What If They Turned Off the Internet?

theodp writes "It's the not-too-distant future. They've turned off the Internet. After the riots have settled down and the withdrawal symptoms have faded, how would you cope? Cracked.com asked readers to Photoshop what life would be like in an Internet-addicted society learning to cope without it. Better hope it never happens, or be prepared for dry-erase message boards, carrier pigeon-powered Twitter, block-long lines to get into adult video shops, door-to-door Rickrolling, Lolcats on Broadway, and $199.99 CDs."

Comments

(And now with more Pants!)

[Anonymous Coward]

If it gets Idle off /., it wouldn't be a complete loss.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[sopssa]

Sad thing is that this story *is not* in idle, but entertainment.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[jesdynf]

I use a Yahoo Pipe to filter the Slashdot RSS feed -- Idle and the amazing Roland are stripped. If I'm reading this, it wasn't in Idle.

I can't really complain if I clicked on the link and posted a comment... that said, I want this Cracked list off my lawn.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[ozone702]

Yes, and if "they" turned off the internet, "they" will be devoured by us mindless zombies who are no longer distracted by the chiming monkey.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[JWSmythe]

So, Slashdot Entertainment, Slashdot Idle, will be gone.(1) lolcats will be exterminated. Twitter will flutter away quietly. 4chan will have imploded. FoxNews will have outfoxed themselves with a false prediction of the collapse of the intertubewebnet (off by 30 days at that!), and the newsroom will spend the following days blaming the liberals, but no one outside the newsroom will know due to the demise of the Internet. (3) :)

    New industries will boom. People will rediscover interpersonal interaction. Bars will thrive on singles night (as a million lonely Slashdotters hit the streets in their pathetic attempts to get laid, that will fail on or off the 'net.) (5)

    I wouldn't stress too much. The future has already reported in to say the Internet is alive, well, and serving it's designed purpose. (6)

Footnotes:
1) It went poof, and everyone moved on peacefully
2) This space was intentionally left blank.
3) This actually has been happening for 2 weeks, but no one has noticed. Check back in 16 days.
4) 404 - Footnote not found. The FRL you requested was not found. Please check the number and dial again.
5) Who am I to argue with a Slashdot story on the subject?
6) Confirmed report from the relatively distant future

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[MichaelSmith]

Ummm you know you don't need the Roland filter any more? Don't you? No I guess you missed that last article.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[jesdynf]

If it started with "Roland Whatshisface writes" I missed it for a very good reason. I don't suppose you've got a link to that article handy?

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[jesdynf]

Oh, never mind. Huh.

I'll leave the filter up anyways.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[MichaelSmith]

google found it

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Anonymous Coward]

I also wouldn't capitalize my "i"s.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[rinoid]

Dude... your pipes look a LOT like my RSS reader. OK?

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[jesdynf]

Well, I just use Google Reader, and Yahoo Pipes to massage the feed a little. Google Reader can't really filter the way I'd like -- Pipes is a really innovative interface.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[lxs]

It's what he would have wanted.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[maharb]

I don't understand where you are going with #3. As far as I can tell you linked to an article, from Fox, written in 2007, that details why the internet won't collapse. Am I missing something here?

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Anonymous Coward]

+! Kraftwerk.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Splab]

You can take away our freedom, but NOT OUR LOLCATS!

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[commodore64_love]

Honestly? I grew-up without the internet, and I could live without it again:

- I'd upgrade to Digital cable (200+ channels) to help with the youtube and hulu withdrawal symptoms of not having my favorite TV shows on demand.

- Next I'd setup one of those old-fashioned BBSes where people can dial-in at 50k to download illegal warez. Call it PirateBay BBS. Or they could just chat with one another via the forums. I would use HTML to give my BBS a web-like appearance.

- AOL, GEnie, and other national services would experience a resurrection.

- Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would be unaffected. Being text-only they are perfectly suited to phoneline-based distribution, as was done back in the 80s.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[maxume]

Do you have problems with stalled pipes in Google Reader?

It seems that Bloglines often forgets to check some of my pipes for long periods of time, and while I do think the problem is Bloglines, it might be pipes.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Yvan256]

I'd call it PirateBayBayEss.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[hodet]

Seriously, if the internet was turned off all the mindless drones that use it would be screwed until people like the ones that come to Slashdot started using their imagination. They would start setting up local wireless mesh networks. As soon as that started to explode and a different set of folks started profiting the same old usual business suspects would join in and be a part of the new thing. Where money is made people and business follow. It would evolve. The genie is out of the bottle, too much money to be made and too much information that wants to be made free and accessible. Supply and demand.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[rinoid]

Ahhh sorry -- missed the part about scrubbing. Nice stuff.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[zoloto]

Twitter wouldn't die. It can be used without a web login you know.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[TheLink]

If he succeeds in submitting something new here then that's what I call an Internet...

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[WinterSolstice]

I used to work at a BBS back in the days before the internet was 'readily available', in the era when BBS owners were still debating if it was worth getting a connection to the internet.
I *liked* being a SysOp :)

The biggest difference between now and then is probably in game manuals. At the time, most games had little dial-up (for cost) numbers for a support BBS/hint line.

Hopefully GEnie will *never* return. I would love to see something like Sierra's INN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImagiNation_Network) come back. I really loved spending time on there, mostly playing Shadows of Yserbius and Red Baron.

The thing I'm happiest to see gone is the hourly timers, and I suspect that's what I'd miss the most.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[jesdynf]

I might, actually. It's not the sort of thing I'd notice -- one or two feeds dropping one or two entries isn't something I could detect -- but I've had trouble with Pipes not giving new data before, especially while I was developing my filters.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Alvare]

>4chan will have imploded
>4chan imploded
>4chan

I think we all know that can't be more wrong ...
4chan's mass is enough for a full supernova, it won't stay little and white, it will kill everything arround it, everything.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Golddess]

Sounds like someone's in denial about being able to live without the internet.

- Next I'd setup one of those old-fashioned BBSes where people can dial-in at 50k to download illegal warez. Call it PirateBay BBS. Or they could just chat with one another via the forums. I would use HTML to give my BBS a web-like appearance.

Where would you get these warez? And would you pay for additional phone lines so that more than one person can connect at a given time? (btw, this counts as beginning to recreate the internet).

- AOL, GEnie, and other national services would experience a resurrection.

I admit I am not familiar with GEnie, but AOL being resurrected counts directly as recreating the internet. What is AOL if not a service which allows, for example, someone in CA to access (via a local phone number) services that someone in MD can also access via a local number to them, also allowing them to access each other?

- Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would be unaffected. Being text-only they are perfectly suited to phoneline-based distribution, as was done back in the 80s.

Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would not exist because the internet is turned off and so there is no way to access it. By returning to a dial-up access model, you recreate the internet.

FYI, the internet consists of more than just /., facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Pharmboy]

I feel lucky being 44, and was on the forefront of the web. I too had a BBS, 1, 2 then 3 lines, and before that, I was a user of BBSes. My first internet account was a unix shell, and once I got graphical internet, most of my time was usenet and irc, perhaps as it was a direct extension of what we did on the BBS. It wasn't terrible not having the internet and cell phones when I grew up (grad. HS in 83). I would miss it, but it would not be the end of civilization.

You are right that we would BBS again, we would form local user groups, again. We would still be able to find "stuff" just fine, although we would be choosier at 50k than at 10mb connections. We would till be emailing, via FidoNet, and we would just have to get over the fact that email wasn't instantanious.

The real hit would be all the businesses that are now solely internet based, including the company I work for. I started in the early 90s, and they were a regional distributor of products, and now almost all our business is internet based. In a way, it would benefit me, as all the guys who did what I did back before the internet are gone, so there aren't many in my field that remember "pre-internet", which of course would be an advantage. Not an advantage I hope to use as it would be a bitch, but change always bring opportunity to those that can adapt. Regardless of whether there is or isn't an internet, that won't change what I drive, where I live, who my family is, or what I had for dinner. It would only change what I am occupied with for 50 or so hours during the week.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[commodore64_love]

>>>Where would you get these warez? And would you pay for additional phone lines

Same place I got them in the 80s - have the crackers mail them to me on disk, and post them on my BBS for everyone to grab. Or rip the games, CDs, DVDs myself. Or if somebody already beat me to the punch and posted it on some distant California BBS, I'd just grab it from them and share it with all my users.

And: Many BBSes of the 80s had two or three lines, and the computer on my desk would handle these 2-3 users all at the same time. It was standard practice. Don't you remember? Hmmm.
.

>>>AOL being resurrected counts directly as recreating the internet.

Completely and totally false. Back before 1993, AOL was only accessible via a 1-800 phone line. There was NO internet or IP protocol whatsoever. Here you can see what AOL looked like back then: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Qlink-mainmenu.png Here you can see another BBS that used ANSI (not Internet protocol) to create graphics: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/VC-DMSEL.PNG
.

>>>Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would not exist because the internet is turned off and so there is no way to access it.

(sigh). Okay you know what annoys me? It's not ignorance; it's okay to be ignorant. What annoys me is people who make comments about Subjects they nothing about. Like you. ----- Before the internet became widespread, Usenet and FIDOnet used phonelines. During the 80s, at a predetermined time of 1 or 2 or 3 a.m. thousands of computers all over the U.S. would connect to one another via Dialup modem and exchange messages. Then they connected to computers in Europe. And those connected to computers in Russia and Japan. And Japan would connect to the U.S.

No. Internet. Involved. The messages would propagate around the world using the plain-old telephone service, and users would read these by logging into a local BBS using their 2400 or 9600 baud modems. That's how it was done when I first joined rec.arts.tv and rec.arts.startrek in 1988. And that's how it would be done AGAIN if the internet suddenly died.

:-)

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[JWSmythe]

    I was just trying to find something with a Foxnews URL, that was at least close to the topic, regardless of the spin.

    But, you can look at it more logically. The good folks at FoxNews are always either heavily biased, or completely wrong. So, an article stating the EotW isn't coming is therefore incorrect. :)

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[JWSmythe]

    Wow, I've had people suggest +1, -1, but never a +! . Is that "plus not", or "plus exclamation"? :)

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Monsuco]

I admit I am not familiar with GEnie, but AOL being resurrected counts directly as recreating the internet. What is AOL if not a service which allows, for example, someone in CA to access (via a local phone number) services that someone in MD can also access via a local number to them, also allowing them to access each other?

Computers connecting to each other is not automatically creating the internet. No TCP/IP, no standard routing protocols. It would be like a giant ad-hoc network. Quite different.

Usenet newsgroups like rec.arts.tv would not exist because the internet is turned off and so there is no way to access it. By returning to a dial-up access model, you recreate the internet.

By your logic fax machines are automatically on the Internet because they have modems. That said, Usenet would experience a very brief revival, but then people would just revert back to their Usenet instincts of hating all new members. Far from revival, it would only serve to put us further from October 1st 1993. FYI, the internet consists of more than just /., facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Monsuco]

4chan's mass is enough for a full supernova, it won't stay little and white, it will kill everything arround it, everything.

It generally does this already. Most 4Chan users die after about a month or so of massive brain trauma.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Golddess]

Ok, much of your post was informative. I did not realize what you meant with regard to a resurrection of AOL at first. But I love how you quote-mined me on my final point. However, I digress on that, as I think we're coming in from two different angles. You seem to be coming from an implementation standpoint, while I'm coming from an intent standpoint. The intent of the internet was to be a robust communication system, correct? And you were not limited to logging into _just_ the local BBSes, were you? If you were in the middle of accessing something from one BBS, lost connection and could not reconnect to that same BBS, you could resume pretty much exactly where you were from _any_ other BBS, right? I'd certainly call the ability to do all that a method of fulfilling the intent.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Golddess]

Computers connecting to each other is not automatically creating the internet. No TCP/IP, no standard routing protocols. It would be like a giant ad-hoc network. Quite different.

I never said it went like this: CA User's Computer <-> AOL Computer <-> MD User's Computer. But it also sounds like I'd misunderstood what was meant by a resurrection of AOL.

By your logic fax machines are automatically on the Internet because they have modems.

I apologize if I was sparse on explanation, but simply having a modem does not mean something is "on the internet" per my logic.

I think we're coming in from two different angles. You seem to be coming from an implementation standpoint, while I'm coming from an intent standpoint. The intent of the internet was to be a robust communication system, correct? If a fax message from one machine to another had multiple paths that it could take, that would certainly be a method of fulfilling the intent (though a very weak one). If the path could dynamically change, that would be an even better fulfillment of the intent.

BTW, what was the point of throwing my final line back at me?

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[plague3106]

Please explain how this is funamentally different than the internet? Yes, it takes time for things to propagate, but its still a networking of computers across the globe.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[commodore64_love]

>>>Please explain how this is fundamentally different than the internet?

It isn't but that wasn't the initial question. The initial question was: What if they turned off the internet? And the answer is that we would fallback on the old phone service that has existed since the 1800s.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[commodore64_love]

First off the question didn't ask, "What if we lost all networks?" It simply asked, "What if the internet was turned off?" The answer is that we would fall back to the ~100-year-old telephone technology that we used pre-world wide web. Second...

>>>If you were in the middle of accessing something from one BBS, lost connection and could not reconnect to that same BBS, you could resume pretty much exactly where you were from _any_ other BBS, right?
>>>

NO. If for example, I was downloading SIswimsuitcover1988.HAM from the Baltimore BBS and I lost connection, I could not go over to the Washington DC BBS and resume, because the two files would not be the same (different sizes or checksums). In fact the DC BBS might not have that file at all! You see each local BBS was independent from the rest. What I would do if I lost connection is set my modem to autodial the Baltimore BBS over-and-over until I got through, and then resume the download.

