• gregorum@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    All of the companies that would instantly start losing a billion dollars per second would never allow this to happen. This isn’t some 3rd world country where Google and Apple and Facebook aren’t headquartered. The internet will always be happening here. They’re completely dependent on it and their customer’s constant access to it.

    • massacre@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Our econnomy is heavily tied to the Internet at this point. Billions in commerce are conducted directly and many billions more in enabled (“what’s the closest pizza place?”). Not to mention stock trading, banking, government services, healthcare, etc. You’re very much on track here and I don’t think it’s hyperbole.

      While it could technically happen that our government could legally shut down the internet, it wouldn’t last long or it means we are under attack (perhaps internally) and need to control damage/messaging.

      • gorkette@aussie.zone
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        11 months ago

        How much of the infrastructure is government owned? Any if it? I do not think he could do this even if he ordered it.

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          The alphabet agencies are fully capable of doing whatever is needed, they’re the ones that patch peoples systems for them or hack PCs through the power grid and other crazy shit.

          If the American government wants the internet to be cut off they’re capable of doing it without the assistance of the ISPs

  • TheLurker@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    This is literally impossible to do without total economic and social collapse. It’s like saying you are going to shut off the electrical grid.

    Moronic statements made by moronic people who don’t understand what the internet is and think internet = websites.

    • ashok36@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Right? No internet means no economy. Even the simplest daily things like getting gas require an internet connection.

      • TheLurker@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Literally every part of critical infrastructure has been connected to the internet.

        No internet means no water, electricity, emergency services, financial services, waste management…

        It’s the digital rod for our modern back.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Most of those emergency services have fall-backs for loss of connectivity. A lot of cases you need people manning consoles that are usually remote.

          Financial services are probably hardest hit. They still have a lot of private networks to keep themselves up say if they just iced DNS.

          But yeah, if they just proclaim no network anywhere financial would be doa.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      If there’s a civil war in the U.S., they’ll absolutely tank the economy to stop the people from rising up. They’re tyrants. They don’t care about the well-being of the country but about maintaining their power over others.

      • TheLurker@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Brownouts are not the same as shutting down the grid mate.

        SA has rolling brownouts because the grid cannot handle the demand. My example is that the whole grid shuts down. No country has ever done this.

      • MadMaurice@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        I think you missed the point the other person was trying to make. They mean shut off all electrical grids. I don’t think South Africa has that power.

    • vexikron@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      Hands you a hollowed out hard copy of 1984 with a Sig 320 inside

      We are going to need a lot more people trained in Gun Kata soon, Cleric.

      But for now, its dangerous to go alone, take this!

  • FireTower@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Miles Taylor, Trump’s former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was asked on MSNBC about what potential damage the former president, who is the frontrunner in the GOP primaries, could do in government without breaking the law.

    “The possibilities are almost limitless,” Taylor said. “The biggest concerns for me are on the national security side. I think Americans still don’t understand the full extent of the president’s powers and things Donald Trump could do, bubble-wrapped in legalese, that would be damaging to the republic.”

    “He could invoke powers we’ve never heard a President of the United States invoke—potentially to shut down companies or turn off the internet or deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil,” he added. "We don’t know because the things that are in there, the emergency powers of the president, aren’t widely known to the American people.

    • jdrch@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I doubt the president who lives on the internet & relies on it to connect with his superfans would disable it.

    • denshirenji@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      So no one said that he would or even may turn off the internet, but that he may use legalize and his emergency presidential powers, if elected, to do something crazy. The person talking about it was spitballing and included turning the internet off as a example of something crazy that he might do.

      Edit: He indeed talked about geoblocking countries with groups like ISIS operating within them. At least that is what I assume he meant with his word salad. This is from post below mine. Still not turning off internet.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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      11 months ago

      Well, he’d pretty much turn off the government if he turned off the internet anyway

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Stores and banks aren’t stocked or staffed for turning off e-commerce. Banks hate when customers walk in the door instead of doing everything online. And the stores woods have to find a drastically different equilibrium without internet advertising or orders. It would be absolute chaos.

        • Rob@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          He shuts down major backbones, effectively turning off the U.S. Internet. At the same time, he releases a story to the media and telcos about a major attack on the backbones - a virus, whatever. There’s panic and chaos, as the country grinds to a halt.

          He uses that to declare martial law.

          After a sufficient time (a small number of days, or even hours), he turns the backbones back on, claiming experts have fixed the problem. Citing martial law, he puts restrictions in place on the U.S, Internet, as dictators do.

          We now have severely limited access to real news and information, martial law, and a dictator in place. American Democracy is dead.

          Vote Democrat. No matter how much you think they’re the same, they aren’t.

  • Rooskie91@discuss.online
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    11 months ago

    Lol every country on the brink that has tried this has incited their own revolution. When people loose their distraction machines they tend to aim anger in the right direction. I say turn it off.

  • Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    I’m pretty sure the only way to turn off the internet is remove humans from the ultimate equation. We have a stubborn little habit of maintaining the status quo or ignoring the rules, especially when porn and/or money is on the line.

      • Xanis@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I imagine the same way all meetings, coups, revolutions, and the like has happened since the beginning of humanity:

        You meet and talk in person.

        • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          You really think us young adults who have grown up in a world never knowing a time without internet would be able to actually pull that off? I know I couldn’t, even if I tried.

          • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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            11 months ago

            You really think if everyone lost access to their porn machines they wouldn’t immediately call up their friends and say wtf?

              • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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                11 months ago

                People generally use apps and such, but as far as I’m aware most phones still come with a phone number these days

                • bitwaba@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  What’s your point?

                  As soon as your calls makes it to a cell tower it gets encapsulated and routed over a telco’s network. Any call you make from one call provider to another will traverse the internet. And depending on the extent of the thought experiment for disabling the internet, you could include disabling individual telco’s networks as well, meaning you won’t be calling anyone… except for maybe someone on the same tower as you.

              • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                That used to be me. I know it’s cliche but if you just push yourself a little bit to get some experience it really does help :)

      • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Bluetooth

        Building meshnets

        We never actually needed corporations to maintain the internet. The people have just been too lazy and selfish to bother searching out alternatives.