwidth rates and harm it.

Now then I have one problem how would they kill satellite uplink this would be really hard if you have considered that Wall Street is highly protected.

So the point is that it can be done via third grade systems and it would certainly bring havoc in the business world.

Furthermore, this can be done on the larger scale with cutting out continents since bandwidth between continents and many countries is still highly dependent on the optical cables. And if one would cut optical cables between continents bandwidth rates would be cutted down really fast. Disabling the processing and passing of the informations.

One more please don't discuss terrorist this was just example that it can be done on small scale. And in the end I have provided idea about larger scale.

You know, it actually would be possible to storm the Internet by creating an AI worm that could find its way through anything; even heavily secured systems. It would just change its digital signature while hacking other people's computers and changing its source address every time. Most residential computers are quite vulnerable to highly advanced attacks, so if the worm developed itself into a (Okay, I admit it; I'm getting my ideas from the "Rockman.EXE" series) massive system of servers, where all the computers it infects are out of the user's control, then the Internet really would be shut down for... about 4 days.

Here would be the requirements for such a massive attack:

A completely unique operating system that is not derived from Windows. (You can't use Linux or anything because those operating systems are not customized, and you can't use Windows because it's uncustomizable.) You could derive it from UNIX because it's open source...

A very good AI system would be needed, for sure. The current capacities for computers today would not be able to fit the requirement for this AI, because the management system would have to be decentralized. The worm would have to be self-executing, and it would have to be able to make copies of itself, all while transmitting data to the original servers wherever the terrorist group is hosted (Argh. I mean, "is situated"...) Of course, there would have to be more than one type of worm. Also, to be able to communicate with other worms that it works with (Remember that this terrorist attack doesn't shut down the servers immediately.) to work on cracking encryption for the main servers would take a helluva long time as well. Remember, that a small percentage (perhaps 10 to 20%) of all the computers are working on brute-forcing the highly-secured systems.

Destorying the net? Thats like the old cartoon of the guy that was on the net one day, and found the page. "You have now reached the end of the internet." It would be so hard to take down all the servers that hold the net. then you have to think of the old BBS systems. "back before the net, when we all used dialup to call one PC to another" They would not only have to take out the web but also the phone lines too.

Well, that's easy. Just deploy a few satellites and give everyone 4200-MHz tinnitus (In other words, emit an inaudible signal that phone lines will pick up and mistake for messages). The phone lines will all be jammed. Of course, it would be a huge setback if all the servers were shut down, anyway... but like I said, that giant terrorism method I was talking about lasts for about 4 days. There's no possible way to shut down the Internet completely.