The only exception to that rule would be Usenet or FIDOnet, which *in theory* had the exact same message forums everywhere. Of course theory and fact are often different. For example I was able to access rec.arts.startrek on Rabbit Hutch BBS (my friend's board), but not on the Baltimore BBS because the owner simply decided not to carry that group.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[commodore64_love]

Actually it's more like this: CA User's Computer MD User's Computer. A direct connection with no need for a national provider like AOL. Likewise you would connect directly to a BBS.

>>>what was the point of throwing my final line back at me?

Because you were rude. "FYI, the internet consists of more than just /., facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube, etc." There was no need to say that, especially to someone with my name (C64love) whose clearly been around for awhile and pretty much seen it all in regards to online content.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no need to say that, especially to someone with my name (C64love) whose clearly been around for awhile and pretty much seen it all in regards to online content.

My user name could be "TelegraphLove" and it wouldn't necessarily mean I'd been around since the telegraph was in use.

Just saying -- most of us who've been using computers to access public spaces know, by now, that descriptive userIDs are meaningless.

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[plague3106]

What about the internet precludes the use of a phone network to link the computers together? Was I not on the internet when I dialed in? That is the point here... if you are "turning off" the internet, that would preclude using dialup to network with other computers..

Re:(And now with more Pants!)

[Golddess]

Actually it's more like this: CA User's Computer MD User's Computer. A direct connection with no need for a national provider like AOL.

Um, an interesting point, except I had been addressing your comment about AOL experiencing a revival. And we've already established that I misunderstood what you meant by a revival of AOL.

>>>what was the point of throwing my final line back at me?

Because you were rude.

Rude or not, it seemingly represents a lack of understanding of the debate, as I clearly understand that the internet _isn't_ just all those.

I apologize if it sounded rude to you, but it sounded to me like that is what you considered the internet to be. I was merely pointing out that there is more to the internet than the World Wide Web. In retrospect, I guess saying "there is more to the internet than the World Wide Web" would have been better, rather than listing a few individual sites as I did.

Uhm... wrong site.

[nametaken]

What is this, digg? Cracked joke pages don't belong here.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[JeanBaptiste]

Stuff that Matters.

besides, they can't turn off the internet. the porn would never let that happen.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[wizardforce]

Idle and Slashdot 2.0 don't belong on Slashdot either. Unfortunately, someone behind the scenes thought that the best way to lure new users was to emulate Digg instead of doing what Slashdot did best; allow nerds and geeks to discuss interesting articles and thus provide intellectual entertainment. I think that they'll find that the whole charm of Slashdot was the discussion after the article and it is what made Slashdot worth returning to on a daily basis.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[eln]

It's been all downhill since the Politics section...that's when they turned the corner from Geek Street to Whatever Brings in the Most Page Hits Boulevard.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[rah1420]

I think the old saw that "Nature abhors a vacuum" would take effect. It wouldn't take long to rebuild a network of networks again. The protocols that are used and the speed and whatnot may be still at issue, but having had an internet and knowing its potentiality, I think that if it were taken down, something would have to be invented to replace it.

Now, if it were 'taken down' because "they" wanted to silence it, I recommend to you the quote famously attributed to John Gilmore: "The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."

I don't know if you'd ever get it taken down for non-technical reasons (like The End Of Life As We Know It.)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[altek]

+1000

I have been on /. since it launched (yeah, back then we nerds were quite resistant to ever creating logins for sites, hence my non-low account ID). And it seems in the last 6 months or so it's been going this way - I have gone to reading it in Google Reader and also have Gizmodo and Engadget in there as well. It seems like at least a third of the posts lately are just regurgitated from Giz and Engadget, a day or so later.

My thought is that the internet has grown so huge, that /. can't compete with sites that have pageviews hundreds of times higher, and this is their way of sucking in some extra pageviews.

The content on here has definitely changed. I still find some engaging comment threads, but it just seems like the truly geeky content has gotten watered down with posts about new products, jokes, etc.

Part of it may just be that the tech world as a whole has transformed from what it was in the mid-nineties. Back then, everything was awe-inspiring and amazing in the tech world, and now it's all pretty pedestrian, we've become quite jaded.

And, our attention spans have gotten so short, that spending a half hour reading an article about a distributed network cracking the latest encryption algorithm gets pushed under the three posts about new cell phones. And a simple yet brilliant idea is no longer brilliant, it's just expected from middle management in the outsourced development sweatshops.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[darkpixel2k]

The content on here has definitely changed. I still find some engaging comment threads, but it just seems like the truly geeky content has gotten watered down with posts about new products, jokes, etc.

Exactly. And since both nature and my cat abhor vacuums, where the hell are the good geek new sites now?

I currently have to settle for reading mildly interesting arguments about IPv6 on NANOG.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[postbigbang]

Spanning tree. My AP to your cable modem. We're back up in a coupla days.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Brian Gordon]

I have been on /. since it launched (yeah, back then we nerds were quite resistant to ever creating logins for sites, hence my non-low account ID).

Uhhh yeah me too

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree with you, but at the end of the day they still need to make money to operate this site; if page views for intellectual trash like Idle make that money, then that's what they're going to push. And I thought newspapers were in trouble...

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

While much of you may lament the current days of slashdot, when I started visiting it ~4-6 years ago it was filled with memes (I havn't seen a soviet russia joke in quite some time), first post jokes (GNAA) and dupes. Now it seems like most days most of the memes have rightfully left for reddit/digg. So while the comments have gotten better, the articles have probably gotten worse. What slashdot needs to do is evaluate the story submission process and the mods currently in control to emphasize less bullshit and more tech.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[wizardforce]

I agree. THe sad part is that it could have gone better than it did. Slashdot could have stimulated some very interesting discussions in terms of politics however, as you said, it turned out to be just another way to stir up trouble and thus page views.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[JustOK]

What slashdot needs to do is evaluate the story submission process and the mods currently in control to emphasize less bullshit and more tech.

What slashdot needs is a beowulf cluster of hot grits poured over Natalie Portman

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[NETHED]

Man, I never thought I'd feel like an old fart on /., but I just did.

I think there should be a sub-forum for those with UIDs of less than 10^6

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[mfh]

News for nerds. Stuff that matters.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[JWSmythe]

    I can tell I've been up just a little too long. I spun through an amazing variety of imagery in my head. It was just enough to make me fall out of my chair.

    Cat in a plexiglass box, with a pump pulling 22 in/hg vacuum.

    Cat in an upright bagless vacuum cleaner. (even in my imagination, it's a tight fit)

    Cat in an airlock on the ISS. Explosive decompression follows.

    Cat in an airlock on the ISS. Slow decompression follows, slowly.

    Space Cat! Flying through space. Oh, this cat would like a vacuum, wouldn't it?

    Ha! Cat in a box!

    Sorry. :)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Tibia1]

I think all of these posts about the validity of this story are generated from brain functions desperately trying to avoid thinking about the possibility of the internet getting turned off.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[symbolset]

I'm going to endorse this proposal. I would prefer there be some bacon as well.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[MichaelSmith]

The content on here has definitely changed. I still find some engaging comment threads, but it just seems like the truly geeky content has gotten watered down with posts about new products, jokes, etc.

Exactly. And since both nature and my cat abhor vacuums, where the hell are the good geek new sites now?

I used to enjoy Technocrat. I wish Bruce had shown an interest in letting the community move off his server.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Dachannien]

Get off my lawn!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[HangingChad]

"The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."

You all would be dusting off us old guys and our stories about the old telephone bulletin board systems. I've even got a couple old win-modems out in a box in the garage. Make a few phone calls, paste some fliers around college campuses, and temporary replacement could probably be up in a couple weeks.

That's provided the phone system didn't collapse under the weight of excess traffic.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[ZipprHead]

Being a long time reader myself, I'll have to say /. does have some strong competition of late with Engadget scooping stories first and BoingBoings editorial staff. But what makes this site awesome, is the commenting, moderation and user community. To this day, I often get what I need to know from the article and summaries. Engadget and other sites can not hold a candle to this community.

Kudos to us all!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[lahvak]

Yeah, maybe it's time to return to usenet.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[xenn]

Ok. That was curios.

I've never really cared until now, but I thought, so...what does this Natalie Portman look like then?

searched, and came up with this on my first click (through google image results)...

http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/lets-talk-about-breasts/

The post is called "Life without a net".

Is it just me, or is that highly coincidental?

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[mikael]

Back then, everything was awe-inspiring and amazing in the tech world

That era was when Nvida/3dfx were first founded - the first texture mapping graphics cards came out, then full transformation and lighting in hardware, Quake, then wide screen resolutions. 450 MHz Pentium III processors seemed super-zippy fast. Microsoft introduced 'sockets' to Windows and announced that Windows NT had made UNIX legacy. SGI wanted to prove that a software based OpenGL would be as fast as custom game rendering code. ADSL broadband was becoming available in some apartments. Previously low-key student houses who just happened to have broadband connections found themselves the most popular destinations for new students. The battle between Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator had begun. Cell phones still had a long antennae coming out the top.

Just before in 1994, having a 56K modem was a major advancement, Windows 3.1 was still the main development target. Reading USENET, text based discussion boards and subscribing to mailing lists was the main method of getting news. Viewing images would require using ftp manually or using uuencode/decode to get a server to fetch a 640x480 image, encode it as ASCII, slice the file up and send it to you in chunks, which you could then reassemble manually.

Now, if your cable provider goes from 50 Mbits to 70 Mbits, that isn't noticable, though laptop screen have shrunk a bit, and everyone uses LCD monitors now. Just about every mobile phone seems to look like a touchpad PDA or has a little keyboard and allows the user to play movies and music. MP3 players are the size of credit cards. USB Keychains now store more information than a DVD let alone a 1996 hard disk drive. What could just about be done on supercomputer in 1996, can now be done on a graphics card.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Architect_sasyr]

So it's never actually going to be skynet - it's going to be... pr0net? Attacking us all with fetish porn and...

I for one welcome our new cyber overlords

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

What is this, digg? Cracked joke pages don't belong here.

But whining about what belongs on Slashdot does so they are just offering you a platform to do what you do best.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Culture20]

And, our attention spans have gotten so short,

Sorry, I stopped reading after "+1000". Care to recap?

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the phone system. The amateur radio guys would handle the long haul connections and anywhere else it's just software: Access point density is high enough that a new internet is just a better firmware away. There are so many simple to build communication techniques that I would be very surprised not to see at least an initiative for a grass-roots internet reconstruction within a week and first world-wide connections in a month.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] thought that the best way to lure new users was to emulate Digg instead of doing what Slashdot did best

Where have I heard this before? That's right, this is Ubuntu's philosophy. The best way to lure new users is to emulate Windows.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[mwvdlee]

Look, porn proves it, we all like to be underfed and/or overtrained people constantly getting whipped, choked and stretched beyond physical limits. The fembots were just trying to help.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[hairyfeet]

I think what some of the posters are getting at is it is like saying "what if giant blue monkeys flew out of my ass?" because both are about as likely to ever happen. There is NO WAY IN HELL that those in power in the west would want the great unwashed taking their heads out of the "free porn and entertainment" box long enough to actually pay attention to how much money they are loading into the truck, so as long as the nice Internet keeps the unwashed too busy looking at titties and LOLCats to actually think and get nasty they'll make sure the 'free porn and entertainment" box keeps right on working.

So you might as well post the question "what would happen if giant blue monkeys flew out of everyone's ass" because both scenarios are just as likely to happen. No, if the Internet gets too close to collapse they just run some "national" backbone, which of course will cost 20 times what it should, have lots of pockets getting stuffed, but in the end will make sure the rabble get their bread and circuses, because that is ultimately in the best interests of those in power. An entertained peasant is a quiet peasant.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Deanalator]

Stuff is different and that pisses me off!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[dissy]

Now, if it were 'taken down' because "they" wanted to silence it, I recommend to you the quote famously attributed to John Gilmore: "The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."

I don't know if you'd ever get it taken down for non-technical reasons (like The End Of Life As We Know It.)

The way I see it, the answer is in the question itself.

The only way to keep us from connecting our computers to each others at this point would be a bullet in the head of all of us.
In which case "What would you do?" is answered.

(Just keep a fan on me in the summer to keep the flies away please)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[wizardforce]

Of course, the proper analogy here would be if Gentoo decided that efficiency suddenly wasn't as important as emulating Ubuntu and ended up p---ing off a large portion of their users.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Has there ever been a photoshop phriday that wasn't 100x better than this? These jokes are lame and these 'shops are pathetic.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[1s44c]

I think there should be a sub-forum for those with UIDs of less than 10^6

That's actually a really good idea.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Zontar The Mindless]

I think there should be a sub-forum for those with UIDs of less than 10^4

There, fixed that for you.

Now get off of my lawn.

And in Soviet Russia, Natalie Portman pours... Oh forget, I never really thought she was all that hot, anyway.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Hillview]

My Account ID is more non-low than yours. I must be geekier.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

allow nerds and geeks to discuss interesting articles and thus provide intellectual entertainment

Yeah, right. I guess sometime over the last 10 years or so my inner cynic emerged. I don't surf the web for "intellectual entertainment" any more. Because there isn't any-- for me anyway. Or maybe it's just been diluted by all of the other crap.

Still pop into ./ and FARK occasionally. But usually feel like a 34-year-old at a college party.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Kong the Medium]

BTDTAAIGWTLT Somehow I forgot (literally forgot) the email-adress I used to created my login. But my new UID has a certain "twang", so I'm quiet pleased.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Razalhague]

No. Porn would simply find new channels. Porn is always one of the first adopters of any technology that can be used to distribute it. It's not the type to cling to old distribution channels (unlike some industries), and neither are the consumers of porn.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[interkin3tic]

I have been on /. since it launched (yeah, back then we nerds were quite resistant to ever creating logins for sites, hence my non-low account ID)

And yet you seem remarkably self-conscious about it since losing that fight...

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Gordonjcp]

Not even necessarily long-haul. Packet radio works just as well over short distances, and you can do this *now* - just get an amateur radio licence and read up on it (as a licensed radio amateur I couldn't possibly condone using cheap crappy PMR446 walkie-talkies as an experimental platform for packet. It's illegal and if an FCC/Ofcom/other appropriate body inspector comes close enough - say, within quarter of a mile - you'll get caught).

In fact, here's a challenge for you. Get two Linux boxes, install soundmodem and the ax25 software on them, and get them talking over a couple of audio leads first. Once you've got that you could try getting the radios in and testing over longer distances. You need a surprisingly good signal to get it to work, and for speeds over about 2400 baud you need modified radios. On the microwave bands you can go pretty quickly - a couple of Mbps maybe.

Here's something to consider - if you had no internet, could you live with a pretty much fully mobile 1200 baud connection? Maybe 9600 baud between fixed locations such as your house? Sure you could. You wouldn't be downloading 4096x3072 images (well, not quickly) but you'd be sending emails and chatting on IRC, and possibly reading and posting on rather stripped-down websites.

Now, everyone go out and study for your amateur radio licence. 73s de MM0YEQ

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Razalhague]

People can't connect the computers if they can't use them, and that can be achieved without killing the user. EMPs, extensive power loss, etc. But then this question would become the age-old, boring "What if civilization collapsed?"

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

It certainly seems like an interesting hobby, but my primary point is that everybody already has a computer controlled radio: A wireless access point. The range isn't fantastic, but within cities the density of these things is sufficient for blanketing the area with network access and providing the "backbone" over the same network. Existing installations could literally be turned into an internet replacement by just flashing a new firmware. Distances up to a mile can be reliably covered with directional antennas and very little additional RF know-how, but beyond that us software guys would have to ask the radio amateurs for a favor. (I'd also expect neighbors to quickly set up wired LANs between buildings. Reconnecting a city in a pinch should really not be a big deal, but how do you connect across uninhabited land or to a different continent? That's where you come in.)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[celle]

What is it with you guys and Natalie Portman? Pick a good looking postergirl will ya.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, the only reason I stick around here now is to be entertained by the trolls.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[agw]

Only if the postergirl holds a laser gun.
Or at least an AK-47.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[commodore64_love]

She's not hot, but she's definitely cute. She's the girl-next-door type who geeks like us might actually have a slim chance of getting. (As opposed to the SI swimsuit or Victoria's Secret models who just see an area of blank space when we walk by.)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[commodore64_love]

Natalie's appearance has gone downhill a bit, but here's photos from when she was still a fashion model -

http://www.theforce.net/episode1/oldPreq/pics/natalie_w.jpg
color - http://thebosh.com/upload/2007/10/29/Natalie-Portman-has-filmed.jpg
lingerie - http://scifisizzle.com/imagegallery/images/natalie_portman/natalie_portman_2.jpg
closeup - http://www.wallpaperbase.com/wallpapers/celebs/natalieportman/natalie_portman_2.jpg

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

She's not hot, but she's definitely cute. She's the girl-next-door type who geeks like us might actually have a slim chance of getting. (As opposed to the SI swimsuit or Victoria's Secret models who just see an area of blank space when we walk by.)

Dude you have no chance at all with Natalie Portman, dream on.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[commodore64_love]

You mean like Carrie Fisher? Uh... no.

Look: http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/1/2008/12/carrie-jabba.jpg

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[commodore64_love]

>>>a bullet in the head of all of us.

"Hello officer. Yes of course you can come in. Please bring your 20 FBI agents with you. Everybody inside? Good." (presses button to setoff bombs in basement & blow up house)

If I'm going down, I'm going to take as many of "them" with me as I can.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[BluBrick]

I think there should be a sub-forum for those with UIDs of less than 2^11

Fixed that for you. Surely /.-esque geeks should express UID limits in powers of 2 rather than 10.

Are you punk kids still on my lawn?

Never mind Soviet Russia, I miss OOG THE CAVEMAN and the glorious Meept!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Jeremy Visser]

I think there should be a sub-forum for those with UIDs of less than 10^6

:(

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[bensode]

I'd think that whoever has UID 1,000,001 should be doing the QQ ...

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

>and thus provide intellectual entertainment.

I see you are new here :o)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Jeremy Visser]

I'd think that whoever has UID 1,000,001 should be doing the QQ ...

He said 'less than' (<), not 'less than or equal to' (<=). So don't you mean 1,000,000?

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Jesus_666]

The International System of Units has standardized swimsuits? What's the SI unit of swimsuits and how does it fit in with the other units?

Details, man, details!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still resisting.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[DoninIN]

I used to hit this empty domain, three times a day, before there was ever a slashdot. I hoped someday there's be a website here, and it would be about technology news, and news in the new era. Before that I sent postcards to slash dot oregon, that just said First Post!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[poofmeisterp]

The wireless interconnects are already being built. Tee hee.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Porn would simply find new channels. Porn is always one of the first adopters of any technology that can be used to distribute it. It's not the type to cling to old distribution channels (unlike some industries), and neither are the consumers of porn.

I don't know. Some of my paper porn clings to itself.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just "Natalie Portman"... it's "Natalie Portman, naked and petrified".

Kids these days, not even bothering to study their /. troll history. tsk.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[arb phd slp]

There was a crazy guy in my town who felt as you did. They arrested him for shooting his neighbor (who videotaped his own murder), but he was in town at the time they grabbed him.
While he was in jail, there was an "accidental fire" at his house, which was filled with bombmaking material and toxic chemicals. (I was at that fire as a HAZMAT-trained firefighter. We didn't even pull into the driveway; just watched it from a safe distance.)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Zontar The Mindless]

...and the glorious Meept!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CHbFI2Ovc0

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[that IT girl]

Aww, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[CmdrPorno]

I have been on /. since it launched (yeah, back then we nerds were quite resistant to ever creating logins for sites, hence my non-low account ID).

Given the number of account IDs now in circulation, I'd say that anything under 120,000 or so is now a low ID.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Teckla]

Part of it may just be that the tech world as a whole has transformed from what it was in the mid-nineties. Back then, everything was awe-inspiring and amazing in the tech world, and now it's all pretty pedestrian, we've become quite jaded.

This has actually been happening for decades.

I logged into my first online chat room in 1979. That's not a typo. 1979. Not 1989. Not 1999. 1979.

A lot of "old timers" like me used bulletin board systems throughout the 1980s and many of us felt the same about the Internet that you feel about technology becoming pedestrian now.

This is just more of the same. Technology continues to become more common and accessible and the "early adopters" lament the way it "used to be".

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Nemyst]

Wait... Isn't Slashdot's source open? Can't you fork it and work it out your way, how you want it? If you're so adamant on criticizing the site, yet won't do anything by yourself, I'm afraid you have little weight in this discussion. You're lucky: you have all the tools and power to do exactly what you want. Whether you choose to sit idly (oh the pun) here whining or act about it is your choice.

I just think you're greatly exaggerating the situation at hand, to be totally honest.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[fritsd]

Mother Nature abhors YOU.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[jollyreaper]

Part of it may just be that the tech world as a whole has transformed from what it was in the mid-nineties. Back then, everything was awe-inspiring and amazing in the tech world, and now it's all pretty pedestrian, we've become quite jaded.

It still is. Age and experience has shown you how to find where faults and flaws are. Childlike awe is easy to come by as a child. As an adult, you have to work at it, knowing the bullshit for what it is but not letting it ruin your appreciation for everything else.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[BluBrick]

OK, you've convinced me - Nostalgia really does suck.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Guess I won't waste your time asking whether you liked David or Sammy better, then. ;)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[bredk]

This is a sad day for Slashdot. If this happens again, where should one go?

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[PatrickThomson]

Cat in a plexiglass box, with a pump pulling 22 in/hg vacuum.

That's about 0.75 atmospheres, or the top of a 3km mountain. did you mean 22mm?

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Me three. Except what's with this "were" stuff?

I've been reading /. since 1997, and I still refuse to get an account. /. has became THE case for how accounts and overmoderation and silly tech tool limiting speech seriously degrades the overall quality of the discussion. Yeah, you have less goatsex posts, but you have far, far less high end posts of incredible quality these days as well. The +5s these days are like the +3s when the mod system originally came out.

The posting limit and "error" machine massively detracts from helpful discussion; there are many articles where information is just wrong, and I can provide a link to correct or original source (as in real print citation), but can't submit it because of the posting limit.

Worse, with this JS heavy crap that is /. nowadays, it's hard to read threads. Really hard. Which sucks, because a lot of people who don't read /. all the time (because they do other, real world interesting things), will post really late in the discussion with incredibly insightful information. The new system buries it. Even under the old system, because posts to old stories never got moderated, they came up at 0, BUT you could still see them. Now, they are really, really buried; you can change the view to -1 still, but it could be buried in a thread 400 long and you can never see the damn thing, or your browser will choke. /. is like MS. Runs slower while giving you more useless features. I use to read /. on crap hardware successfully. I have what is nowadays an 8 year old machine fully topped out and /. runs like crap on it. Opera on XP chokes like bloody hell (when I close the /. pages, the browser speeds up so what's that tell you), and on Firefox on Ubuntu, it's definitely faster but a pain in the ass to navigate.

Worse, editors don't give a crap about AC. You can't submit bug reports, feedback, or suggestion without an account nowadays either (I submitted several successful fixes back in the day of the early slashcode, while even complimented on by an editor). You can't even suggest simple fixes that ACs run into--like when you post too fast, there's no countdown alert, or if you reach your posts per day by IP which number you're at or when you can post again, any other reason for the error or delay in posting (which is on top of a "bug" from the early days that still remains, where the countdown is reset if try again to early and are still unsuccessful), or suggestion (having posts go by absolute count per day by IP, since often times people don't read /. on some days but want to reply relevantly to old posts, which count against new posts too (as in Rollover for /. not AT&T a la old Cingular)).

Nowadays, it's rare to read /. in its entirety anymore like I use to. I barely browse all the stories anymore. The phrackin continuous update makes 3 day old articles nearly impossible to find and read in sequence with surrounding articles; I'm waiting for the damn browser to update, or the stupid /. site to figure out what listing it wants to give, before kicking over to some sloppy summary page that doesn't properly show article listings--hit the damn story, read it, close it, and the damn page bounces back to the top, so you have to scroll ALL the way down again.

And don't get me going about page resizes changing where the right scrollbar, and the right scrollbar jumping on top of that, it's like a game of whack a mole to find a story sometimes.

Back in the day, we criticized the editors, thought they were naive morons, now we just know they are people who want self-realization and continuous self-evolution, but who stupidly think they've reached their past concept of it, while moving on to another goal without realizing how far off they were in the past making their choice to move on all the more sillier and obtuse when past obligations where never met.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[mhajicek]

Maybe it would be a good time to experiment with peer to peer internet, where each user is a node. That would be rather difficult for any powers to kill since there would be no backbone.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[deblau]

There are more of us than you think. I was also on since the launch. I remember the days when all the conversations had people with user IDs in the hundreds, JonKatz, Signal 11, Natalie Portman naked and petrified, the underpants gnomes, and I had hot grits poured down my pants on several occasions. Now get off my lawn.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[NIK282000]

Turn your manometer around, you are looking at the wrong side of the U.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[zmollusc]

TL;DR , lolcats and titties in other tabs.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

What slashdot needs to do is evaluate the story submission process and the mods currently in control to emphasize less bullshit and more tech.

What slashdot needs is a beowulf cluster of hot grits poured over Natalie Portman

Oh yeah, I've been wondering what's wrong with /. nowadays...but of course it was the missing beowolf cluster jokes!

Thanks mate!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

+1000

I have been on /. since it launched (yeah, back then we nerds were quite resistant to ever creating logins for sites, hence my non-low account ID). And it seems in the last 6 months or so it's been going this way - I have gone to reading it in Google Reader and....

You sound just like those whiners who post in Wikipedia comments pages about how you disagree with or don't like the user generated content.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[wizardforce]

I've considered doing exactly that- grab an old desktop and put some flavor of Linux server on it and go. Just because it can be forked doesn't mean that we can't criticize the direction Slashdot is taking.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong site maybe, but it's actually an interesting question.

Wireless technology is now so pervasive I'm sure it would fill the gap in the short term, at least for those in apartments and the like. It's hard to say what would happen beyond the internet reverting to a more localized phenomenon in the short term.

And data links using lasers aren't to be forgotten, with the current DIY varieties possessing ranges of near a mile in good weather from what I understand. If you've never heard of these you should definitely look them up, making one is astoundingly simple and cheap.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[commodore64_love]

I don't condone murder (violates your neighbors' right to life).

But I do condone defending yourself from tyrannical leaders in government. If the tyrant is about to put a bullet in my head, then I will go-out with a fight. (See the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Dun Malg]

Of course they'd claim it's just a thought experiment to get you to think about a world without the internet..... but it's just a fucking stupid idea, even as a thought experiment. It's like saying "imagine a world where the wheel has been banned", or "what would you do if there was no more beer, wine, or liquor?" So many things would have to change as a result that speculation as to what you'd do is just pointless.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[ZipprHead]

Obligatory Slashdot question.

"Are you single?"

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn I Couldn't down vote you!!!!!

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. I thought that song sucked back then, and I still think it sucks now. You Really Got Me, it ain't.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only been here a few years but even in that time have seen massive changes.

When I first started reading here there were many scientific articles on physics and so forth with comments that were from people who really knew their shit. I could actually learn something from most threads I read.

Now these articles rarely appear, and I have to traverse so much turd to get to the interesting stuff, half the time even I know more than the people commenting which says a lot as I'm by no means a physicist.

Perhaps more sadly though, I've noticed a massive decline of people interesting in protecting freedoms in our digital world, you can't say a word wrong about Apple or Valve without getting rated troll, despite these two companies being some of the worst on the planet for DRM nowadays.

It's really just like the site has been taken over by ignorant fanboys, people who were interested in protecting digital rights and people who actually understood many physical or mathematical ideas and could explain them to others have all but vanished. There used to be a lot of really smart people here who played games, nowadays there just seems to be a lot of gamers who really aren't that smart putting across their clueless 2 cents on everything without actually adding anything.

The only thing I will say in Slashdot's favour is that it's rather hard to find alternatives, I'm really not sure where these people have gone- presumably they're just getting on with what they do best as it's not like Digg et. al. are any better, so although Slashdot is much worse than it used to be, it's still the best of a bad bunch.

That's not to say there aren't still the odd one or two comments by smart people, but they're ever more rare, and ever more hard to find.

I'd argue Slashdot's democratic censorship system is one of the biggest reasons for the problem where people vote down what they disagree with even if right, and vote up what they agree with even if wrong. Democracy is great, if the majority of voters are smart, intelligent people, but with Slashdot, that is simply not the case anymore.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[that IT girl]

Haha. Sorry, nope. But don't worry, he's a geek too. I stick to our own kind ;)

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[FatAlb3rt]

Unless you subscribe, you're whining that your free beer isn't cold.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[mcgrew]

To someone who lived 4/5ths of his life without the internet, I'd say if the internet disappeared tomorrow, a lot of folks would scream and cry, but most people would get along just fine.

Now if electricity disappeared you'ld be in some deep shit.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[mcgrew]

I think the old saw that "Nature abhors a vacuum" would take effect.

If nature abhors a vaccuum, why is the entire universe a vaccuum except for a thin layer around planets and where protostars form?

Most of those old saws are pretty rusty.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[IMightB]

I've been reading /. since before they had accounts as well, I'm on my 4 or 5th slashdot account otherwise I'd have a low 4 digit number.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[StikyPad]

Great New Article Advice.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[NotBornYesterday]

Schroedinger wants a word with you.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[NotBornYesterday]

Excellent bit of perspective. Nit: 56k modems were invented in 96, marketed in 97 or so. I still have one of the original external USR 56k's kicking around here somewhere.

Re:Uhm... wrong site.

[JWSmythe]

    Now, that would be a cool trick. He's been dead since 1961. Are you a medium, or can you just hear him rolling over in his grave every time I post with that tagline on? :) If you're channeling the dead, can you ask Tesla to step up, I'd love to spend some time talking to him. Well, him or George Carlin. Whoever can come by. :)

The real world

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as I don't have to deal with meatspace dickrolling, go ahead and shut 'er down.

Arrr

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd probably have to start *buying* DVDs

Re:Arrr

[wizardforce]

More like trade DVDs, books etc. with your friends. Don't copy them, just engage in some barter for the physical DVDs/books etc. The legal way to tell the RIAA + MPAA and such to frak themselves.

Re:Arrr

[lxs]

You obviously haven't thought this through. How can you have friends without the internet?

Re:Arrr

[maxwell demon]

You obviously haven't thought this through. How can you have friends without the internet?

By leaving your basement.

Re:Arrr

[poofmeisterp]

So *THIS* is the "Phase 2" that the Gnomes were discussing on South Park.

Phase 2.5: make trade illegal. Make electronic money the only form.

Heehee. ;>

twentytwelve

[Shadow Wrought]

Isn't this what the Mayan's prophisied for 2012?

Re:twentytwelve

[MichaelSmith]

No thats the 2038 time_t apocalypse.

Re:twentytwelve

[johncadengo]

Little did they know, in 2013 we'd make a new internet.

Perhaps they should've been Buddhists?

It's not so bad.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I remember an age before the internet. It was harder to find information and other data, but it wasn't so bad. The things you did have access to you took a bit more seriously. I spent more time at the library then. And I had an extensive cassette tape collection... No Internet != no computers, so rather than DL music, I suspect I would spend more time at LAN parties, which are always fun.

Re:It's not so bad.

[OnlyPostsWhilstDrunk]

No one will be able to play Starcraft 2, cats and dogs getting along, mass hysteria.

Re:It's not so bad.

[eln]

True, life was just fine before the Internet. Now, though, the Internet has infiltrated almost every aspect of our daily lives. Given that, if the Internet were to be shut off permanently, we would have to do without a lot of conveniences we've become accustomed to, which would make it a lot more painful than life before the Internet was. To throw in the requisite car analogy, life without cars probably wasn't all that horrible (at least, not due to the lack of cars specifically). However, now that cars are a major part of the fabric of our everyday lives, it would be substantially more painful to give them up completely now.

Add to all this the fact that a large percentage of us would have to find something else to do for a living, and many of us would have to emerge from the basements we've been in since 1987, and you have a real problem.

Re:It's not so bad.

[TubeSteak]

I remember an age before the internet.

Me too. For-profit copyright infringement was a bigger problem back in the days of dial-up.
Bittorrent and iTunes took the wind from their sails.
If the internet was turned off, I imagine that commercial copyright infringers will return with a vengence.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Yeah - the transition would suck.

In counterpoint, a friend of mine survived the "special times" in Cuba (basically, a massive powerdown) and said that the first six months pretty much sucked ass. But then you started to smile again, because the water was still warm and inviting, and you still had your friends, and you began to have fun. Only no one drove cars, and you invented things to do that didn't require money, electricity, or petroleum. A year after - you're fine. Different and less comfortable, but fine.

RS

Re:It's not so bad.

[antdude]

For me, it was bulletin board system (BBS) days. Good stuff.

Re:It's not so bad.

[macshit]

now that cars are a major part of the fabric of our everyday lives, it would be substantially more painful to give them up completely now.

This is only true in places where the physical infrastructure was designed or substantially altered to suit cars -- e.g., new-style suburbs or spread-out rural areas. Many places which developed in an earlier era, or have a more enlightened attitude towards planning, would cope pretty well. [A much bigger problem would be the lack of delivery trucks!] The USA would take a disproportionately large hit because it's engaged in pro-car planning so furiously.

So, the question is: has the underlying fabric of mainstream society changed since pre-internet days, to such a great extent that society would fall apart without the internet? I'd say no way.

The internet is very convenient, and very popular, but it simply hasn't been available to the larger public for very long. The majority of pre-internet infrastructure is still around, and the majority of people still know how to use it (e.g., libraries, bookstores, newspapers, yellow-pages, maps, "record" stores, etc). These "pre-internet" institutions and habits may be ailing these days, and the writing may be on the wall, but I don't think many of them have actually died off yet.

I suspect if the internet disappeared, the first few weeks would simply be very annoying, people would gripe and grumble furiously for a while, get lost more often (no google maps), and the economy would take a hit, but it wouldn't take so long for people to get over it.

Give society another 50 years, and the result might be a lot more dire, but I think the feeling of dependence on the internet is illusory. For most people, it's still just a convenience, and there still exist alternative systems to take over, however creaky they may feel in comparison.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Molochi]

I started out on a BBS in the mid 80s and later BBS networks like fido and WWIV. Back then I paid for longdistance. The main allure of the internet, that came along later, was being able to access a computer outside of my area code without a per minute fee or paying the BBS's longdistance fee. Bandwidth of the internet then wasn't all that special. Pirate BBSs were common. Porn BBSs were common. "EMail" and messageboards and turn based games on BBSs were common. Of course you had CompuServe as well. All of that folded their tents when almost anyone could set up a server to the internet and talk to anyone else on the internet.

I guess if I woke up tomorrow and there was just no internet anymore, I'd set up a BBS network. I'd expect it to be really busy since long distance is so cheap and data is so bloated now. But it's really a ridiculous question unless it's specified what it is that no longer works. No DNS? That just requires ip addresses. Cumbersome, but doable. Go much further than that and nothing works, including phones and BBSs. In which case my basic engineering, practical fabrication, and hunting/looting skills should become useful.

Re:It's not so bad.

[warGod3]

Which side of the fence?

I was in Cuba (Gitmo) in the 80s. We went to the beach, we played D&D, we skated, we did all kinds of things. You read a lot. Hell, we didn't even have cable or a McDonalds until 1986 or so. You really have to make do with what you have.

It's amazing what you learn to live with and what you find to entertain yourself with.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

She was in Havana. Was able to escape in the late 90s.

Re:It's not so bad.

[evilviper]

However, now that cars are a major part of the fabric of our everyday lives, it would be substantially more painful to give them up completely now.

It wouldn't be too bad. Bicycles work as well now as they ever did. Without cars filling up the streets, we'd have plenty of open road to bike to/from work, stores, etc.

Supply and demand would kick in, and in short order, instead of mega shopping malls on the edge of cities, there would be a large number of smaller stores throughout each town. Instead of people driving 60 miles each day to work, they'd stick to slightly lower-paying jobs in-town, or else move to the city where they work... Horror of horrors, I know.

Of course, these analogies all fall down because you can't single out an object, and remove it. The technology behind it will just be developed into slightly different imitators (bicycles with gas engines, or computer WANs simply being interconnected in a more ad-hoc way). You really can't get rid of device X without getting rid of the decades of technological development that created it.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting, I was watching 'War Games' again the other night. There is a montage scene where the main character is doing basic background research, a lot of library time, the sort of thing a single Google query has replaced.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Culture20]

But then you started to smile again, because the water was still warm and inviting, and you still had your friends, and you began to have fun. Only no one drove cars, and you invented things to do that didn't require money, electricity, or petroleum.

Why reinvent the wheel? http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1417319&cid=29862151

Re:It's not so bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back then, information took forever to disseminate to large masses of people.
I think about it alot actually. I find data in less than 30 seconds now that would have taken at least a day to dig up during the BBS days.

The thing that really bugs me about this article concept is that the internet is way too decentralized to just be turned off.
It's about as disconnectable as HAM radio... almost as intelligent as saying "what if we turned off the sun?"

Re:It's not so bad.

[Planesdragon]

So, the question is: has the underlying fabric of mainstream society changed since pre-internet days, to such a great extent that society would fall apart without the internet? I'd say no way.

Open up your wallet.

EVERYTHING but the cash is linked to the internet in some way or another for its vital function.

Driver's License? The police officer checks it over the internet against records that essentially only exist digitally on the internet.

Checkbook? When you write a check, the payee deposits it in his bank, who gives her funds drawn from the federal reserve over the internet, then sends an image of the check to your central bank over the internet, which then contacts your branch and updates your balance over the internet.

Credit Card? Just as bad as checks, except that you can't give someone a signed document with it if they don't have the internet to call up and enter it into.

Insurance card? Just as bad as credit cards, but without that government middleman. And a company with a fiduciary duty to not pay for your healthcare if it can at all avoid it.

And that's just in a typical wallet. We're not even talking about air traffic control, gasoline distribution, package shipping, or international communications. (Which reminds me: if the internet goes down, so does every regional or long-distance telephone system. And cell phones. And VoIP.)

Re:It's not so bad.

[macshit]

I'm sorry I don't know enough about the private internal functioning of my bank, etc., to know whether they have discarded all pre-internet infrastructure or not -- because obviously all this stuff worked fine before widespread adoption of the internet (not so long ago). Given that large financial institutions tend to be very conservative and very slow, I do have my doubts though.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Checkbook? What is this "checkbook" of which you speak?

I haven't written a paper cheque in at least ten years. The only ones I ever see anymore are from my US publisher. Always causes a bit of a stir when I take one of them to my bank.

No, seriously -- invariably, my visit winds up with 3 or 4 tellers gathered round opposite me, saying things to each other like, "Wow, when was the last time you saw one of these?" and "Can you get me the procedures manual? I forget exactly how we're supposed to process these things."

Re:It's not so bad.

[Tony Hoyle]

lol. It's not far off that. Last cheque I saw was about the same timeframe, and although I think the bank tellers would still know how to deal with them, no nobody takes them any more.. the shops (including mailorder) all announced they were stopping the practice a couple of years ago.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see ham radio being disconnected. All it would take would be a few vans with DF equipment and a SWAT team who is willing to bash down someone's door and remove the equipment (and the people using it). Or combine this with some high power jammers placed at strategic locations around a city, and that would take care of that.

Or perhaps forbid ownership of the radio equipment. Yes, people can make Pringles can antennas and other jerry rigged radios, but anything of any power at all (as in transmitting from city to city) would be taken care of.

Where I live, pirate radio keeps being tried, but the FCC or someone else tends to locate the station real quick and shut it down, usually in a matter of minutes to hours. I can see the same thing being done with ham radio if someone in power wanted it down.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

the real nightmare is a DRM only mandatory internet.

Re:It's not so bad.

[daveime]

Given that large financial institutions tend to be very conservative and very slow, I do have my doubts though

50 years ago if you wanted to cash a check or send a wire transfer, it would take 3 days.

Today with high speed communication linking every institution in the world, if *still* takes 3 days to cash a check or send a wire transfer.

Face it, this is not about banks adopting technology, this is about banks sitting on your money for 3 days and making interest off it. It's already left the source bank, it hasn't reached the destination bank, but someone, somewhere, is laughing their ass off at us.

Re:It's not so bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cash has serial numbers and gets pumped into cash registers at businesses. Further, the money supply is managed by the Fed. If you think cash isn't connected to the internet in some way or another for its vital function, you are semi-delusional.

Check out the national debt monitor, wall street, and everything else that makes a cash dollar a dollar.

Re:It's not so bad.

[poofmeisterp]

I remember an age before the internet. It was harder to find information and other data, but it wasn't so bad. The things you did have access to you took a bit more seriously. I spent more time at the library then. And I had an extensive cassette tape collection... No Internet != no computers, so rather than DL music, I suspect I would spend more time at LAN parties, which are always fun.

but but but....

The library looked and smelled like it was different than my home when I was younger. Do they still look and smell different? Do they? Oh, no. I'm scared. :>

Re:It's not so bad.

[ZERO1ZERO]

Hell, we didn't even have cable or a McDonalds until 1986 or so.

umm what do you mean by this?

Where I stay in the UK, we don't have cable or a MacDonalds, and I doubt we ever will. This is in 2009. 20 miles away from the nearest town. In fact if I want a MacDonalds I'd have to travel 100miles to the nearest city. And probably the same If i wanted to watch catv.

Re:It's not so bad.

[zoloto]

That's one big twinkie.

Re:It's not so bad.

[MrCrassic]

Here's the difference, though: nowadays, EVERYTHING is designed with the Internet in mind. Almost all financial instituions rely on it for day-to-day transactions, those that practice medicine use it for clerical and practical work, and IT as an industry relies on it for its survival (at least nowadays, anyway). That's not even considering the military (though if there's any group that would be prepared for an internet metldown, it should be them...)

If the Internet were shut off, LOTS and LOTS of people would be jobless and the economy would probably flounder overnight. It would be a significantly longer transition period, with a LOT more hardship.

Re:It's not so bad.

[mhajicek]

You had to trust the TV and local paper for news though.

Re:It's not so bad.

[nurb432]

It wasn't that much harder, there was this mythical information gatekeeper we called a 'librarian'.

Re:It's not so bad.

[webmistressrachel]

How about an iTunes only mandatory internet, with no UDP?

Re:It's not so bad.

[93,000]

Yes. This man has no dick.

Re:It's not so bad.

[vuffi_raa]

A year after - you're fine. Different and less comfortable, but fine.

I beg to differ- It would be a lot worse than all of that- it would be like if they turned the phones off in the 50's or 60's- business really depends on internet communication, so banks, investment houses, legal services, shipping and a number of other major backbones of the economy would be crippled and need to reset- it would basically trigger an instant depression and be an extremely painful recovery-

Re:It's not so bad.

[SpooForBrains]

My family emigrated to India in ... er ... 93. Suddenly we had to do without telephones, TV, CD players, video games and, really, most of the mod-cons I'd got used to in the UK. Those things existed over there to some degree, but they were mostly prohibitively expensive (plus part of the whole emigration thing was to get away from all that shit). On leaving the UK, I had no idea how I would do without all that stuff.

It took about six months to get over the culture shock, and then ... I discovered the following: a large circle of friends. A bicycle. Just dropping round someone's house on a whim. The radio. Books. The beach. Swimming pools. Board games. Conversation. Lots of things that I had, of course, previously had access to, but which had been pushed aside by all that other stuff that seemed so necessary in the UK.

I had some awesome teenage years.

Re:It's not so bad.

[DarthVain]

Ya I remember the "good 'ole" days as well. I was somewhat addicted to door games. Anyway I remember up here in Canada near the end of the BBS era phone companies to compete started offering these 20$ a month all the long distance you want deals. I remember people used to get that and just connect to a BBS long distance and stay connected, or use it to hit BBS that normally you would never hit due to long distance changes. Internet was also the death of the phone preaks who use to scam free long distance to hit those long distance BBS systems and whatnot.

I guess the phone companies must have taken a hit too, when anyone serious had at least 2 phone lines, one strictly for data...

Heh I don't know how many times I would be online and... %^@#*(#^*@%^@)NO CARRIER "ARGH! MOOOOOOOMMMMM GET OFF THE PHONE LINE!!!!"

I am a bit nostalgic for the connect noise now...

Re:It's not so bad.

[mcgrew]

To throw in the requisite car analogy, life without cars probably wasn't all that horrible

Top speed of 20mph, no heaters or AC in them... I'd rather give up my internet connection than my transportation! I'd hate to make a 100 mile trip in January on a carriage or wagon, or especially on a horse.

South Park had this covered

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/166179/

They covered basically every topic in there

Re:South Park had this covered

[skine]

I think that if you actually look into it, you'll find that The Simpsons covered all of the topics even before South Park did.

Re:South Park had this covered

[Anonymous Coward]

Who covered the fact that The Simpsons cover everything first, first?

Re:South Park had this covered

[poofmeisterp]

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/166179/

They covered basically every topic in there

Guess what the author watched right before writing the article? ...and I'll give you a hint.. it wasn't Parks and Recreation. :>

Re:South Park had this covered

[Disfnord]

Why, the Simpson's of course. See episode DBAF12 "Gump Roast" wherein the show's ridiculous number of plotlines is made fun of, as well as lack of possible future plots in the song "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons"
"Have no fear, we'll have stories for years, like
Marge becomes a robot
Maybe Moe gets a cell phone, has Bart ever owned a bear?"

Re:South Park had this covered

[Anonymous Coward]

South Park has also covered the topic that the simpsons did everything, and how the honeymooners did everything before them.

(Episode 607 - The Simpsons Already Did It)

Oblig. South Park Quote

[ZiakII]

Randy: And so what have we learned through this ordeal? The internet went away. It came back. But for how long, we do not know. We cannot take the internet for granted any longer. We, as a country, must stop over logging-on. We must use the internet only when we need it. It's easy for us to think we can just use up all the internet we want. But if we don't treat the internet with the RESPECT (pounds the podium with his fist)...that it deserves, it could one day be gone forever. So let us learn to live with the internet not for it. No more browsing for no apparent reason. No more mindlessly surfing on our laptops while watching television. And finally, we must learn to only use the internet for porn twice a day. Max

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[commodoresloat]

Fuck that. I'm heading out Californy-way. I hear they got some internet out there.

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[JackieBrown]

I heard the internet will still be running at amusement parks

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[Hurricane78]

That was the best quote you could manage? You missed out on the epic chance to quote

"We can't go back to Playboy now!"

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[BluBrick]

That was the best quote you could manage? You missed out on the epic chance to quote

"We can't go back to Playboy now!"

Or even "Dude, what the fuck is wrong with German people?"

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[poofmeisterp]

I heard the internet will still be running at amusement parks

I heard that amusement parks will be open in every home within a year. :>

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[poofmeisterp]

"We can't go back to Playboy now!"

When Hugh dies two days after, I can't help but laugh. :>

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

You can quote the whole episode.

"I've got family who needs Internet right away. We'll head out California way and see what we can find"

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[Hurricane78]

Hey, I'm German (sort of), you insensitive clod!

Obligatory Gina Wild reference: http://btjunkie.org/search?q=%22gina+wild%22

Re:Oblig. South Park Quote

[onemorechip]

The meaning of that last sentence would shift if "only" modified "twice a day", instead of "to use".

Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[93 Escort Wagon]

I can't see the people that are really hooked on the intarwebs rioting. It's more likely they'd all still be sitting at their computers, staring blankly at their computer screens, oblivious to the appeals of their loved ones to "just get up and go take a walk"...

Not to mention that CDs have been around longer than the 'net, and never costed $199.99... for that matter so have adult bookstores and sex shops. Just how old was the submitter of this story, anyway?

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[Nebulious]

This may clarify a few things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

While riots are probably an exaggeration, Americans do have historical prior art if you're curious what might happen.

See prohibition of alcohol. It was bad enough that they repealed it.

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[JackieBrown]

See prohibition of alcohol. It was bad enough that they repealed it.

awww.. you gave away the end

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 unable to detect humor over a text-based medium

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[blankinthefill]

Everyone is saying that this is humor based... but I don't know. TFA says "they turned off the internet." That implies that someone knowingly "turned it off." Think about what a huge portion of our economy is based on the internet. How many jobs, and how much commerce, depends on the internet existing? That's a lot of jobs, and there have been huge riots over much smaller job losses than that. Add to that the fact that "they" are responsible for it, and you have someone to riot AGAINST, and I think there would be some pretty massive upheaval... and I don't think it would be very pretty when things calmed down. It would also probably take a lot longer than you would think it would TO settle down.

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[General Wesc]

I can't see the people that are really hooked on the intarwebs rioting.

I'd riot. Shutting down the Internet would kill the economy. Technologic regressions are never really a viable option, and losing the Internet would be a huge one, especially as far as the economy is concerned.

One second thought, no, I wouldn't riot. If they turned off the Internet, I'd just turn it back on again, with the help of the other millions of tech-savvy people who like having jobs, to say nothing of food, electricity, running water, etc.Yes, we survived without the Internet. We also survived without agriculture. But that doesn't mean we can do that with todays needs.

Asimov said it quite well in Science Past--Science Future:

Faced with that cold fact, only scattered individuals here and there have ever returned to the "simple life." No matter how much they urged it on others, the population generally could not follow; they literally could not. No farming community in history, anywhere, at any time, has voluntarily and en masse abandoned farming and resumed food gathering. It is not possible to make such a change.

(And this holds true for every important technological advance. Any retreat to a previous level must mean a large reduction in man's range or his numbers or both--and this is a catastrophe men will not accept voluntarily.)

Losing the Internet might not dramatically reduce our range or numbers, but it would catastrophically reduce our wealth (read: quality of life).

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[poofmeisterp]

...oblivious to the appeals of their loved ones to "just get up and go take a walk"

After the ex-interfolk start walking, obesity will decrease, overall health will increase, and the medical industry will fall by the wayside. Medical insurance industries will struggle to survive by raising prices and... wait, flashback. Whoa. :>

Re:Riots? You've got to be kidding.

[Penguinisto]

...for that matter so have adult bookstores and sex shops...

Depends - ever lived in a bible-belt state (or worse, Utah)? Sure, they sell *some*, but anything that wasn't perfectly tame (think: about what you'd find in Maxim magazine) would likely have landed you a massive fine (or worse, depending on county) for merely possessing it.

I believe the biggest complaints against the Internet's rise in Utah came from the porn shops sitting just over the borders in Evanston, Wyoming and Wendover, Nevada... they must've lost a TON of business (both locations are roughly 1.5 hours' drive east from Salt Lake City).

/P

Oh thats no problem....

[gjyoung]

We'll just get the dial..GaF*O#*f(Y)H)@*$^*%$^%#%....

OMG

[Boomerang Fish]

You mean I might actually have to leave the basement (not my moms, but...) and see people in real life?!?!?!?

I'd crack in a week!

On the other hand, playing GTA with real people and real weapons could be fun... in an OW! OW! I'm Bleeding, You Fu..... kind of way...

But we'd have no more lost carrier jokes, so it might balance out.

--
I drank what?

Re:OMG

[sopssa]

But we'd have no more lost carrier jokes, so it might balance out.

You would think so. Whole world would be filled with nerds running all around yelling LOST CARRIER, LOST CARRIER!!

Re:OMG

[MindlessAutomata]

Hmm... no internet, no stupid people using stupid memes. Sounds like a deal to me. I for one welcome our internet-stopping overlords.

Re:OMG

[causality]

Hmm... no internet, no stupid people using stupid memes. Sounds like a deal to me. I for one welcome our internet-stopping overlords.

Thanks to the advertising and PR industries, the stupid meme predates the Internet. By a long shot.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids these days...
Its CARRIER LOST.

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop sending your packets through hawk-heavy zones and you won't have those kinds of problems.

Re:OMG

[YttriumOxide]

Actually, "NO CARRIER" tended to be the common disconnection message... yeh, kids these days.

Re:OMG

[ZzzzSleep]

That's just...
Ridiculous!
We're never this...
Conspicuous.

Burma Shave.

Re:OMG

[poofmeisterp]

Actually, "NO CARRIER" tended to be the common disconnection message... yeh, kids these days.

Damn CARRIERs and their support. DAMN THEM! :>

Re:OMG

[DamienNightbane]

Nerds running. That's cute.

BBS

[lothos]

we'd be using our 1200bps modems connecting to the local BBS and swapping email over fido.

Re:BBS

[Aoet_325]

"we'd be using our 1200bps modems connecting to the local BBS and swapping email over fido."

exactly what I did in the old days. As long as computers are around, people will find a way to connect them and connect themselves to each other using them. I suspect that while dial up might not be answer people run to these days I could see people setting up wireless networks within their own neighborhoods, and extending them into WANs that cover a good part of their city.

Re:BBS

[causality]

"we'd be using our 1200bps modems connecting to the local BBS and swapping email over fido."

exactly what I did in the old days. As long as computers are around, people will find a way to connect them and connect themselves to each other using them. I suspect that while dial up might not be answer people run to these days I could see people setting up wireless networks within their own neighborhoods, and extending them into WANs that cover a good part of their city.

This has already been worked out. It has a tremendous advantage, too: it would be more difficult for a company or government to either shut it down or personally identify individual users.

Re:BBS

[Darkness404]

The downside with mesh networking is that it would be unfeasible to use for either political statements or file sharing for any practical use. Lets assume that everyone uses their standard equipment just with different firmware to use mesh networking (not unlikely if the internet was shut down for some odd reason) any router can only go between 2-3 houses on either side of a neighborhood max. That means that unless just about every other house in the city had the same networking going on, it would be just as easy to drive to the other side of a city and deliver a note. Similarly, file sharing is just about useless because most of the items people want are something that only a few people have (advance copies of DVDs, books, things not sold in your country, off-air TV shows, etc) while there might be some people just wanting to get something for free that they can get at Wal-Mart, a lot of people pirate what they can't get easily. While some of this can be eliminated by using better equipment, I don't see it being a major benefit for the most part.

Re:BBS

[networkzombie]

My AP would have the security disabled, as would any other AP I could guess the password to, and my neighborhood would be a WAN, replacing the antiquated BBS style I used to use back in the day. Hack the DNS to display the portal site as your home page and setup forums. I have enough cached info, filez, pr0n, and sockets to keep a few thousand people happy for years. Miles away? No prob. Get a pringles can. We'd have to give it a name. The Tubez of South County, South City IntraWeb, or maybe CompuServ. I'd run the whole thing from my bomb shelter using a generator.

Re:BBS

[Anonymous Coward]

any router can only go between 2-3 houses on either side of a neighborhood max

Suburban America != city. HTH.

Re:BBS

[gmuslera]

That was actually was we were doing before internet (even remember doing international calls to download a file from a BBS overseas), we could perfectly do it after internet too... Of course, unless what ended internet also ended modems, computers and/or humans.

Re:BBS

[Rob the Bold]

we'd be using our 1200bps modems connecting to the local BBS and swapping email over fido.

Glad you didn't say 300 baud, cause then I'd have to revert back to ASCII porn.

Re:BBS

[YttriumOxide]

(even remember doing international calls to download a file from a BBS overseas)

Yep, the first time I was ever convicted of a crime was for that :/

Re:BBS

[poofmeisterp]

"we'd be using our 1200bps modems connecting to the local BBS and swapping email over fido."

exactly what I did in the old days. As long as computers are around, people will find a way to connect them and connect themselves to each other using them. I suspect that while dial up might not be answer people run to these days I could see people setting up wireless networks within their own neighborhoods, and extending them into WANs that cover a good part of their city.

GREAT! You've just given the gub'mint what they were looking for! Now *ALL COMPUTERS* will be destroyed instead of just the internet! Great job, Aoet. Great job. ;>

Re:BBS

[poofmeisterp]

My AP would have the security disabled, as would any other AP I could guess the password to, and my neighborhood would be a WAN, replacing the antiquated BBS style I used to use back in the day....

*choke* EMI *cough* ;>

Re:BBS

[troll8901]

This has already been worked out. It has a tremendous advantage, too: it would be more difficult for a company or government to either shut it down or personally identify individual users.

You mean, it's not possible to jam the 2.4GHz bandwidth airspace for the purpose of shutting it down?

Re:BBS

[DarthVain]

Of course how many computers even have a modem anymore. I think I still have a box collecting dust in the basement that might have a modem, however they are pretty rare these days.

Work?

[Ogive17]

I'd probably get some work done... though I'm not sure how since our data is stored in Colorado and I'm in Ohio.

Re:Work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem. As the old joke by Tanenbaum goes, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway", or, updated for today/better performance, I guess hard drives and courier.

The latency would be rather bad, though.

Re:Work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sucks to be you. Happily for me it's the other way around.

Re:Work?

[poofmeisterp]

I'd probably get some work done... though I'm not sure how since our data is stored in Colorado and I'm in Ohio.

...and you'd have to answer with "Oh, I apologize. I need to talk a walk to Colorado to get that information. I'll be back in a few weeks."

Wow, that sounds like business today! Ohh emm gee! ;>

Re:Work?

[warGod3]

Think of this:
The internet flatlines. Thousands of geeks out of work... where will they go and what will they do?

I can say one thing... the porn print industry would explode...

What I would do?

[MindlessAutomata]

Let's face it, by then the shit will have hit the fan. Mankind will have been put under its own boot, with either one of two situations occuring: Men ruled by man or man ruled by men. Neither world is acceptable to me, not like this one is a model existence either.

I'd put on my headband, boots, camo pants, and grab whatever black market guns I could find (by then guns will be outlawed so we can become more in-line with the more "progressive" nations) and maybe grenade or two. I'd light a cigarette to go with my 5 o'clock shadow, strap on a bullet belt, and teach any of the dogs responsible for this mess, including those that tried to stop me, what the inside of hell looks like, all while Foetus's Anything (Viva!) played in the background. Rule of law? I'll show you Newton's first law: my bullet will hit their heads which will cause their brains to spray out.

There's no coping in my world. Only the blood of those responsible for this mess. Everywhere.

Re:What I would do?

[tftp]

I'd light a cigarette to go with my 5 o'clock shadow, strap on a bullet belt, and teach any of the dogs responsible for this mess,

And once you are well on your war path you will suddenly discover that bullets in your bullet belt don't come with cartridge, primer and powder charge. You'd have to throw them, real hard :-) or perhaps study ahead of time how this whole thing works.

Re:What I would do?

[MindlessAutomata]

You are mistaken, sir, I plan to do it exactly like they do it in the movies. I even have the little "jumping out of an exploding train" sequence planned out in my head.

Re:What I would do?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd light a cigarette to go with my 5 o'clock shadow, strap on a bullet belt, and teach any of the dogs responsible for this mess,

And once you are well on your war path you will suddenly discover that bullets in your bullet belt don't come with cartridge, primer and powder charge. You'd have to throw them, real hard :-) or perhaps study ahead of time how this whole thing works.

You're kidding right? There's going to be scads of ammo laying around. Especially from all those fools who are stocking piling thousands upon thousands of rounds. They don't realize that they can't carry that much, they're not in a place that can withstand a siege, and that if they start trying to use it all themselves they're likely going to become dead in very short order. And they'll drop lots of ammo and guns.

Re:What I would do?

[tftp]

I was only picking on GP's mistake of calling ammunition "bullets" - this mistake is quite popular. Bullets alone won't do you much good, unless you are familiar with the reloading press.

But with regard to leftover ammo and guns in case of major troubles ... ok, let's assume some people decide to abandon their homes and go ... where? Ok, let's assume they are gone. You are standing on the road, and there are presumably empty houses around you. You can break into some, but if the house is not empty you will be very dead. If you are lucky and the house is empty you can start searching. The house is large, and ammo is usually stored hidden and locked. You can spend a lot of time searching for something that may not even exist. Your time is not free because in a conflict zone there is always something hunting you, be it zombies or just gangs. So here you are, in an abandoned house, with little ammo of your own, holding a position that the owner himself saw as indefensible. Instead of moving on you are searching for ammo and guns; meanwhile zombies come closer and closer...

Also about the weight. I think I have about 2,000 rounds of 17HMR made by Hornady, all ready for the spring squirrels. The box is not that heavy, maybe 14 lbs. If you escape in a car you can load ten times as much. If you escape on foot, I'd probably dump some food items and take all the ammo because food is easier to find; you can always shoot a bird if you have to, but you can't defend yourself with a can of beans.

Re:What I would do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a good thing I have a shotgun reloader and plenty of powder, primers, and shot to go on a while then. I got a lead smelter to make more buckshot from scrap lead too. Also got that old bomb shelter out behind the house to bunker up in.

The redneck is strong in this one.

Re:What I would do?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can throw the can of beans at someone's head but yes your point is valid

Re:What I would do?

[causality]

Also about the weight. I think I have about 2,000 rounds of 17HMR made by Hornady, all ready for the spring squirrels.

You must have a lot of squirrels in your area.

Re:What I would do?

[tftp]

You must have a lot of squirrels in your area.

Millions, actually. Hunting doesn't even make a dent in their population, and they cause a lot of damage to farmers and ranchers. I'm talking about ground squirrels, not about tree squirrels - the latter are game species. I had more than a hundred ground squirrels last summer near my house alone, running everywhere like rats, eating my plums right off the tree, and such. Don't know how many will be there next March. I had to work on their numbers because their burrows are eroding the hillside, and because I like plums very much :-) In 2010 I expect to use those 17HMR, and a good deal of high velocity 22LR, in Modoc County starting in March, and later, during whole summer, in Central Valley (Carrizo Plain.)

Re:What I would do?

[causality]

You must have a lot of squirrels in your area.

Millions, actually. Hunting doesn't even make a dent in their population, and they cause a lot of damage to farmers and ranchers. I'm talking about ground squirrels, not about tree squirrels - the latter are game species. I had more than a hundred ground squirrels last summer near my house alone, running everywhere like rats, eating my plums right off the tree, and such. Don't know how many will be there next March. I had to work on their numbers because their burrows are eroding the hillside, and because I like plums very much :-) In 2010 I expect to use those 17HMR, and a good deal of high velocity 22LR, in Modoc County starting in March, and later, during whole summer, in Central Valley (Carrizo Plain.)

If it helps, they absolutely love peanut butter. They can't seem to resist it.

Re:What I would do?

[TubeSteak]

I'd put on my headband, boots, camo pants, and grab whatever black market guns I could find (by then guns will be outlawed so we can become more in-line with the more "progressive" nations) and maybe grenade or two.

It's just as plausible that a right-wing authoritarian government would do the deed.
N. Korea and China are the first two examples that come to mind.
Though to be fair, N. Korea doesn't have much of an internet (or power grid) to begin with.
I'd bring up certain Mid-Eastern countries, but guns are ubiquitous there.

As a side note, I would have modded you funny because your paranoid post isn't internally consistent.
A true conservative paranoid wouldn't need to grab black market guns because (s)he'd already have a stash, legal or not.

Re:What I would do?

[lwsimon]

Especially from all those fools who are stocking piling thousands upon thousands of rounds. They don't realize that they can't carry that much,

If if comes to that, that's what the deuce-and-a-half is for.

they're not in a place that can withstand a siege,

Yes, I am.

and that if they start trying to use it all themselves they're likely going to become dead in very short order.

Maybe if you manage to acquire artillery.

And they'll drop lots of ammo and guns.

Good luck with that :)

Re:What I would do?

[MindlessAutomata]

I'm not conservative, or paranoid. But the so-called "gun-grabbers" DO tend to be on the left. The American Right in politics is a lot less, uh, gun-grabby? Though you are right, either side could do, and would if they could get the chance.

Re:What I would do?

[lahvak]

...but you can't defend yourself with a can of beans.

Take a tablet of Esbit solid fuel, or some similar such crap, two bricks or something, place the tablet between the bricks, light it and place the can unopened on top when you hear the zombies approaching. Take a good cover.

Re:What I would do?

[Planesdragon]

I'd put on my headband, boots, camo pants, and grab whatever black market guns I could find (by then guns will be outlawed so we can become more in-line with the more "progressive" nations) and maybe grenade or two.

What crazy rock have you been living under that makes you think that the PROGRESSIVES will be the ones that turn the US into tyranny?

And that's ignoring one simple fact: if the right or the left decides to go ape-shit crazy in the US to the point where armed violence is the only sensible response... THEY WILL HAVE BIGGER GUNS THAN YOU. And tanks. And body armor. And more numbers.

Sheesh.

On a different note: if you want to preserve gun rights, stop listening to the crap shoveled by the NRA and talk radio, and put your efforts towards a far more effective goal: re-normalizing guns. Folk who have never handled a gun see the weapon as "strange" and "dangerous" and "foreign", and it is those three things that can be sensibly outlawed. Those that handle firearms and appreicate them see guns as neither strange nor foreign, and no more dangerous than an automobile.

Re:What I would do?

[gandhi_2]

"right-wing"...."N. Korea and China"...

Maybe you are from somewhere where right-wing means socialism, communism, or fascism (which are all degrees of the same thing), but in the USA, right-wing means the opposite. Like Libertarianism but with a touch of Judeo-Christian morality.

Re:What I would do?

[YttriumOxide]

Maybe you are from somewhere where right-wing means socialism, communism, or fascism (which are all degrees of the same thing), but in the USA, right-wing means the opposite. Like Libertarianism but with a touch of Judeo-Christian morality.

Uh.... socialism and communism are generally considered "left" and "extreme left", fascism is considered "extreme right".

I do personally find the whole left/right distinction to be silly though - political beliefs and ideologies are not a simple line. My personal political beliefs for example often fall on both ends of the scale, but I wouldn't call myself "moderate" either since I strongly advocate some things traditionally considered "left" and strongly advocate other things traditionally considered "right".

Re:What I would do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out for the Predators and Reapers. The 'pilots' are training on coloured folks to make it easy when they go for the real target - you white folks

Re:What I would do?

[R2.0]

"On a different note: if you want to preserve gun rights, stop listening to the crap shoveled by the NRA and talk radio, and put your efforts towards a far more effective goal: re-normalizing guns. Folk who have never handled a gun see the weapon as "strange" and "dangerous" and "foreign", and it is those three things that can be sensibly outlawed. Those that handle firearms and appreciate them see guns as neither strange nor foreign, and no more dangerous than an automobile."

In fairness, the NRA at least supports many of those efforts. For instance, one of the most compelling arguments for gun normalization is than carnage that DIDN'T happen after so many states enacted "shall issue" laws. And that effort was led by the NRA. Likewise, the Open Carry movement isn't exactly ignored by them either.

The NRA has a lot of ugly in it, but no one else has the clout to get behind legislation that would make it possible to normalize guns, and fight when existing rights are abused.

Re:What I would do?

[gandhi_2]

Fascism the insulting label IS used by lefties to insult righties. However, the ideals the Fascism espoused ARE leftist ideals.

"... by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state".(Rao, B. V. History of Modern Europe Ad 1789-2002. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 2006. p. 215)

As Mussolini put it, "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

Government control of all commerce is a leftist ideal, probably somewhere between socialism and communism. And I use leftist here in the USA sense.

Re:What I would do?

[Grishnakh]

It sounds like you have a problem with ground squirrel overpopulation. Perhaps, instead of trying to shoot them all yourself, you need to find some kind of predator that'll keep their numbers down. Would cats be good for this? According to your linked Wiki article, rattlesnakes eat them, and even weasels do, so it seems like cats would be a good choice. Maybe you could catch some feral cats and relocate them to your area.

Here's an article I just found, which has some helpful info. Trees can be protected by wrapping the base with light-gauge metal, and they say cats are good for population control.

Re:What I would do?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. "OMG we shot all the predators and built strip malls in their habitat. Now what do we do with the pests? Shoot them too!"

People are so retarded it's a wonder we can breath and walk at the same time. How about repopulating the predators and leaving some habitat here and there? It's not rocket surgery.

Re:What I would do?

[tftp]

This is a complex subject, and many people gave it a thought. I can offer you a quick summary.

• Perhaps, instead of trying to shoot them all yourself, you need to find some kind of predator that'll keep their numbers down. - introduction of non-native species is likely to be disastrous; they'd likely do the job, but then you have another problem on your hands. It is very risky - remember Australian rabbits and European {sparrow,starling} in North America. Shooting of squirrels is the absolutely best, ecologically speaking, way to control the population. Poisons are largely illegal (100% illegal where it matters, like on farms.)
• Would cats be good for this? - Not likely; both[1] species of California ground squirrels are about the size of a cat, and they are faster, and they have excellent underground burrows. Squirrels also live in colonies and notify each other about the danger. Squirrels prefer areas that offer good visibility of ground- and air-based predators. All in all, I doubt that a cat could even win the battle. It is also important that a wild squirrel is far more aggressive than a domestic cat, and its claws are longer than cat's own (and not retractable.)
• rattlesnakes eat them - first of all, I'd take 1,000 squirrels instead of one rattler :-) Also note that some populations of adult squirrels are partially immune to the poison; also note that squirrels learned to confuse snakes by chewing on rattler's shed skin, and by heating their tails.
• Maybe you could catch some feral cats and relocate them to your area. - this is illegal, even if there was an easy way to catch a feral cat :-) Also cats are rare here, somehow, which is sad because I like cats.
• Trees can be protected by wrapping the base with light-gauge metal - yes, this is known, particularly useful against rabbits. Looks ugly, though :-) but in 2010 I'll probably leave my squirrels alone for a year (to let them multiply a bit) and protect the trees instead. I have no intention of exterminating them all; I only want to let them know who pays the property taxes ;-)

[1] The other species is Spermophilus richardsonii, they live in North California / South Oregon.

Re:What I would do?

[Grishnakh]

Maybe you could catch some feral cats and relocate them to your area. - this is illegal, even if there was an easy way to catch a feral cat :-) Also cats are rare here, somehow, which is sad because I like cats.

It's not that hard. You can get animal traps from Harbor Freight pretty cheaply. You just set them in areas where there's feral cats with food in them, and when the cat goes inside, the door drops shut. They're used a lot in TNR (trap-neuter-release) programs for trapping feral cats, which are then neutered and returned to their home. The neutered cats, being territorial, keep other feral cats from filling the vacuum that would be left by exterminating them, and over time the populations decline.

Hmm, maybe that's an idea: you could trap the squirrels alive and neuter them, so they can't reproduce!

Re:What I would do?

[tftp]

you could trap the squirrels alive and neuter them, so they can't reproduce!

California Fish and Game regulations have this to say:

475. Methods of Take for Nongame Birds and Nongame Mammals.
(d) Traps may be used to take nongame birds and nongame mammals only in accordance with the provisions of Section 465.5 of these regulations and sections 3003.1 and 4004 of the Fish and Game Code.

465.5. Use of Traps.
(1) Immediate Dispatch or Release. All furbearing and nongame mammals that are legal to trap must be immediately killed or released. Unless released, trapped animals shall be killed by shooting where local ordinances, landowners, and safety permit. This regulation does not prohibit employees of federal, state, or local government from using chemical euthanasia to dispatch trapped animals.

As you can see, people already thought of all possibilities and made sure that only sufficiently humane ones are permitted. In fact, hunters are required to understand ethics and the exam includes quite a few questions on the subject. If you don't have a hunting license yet I recommend you to go to a weekend course and get one, the course costs only $15 and it's extremely interesting, even if you do not plan to ever hunt. The certificate that you get is yours for life, and it gives you the right to get a hunting license whenever you need it (most people apply immediately, of course.) And, as a bonus, you'll be well prepared for survival if that is ever needed.

Re:What I would do?

[Jedi Alec]

Fascism the insulting label IS used by lefties to insult righties. However, the ideals the Fascism espoused ARE leftist ideals.

"... by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state".(Rao, B. V. History of Modern Europe Ad 1789-2002. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 2006. p. 215)

As Mussolini put it, "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

Government control of all commerce is a leftist ideal, probably somewhere between socialism and communism. And I use leftist here in the USA sense.

Fascism combines elements of both the left and right. Trying to peg it squarely on either side is the kind of polarized thinking one would expect from an american...oh wait.

Trying to describe all the possible combination of electoral and economic systems on a single left-right axis is silly, imo. (Yes, in theory a combination of direct democracy and communism would be possible)

Re:What I would do?

[happyfrogcow]

this sounds like a project in home automation.

chans

[Luke Wilson]

as for forums, obligatory comic: http://theurf.com/2008/07/offline-box-forums/

I've already planned for the worst case scenario

[Anonymous Coward]

A terabyte of porn and anime stuck on a RAID. That should last until they get the internet back up.

new poll

[tloh]

What would replace the internet?

a)sneaker net
b)ip over avian carriers
c)johnny mnemonic
d)radio killed the itunes store
e)cowboy neal
f)breasts (the live nude version on a real female)

Re:new poll

[Anonymous Coward]

Some would want g, an alternative to f

g) gay bars / clubs

The net put many gay bars out of business. Between the cover charges, drinks (and in some cases DUIs), the bars were a pretty expensive and inconvenient way for people to meet. Plus some would rather avoid people that are drinking/drunk, or places allowing cigarette smoking. Some feeling a bit shy are more prone to developing a drinking problem in a bar setting. The bars were also much more awkward for all those "straight" men who get the urge for manly pleasures now and then. While net avoids drinking as part of the routine, the 24 hour nature of it fits in with people high on meth or whatever looking for sex without taking time out to sleep. That the PnP crowd (party and play). It's sad that something fun like party has come to mean drug use.

Re:new poll

[Kjella]

Guess we found a replacement for Cowboy Neal as the joke option at the end of the poll...

Re:new poll

[12_West]

It wasn't all bad: Hope this link works

Re:new poll

[kramerd]

You idiot! Without the internet, how am I supposed to answer the poll?

Re:new poll

[Anonymous Coward]

a) already replaced the internet. Just wait until usb 3.0 drives get up to speed.

Re:new poll

[ionix5891]

f)breasts (the live nude version on a real female)

non photoshoped :(

Re:new poll

[maxwell demon]

call 1-900-SLASHDOTPOLL-x
where "x" is replaced by your option of choice (0 to 5).

Re:new poll

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

g) Officer Barbrady
h) RMS
i) Chef?

Re:new poll

[MrCrassic]

It's sad that something fun like party has come to mean drug use.

Technically, it's always implied that, since alcohol plays a significant role in how successful or "fun" most parties will be.

UUCp: Bring it back!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one would begin offering UUCP connections again, complete with multiplatform tutorials on how to get up and running...
Steven M Robbins are You Reading This?

I saw this on The IT Crowd

[Sponge Bath]

They faked breaking the internet and people panicked and stampeded over each other. Even though it is a sitcom, this is probably accurate.

If Al Gore invented the internet, it will probably be Crazy Ol' Uncle Joe (Biden) who breaks it.

Re:I saw this on The IT Crowd

[agw]

Yes, the scene was frightning.

So you better not type "google" into google.

I'd be in a foxhole....

[mangastudent]

Ignoring for the moment that I generally grab what I might want from the net in the future as I find it (too many sites go "poof"), the only context in which "they" would turn off the Internet would be one of dire civil war (e.g. worse than what recently happened in Iran).

I doubt I'd actually be in a foxhole (that sort of implies you're fighting by the other side's rules), but I wouldn't take it laying down, nor would a lot of people like me.

Re:I'd be in a foxhole....

[John Hasler]

> I doubt I'd actually be in a foxhole (that sort of implies you're fighting by
> the other side's rules)...

Having dirt between you and the bullets is good.

Re:I'd be in a foxhole....

[causality]

> I doubt I'd actually be in a foxhole (that sort of implies you're fighting by > the other side's rules)...

Having dirt between you and the bullets is good.

"You may find me one day, dead in a ditch somewhere. But by God, you'll find me in a pile of brass."
-- Trooper M. Padgett

Re:I'd be in a foxhole....

[mangastudent]

Having dirt between you and the bullets is good.

True enough, and it is best to remember the difference between cover and concealment ... but perhaps it's best (in this sort of thing) to be somewhere no one is shooting at. If you must shoot, then fire only once---very hard to tell where a supersonic bullet comes from due to the sonic boom it makes---and then "scoot".

Re:I'd be in a foxhole....

[John Hasler]

Excellent plan. Trouble is, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

Re:I'd be in a foxhole....

[ComputerGeek01]

You sir should be banned for quoting\semi-quoting or referancing Colin Powell on anything that has to do with warfare. The mans entire career paints him as a willing sacrificial lamb to whoever orders him around. If he has a mind of his own it must be the finest in the world because he has spent his life avoiding thought for himself. So please the next time you die in Call of Duty read the author of the line.

Re:I'd be in a foxhole....

[John Hasler]

You, sir, are an idiot. The quote is from Helmuth von Moltke the elder.

I mis-remember it

[Jay L]

I'm always struck by my pre-Internet memories, because I have no recollection of how I learned timely, geek-related facts. I was a huge Trek fan in high school, and I knew all about conventions and movie plans and whatnot. I'm sure I got some of it from BBS's, and I must have subscribed to some 'zines, but how did I ever find those without - not just without the Internet, but without ubiquitous search?

Re:I mis-remember it

[Culture20]

I was a huge Trek fan in high school, and I knew all about conventions and movie plans and whatnot.[...] but how did I ever find those without - not just without the Internet, but without ubiquitous search?

Word of mouth amongst friends. Local game/comicbook shop poster boards.

Re:I mis-remember it

[Spy der Mann]

Dungeons and Dragons meetings.

Re:I mis-remember it

[Molochi]

I know that for me it was having a large geeky social group and reading a lot as I entered highschool and went through my college years. Books yes, but also tons of magazines like Scientific American, Omni, Analog, Fangora, Penthouse, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Skateboarder, The New Yorker, and I read the SF Chronicle at least on Sunday and twice more in a week. As a gamer I had the the local shops (Tita's House of Games and Berkeley Games) and several gaming/media conventions a year to hone my trivial monty python skills on my peers. There was a huge movie theatre in Berkeley that did the usual Midnight Picture Show crap, but also did improve dubbings of 30's serial movies like the Cisco Kid (think proto MST3K). It was a large group of generously creative people that I interacted with. The Salinas Gamers had over 50 members alone, and that was just to play Call of Cthulhu on Saturday/Sunday and sing filksongs (published by Chaosium) on thanksgiving. When I migrated to Atlanta, later, I found similar surroundings, so I suspect the tale of the lone, girl-less, geek, who only had his D&D group to interact with "to be apocryphal or at least wildly inaccurate" and the loner geek on the web to be a self perpetrated reality of the post internet generation.

Re:I mis-remember it

[Anonymous Coward]

Word of mouth...? You mean... this aperture can be used for communication!? :o

Re:I mis-remember it

[Bat Country]

I remember in the Seattle area there was a free want ads paper called the Little Nickel where people would advertise BBSes. Also you'd see fliers at bus stops for the larger multi-line boards. The smaller Telegard/Renegade/WWIV board systems were usually word of mouth.

Once you got onto a decent sized board, there was usually a bulletin board devoted to local BBS scene ads where people used some flashy ANSI or nice ASCII art (if ANSI wasn't supported) to advertise their boards. A lot of boards had a log-out screen which advertised local area bulletin boards and people would give out sub-sysop-level preferred access to other board operators who would advertise for them.

File transfer was usually either done via some paid service, a local library system, somebody you knew in the area with university network access, CDs you bought from ads in magazines or BBS compilations, BBS meetup parties or by offering preferred accounts on your board to people who would courier from boards outside your network.

In short, everything worked, but it was slower and harder to find exactly what you wanted without having to pay for access to tons of different systems plus foot the bill for the long-distance dialups.

Most often, for me at least, I got all my geeky information from logging into about 8-10 BBSes in the area two or three times a week and a long distance board that was chock full of good stuff about once a month.

Re:I mis-remember it

[MrMr]

You must be imagining everything, since the internet has been shut off since 1998.

Re:I mis-remember it

[commodore64_love]

I learned the tricks from my Computer's User Manual (yes they used to come with those) which taught me programming. I garnered other ideas from RUN and AmigaWorld magazines which had all kinds of tips'n'tricks for hackers.

As for events/conventions I rarely went to those things. But when I did, it was because somebody announced it on the BBS forum - kinda similar to this one. We also arranged illegal copying parties via the forums. Ahhh... cassettes and floppies galore.

Re:I mis-remember it

[bensode]

We need more of these ...

http://bbs.filenet.wwiv.net/

Re:I mis-remember it

[Jesus_666]

Also boot sector viruses galore because your ancient copy of F-PROT couldn't detect any virus written within the last three years.

Re:I mis-remember it

[that IT girl]

.. Friends?
Oh yeah, another thing I had before the internet.

Re:I mis-remember it

[jollyreaper]

I'm always struck by my pre-Internet memories, because I have no recollection of how I learned timely, geek-related facts. I was a huge Trek fan in high school, and I knew all about conventions and movie plans and whatnot. I'm sure I got some of it from BBS's, and I must have subscribed to some 'zines, but how did I ever find those without - not just without the Internet, but without ubiquitous search?

The search thing really is amazing. The first band I really got into was Rush. I'd read the liner notes and see the names but most of the inside stuff was completely unknown. I probably would have found it in rock zines if I'd only known where to find them. Who was the Ayn Rand referenced in 2112? No idea. Hit the wiki page for Rush and suddenly I've got all the info hyperlinked. Rand is an objectivist blowhard, Red Barchetta was based on a scifi novel, Neal Peart took a road trip with the original author years after the song was written, did you know that a barchetta is a type of Italian sports auto? And when you go searching for Rush online you'll discover some band doing a cover of one of their songs. Wow, who knew? And suddenly that's the entry point for discovering more music to enjoy. Doing a web search on the Cthulhu Mythos led me to both Therion and the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. And here I thought the only Lovecraftian music out there was either atonal flutes piping away or Erich Zahn.

I love how it becomes easy to find how things are so interconnected. World history always did us a disservice because each region of the world was discussed as if it were kept in complete isolation from all the rest. This is the Middle East. This is Europe. Here's Africa. Here's the story of this culture. But while you're tackling each separately, you never have any appreciation for how everything is running concurrently, the flow of culture and ideas.

Re:I mis-remember it

[jollyreaper]

Word of mouth amongst friends. Local game/comicbook shop poster boards.

But do you remember how inaccurate that sort of thing was? And depending upon how gullible you were when you heard the story... This is how urban legends spread. Remember how Rod Stewart had to be taken to the hospital and had his stomach pumped because it was full of like three gallons of human semen? It's so true! There's no such thing as Snopes so you have to believe me on this one. My cousin was an orderly at the hospital where it happened.

Re:I mis-remember it

[zoloto]

Sometimes I wish it were still like this. *sometimes...

Re:I mis-remember it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right - I remember now that I had friends back then!

Re:I mis-remember it

[mcgrew]

I have no recollection of how I learned timely, geek-related facts.

I do. I visited the library daily and usually read at least two books a day.

Re:I mis-remember it

[Jay L]

I visited the library daily

Me too - in fact, we belonged to two different library systems. But books aren't timely; in those days, lead time was 5-6 months for magazines, probably longer for books. And I didn't do RPGs.

Must've been word of mouth.

Re:I mis-remember it

[WhiteHorse-The Origi]

Remember NASA Tech Briefs? That was the bomb before /.

Make a new internet.

[angelbunny]

Profit!!

Re:Make a new internet.

[Megatog615]

With blackjack! And hookers!

Re:Make a new internet.

[poofmeisterp]

Profit!!

How will they ever transport the p3N15 6r0w+h pills from Nigeria to here, and take the $ back without the Internetz? Oh nos! :>

Ad-Hoc Network

[richtopia]

Could the internet eventually be replaced with a mesh network? Maybe because I'm in student housing right now, but without the internet, we'd probably go about setting up an Ad-Hoc network in our building, then expand that to others we want to talk to (like a cantenna to the university buildings across the way). Sure, I wouldn't be able to post on Slashdot, but I could probably scrounge up enough movies to keep playing for a couple of years. Porn on the other hand, we'd have to get creative.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[Angostura]

What you are saying is that if The Internet was turned off, you'd start building an internet.

I'm sure others would start doing the same too. You could peer with them.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[grcumb]

Could the internet eventually be replaced with a mesh network? Maybe because I'm in student housing right now, but without the internet, we'd probably go about setting up an Ad-Hoc network in our building, then expand that to others we want to talk to (like a cantenna to the university buildings across the way). Sure, I wouldn't be able to post on Slashdot, but I could probably scrounge up enough movies to keep playing for a couple of years. Porn on the other hand, we'd have to get creative.

Congratulations! You just re-invented FidoNet.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting thing that back in 2000 in my college days we had what looked like an internet outage for a few hours. I had Mac OS 8 and the Chooser showed the local building's macs were available. In hindsight, we probably just lost our link to the rest of the network and their buildings, but as my first time, it was an interesting study in self-building networks (netbios and appletalk just need a local subnet.)

My network experience was only a bit hindered. I just narrowed it back to our local and pretty standard process of accessing the building's shares. This meant connecting around to look for gossip / random talk made in read/write textfiles; seeking utilities and random video clips (20+ meg downloads were huge even for highspeed LAN's and the 4 to 10GB drives from back in those days).

The paranoia we have today with networks was just not out back then. I dream a return to the days when I could just connect to about 100 computers and share my own random web findings, gossip and other files, ordering them in folders. The Chooser-enabled broadcast tools were used to send out messages building-wide, and completely noob-friendly; unlike its cousin the windows net Broadcast tool.

What we have nowadays is a firewalled world where everyone is afraid to set up public shared folders on wireless networks for fear that a virus will auto-hit them. I remembered our PC networks had big virus problems while the macs just kept chugging away. I'd like to see an internet where my ISP gave the option of browsing shares of people in my networks, or just neighborhoods. I know that viruses and privacy are a concern, but some people are prepared in that sense.

I find P2P shared-directory browsing to be a conceptual pain. You can't know which P2P are from people physically near you. Part of the fun is that if you just set up some known DNS name and invite all your friends, you won't have a way for neighbors to just come in knocking, and you won't see the neighbor stuff.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[selven]

The internet is fairly easy to take down right now, but that's only because large corporations like Google are centralizing it. If it gets taken down, we'll learn our mistakes and we'll think up of some protocol that allows the wireless in every person's computer to communicate to others and connect the entire city together. Bringing THAT down would be impossible.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[maxwell demon]

If you'd take down Google, you'd not have taken down the Internet. I still only use Google search (including specialized searches) and Google maps. For generic search, there are other alternatives around, and using them is just a matter of habit. For specialized searches I'm sure there are other options, which you might find with the help of the other generic search engine. There are also some other map services (or at least there have been a few years ago, never tried them lately).

Now, if you destroyed Google, probably all people using gmail would lose their mails, but that would be just a massive data loss, not a loss of email as service (there are enough other mail providers, both free and for pay). There would be a temporary problem getting people know your new email addresses, though.

Google Groups would be gone, but then, people would likely just relearn to use Usenet properly.

YouTube would be gone, but while it is the biggest video portal, it's certainly not the only one.

In short, if Google would suddenly disappear, it would be a major disruption, but by far not the end of the Internet.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[selven]

At least 6% of all internet traffic runs through Google. If you add 29 other large corporations, that value becomes 30%. Aside from the corporations, you also have a few centralized nodes through which internet traffic goes from country to country. A single undersea cable being cut can cause massive disruptions to internet service in some regions. That's the kind of centralization that is the Achilles heel of the Internet.

Re:Ad-Hoc Network

[poofmeisterp]

...Porn on the other hand, we'd have to get creative.

Now you've hit the nail on the head (no pun intended). Americans switch from left-brained majority to right-brained. Gotta be able to make your own pictures in the head when you're in the time of need! Teehee. :>

What the hell?

[KnowledgeKeeper]

There is only one answer for any tech minded nerd - you would build your own. It's just like BSD/Linux vs. AT&T Unix. When you're accustomed to something that good and suddenly get deprived of it you DIY. From hardware to software, the ideas for such a system are distributed globally and those ideas, principles and implementations should be incredibly difficult to eradicate.

Do you know what belongs to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

All your base belongs to us.

I didn't know we had a pool.

[westlake]

After the riots have settled down and the withdrawal symptoms have faded

I expect to see a geek in a riot about the same time BnL perfects the all-terrain hover chair.

How would you cope?

[John Hasler]

Having lived most of my life without it, easily. I'd miss it, but I'd survive. I still remember how to do business via telephone and snail-mail. I still have most of my old reference books and the magazine publishers would spring back to life and bombard me with subscription offers. Bookstores would make a comeback.
(And we'd revive the old dialup UUCP-based Usenet, of course.)

Television, record stores, and movies would be revitalized, but that doesn't matter to me.

A much more serious problem would be the reason that someone could and would do such a thing.

Re:How would you cope?

[rattaroaz]

I am not sure I would agree so optimistically. I see the internet as just another means of communication, and cutting that off would obviously change the way we live. Our culture is built around the principles of this communication medium, and you can't simply go back to where you were. We COULD go back horse and buggies, but not really. Commuting could not longer be practical. The cities themselves would have to shrink, and the population decentralize more. We COULD use snail mail again, but that might not be realistic in the world that has changed so much with the internet. First thought is that businesses would have to shrink since automation of many processes could not be automated.

Re:How would you cope?

[John Hasler]

> I am not sure I would agree so optimistically. I see the internet as just
> another means of communication, and cutting that off would obviously change
> the way we live.

I said nothing about how the younger generations would deal with it. Huddle in their "media rooms" clicking hopelessly on the remote and crying, most likely.

Radioamateurs would rise to the occasion

[MindPrison]

And once again, glory would be ours.

- You'd dust off your old US Robotics modems.
- People would set up BBS'es.
- We'd WiFi honeypot each other...

Re:Radioamateurs would rise to the occasion

[Anonymous Coward]

Modems? Done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-STAR
http://www.d-rats.com/

Don't need any telco. Just spectrum and power (and silicon, wire, etc).

Dropping wired broadband is just the thing to give software defined radio a serious kickstart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio

Re:Radioamateurs would rise to the occasion

[adamofgreyskull]

- We'd WiFi honeypot each other...

Kinky

Re:Radioamateurs would rise to the occasion

[poofmeisterp]

And once again, glory would be ours.

- You'd dust off your old US Robotics modems.
- People would set up BBS'es.
- We'd WiFi honeypot each other...

Wow. You just made me remember my callsign. Why am I thinking of the past when I should be predicting the future?

Future... uh.... is.. futuristic? ;>

EMP Pulses and Cisco rootkits

[Invisible Now]

Don't imagine. Anticipate... Don't you think there at least three or maybe four governments that could bring down the Internet with a keystroke? But, like the MAD standoff that prevents an EMP pulse in orbit taking away everything (EVEN YOUR TV!!!! AND TOYOTA!!!!) a de facto truce based on not knowing which crowd with torches, pitchforks and bricked netbooks would topple which government first holds sway. Or is it alread0%x3jd88 3mrj0ojpo.....Boo!

Re:Wat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wat?

That is is all. Yes, this post got modded that high. It means there really isn't anything else smart to say about this story.

I have a two-part question.

1. Who's the douchebag who thought, "hey, the word 'what' looks so much better if you spell it without the letter 'h', yeah that's so awesome!"
2. Who are the fucking idiots who agreed with that douchebag and made it into a trendy new troll?

I would go nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet is the only way I have to communicate with the outside world that I feel somewhat comfortable in. So w/o the internet, I would come directly home after work, and watch TV for 8hrs a day to feel somewhat connected to the world. Yes, I wouldn't be able to respond like I can online, but at least I would be getting the sensation of social interaction. Prior to the internet, that's exactly what I did. I imagine I would revert back to it. I don't function correctly in meatspace, so I wouldn't even bother attempting it. Live without the internet = Lots of TV and talk radio while reading books.

Re:I would go nuts

[poofmeisterp]

The Internet is the only way I have to communicate with the outside world that I feel somewhat comfortable in. So w/o the internet, I would come directly home after work, and watch TV for 8hrs a day to feel somewhat connected to the world. Yes, I wouldn't be able to respond like I can online, but at least I would be getting the sensation of social interaction. Prior to the internet, that's exactly what I did. I imagine I would revert back to it. I don't function correctly in meatspace, so I wouldn't even bother attempting it. Live without the internet = Lots of TV and talk radio while reading books.

Now we take away your TV, too. And your books. And your radio.

Come on now, give me that other radio you're hiding under your pillow... That's good... :>

Millions of voices

[shadowbearer]

  would cry out in terror... silently.

  Except for the calls to their ISPs...

SB

Re:Millions of voices

[LordKronos]

Except for the calls to their ISPs...

I have VOIP, you insensitive clod!

I wwould be incredibly lonely...

[ksemlerK]

...And damned near bat-shit insane. The Internet is the only way I have to communicate with the outside world that I feel somewhat comfortable in. So w/o the internet, I would come directly home after work, and watch TV for 8hrs a day to feel somewhat connected to the world. Yes, I wouldn't be able to respond like I can online, but at least I would be getting the sensation of social interaction. Prior to the internet, that's exactly what I did. I imagine I would revert back to it. I don't function correctly in meatspace, so I wouldn't even bother attempting it. Live without the internet = Lots of TV and talk radio while reading books.

Phone rates

[Starlon]

Long distance phone rates would sky rocket.

Will someone PLEASE think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime /b/ goes down, its inhabitants spill out and pillage the internet for a week or so. With the internet gone they'll spill out into the real world and the world itself will collapse. I daresay it would happen in an attempt to DDOS the RL server.

South Park

[stms]

I guess I'd have to head out Califoniway to get me some internet.

There is no point in this.

[Hurricane78]

Because it would never happen.

Why I'm so sure? Because there is no "they" in the Internet. Everybody can connect to his neighbors' wifi router, if needed. And the moment when no company on the planet is interested in using the now unused wires and cell phone towers, to sell services to customers, is the moment when humanity itself ceases to exist.

I don't see a point in imagining not having the Internet. And I know how it would look anyway, since I already lived when there was no such thing. I even know how life in a monastery without electricity is. Or in a hut in the middle of nowhere.

Now, that we know of the concept of a Internet, as long as there is a critical mass of humans exists, there will be such a network. :)

Re:There is no point in this.

[TubeSteak]

Why I'm so sure? Because there is no "they" in the Internet. Everybody can connect to his neighbors' wifi router, if needed.

I'm not sure you understand how the internet works.
The "no 'they' in the internet" are the Tier 1 & Tier 2 ISPs who own the fiber backhauls.
Without "they" New York can't talk to California and Texas can't talk to Chicago.

And you should be slapped for saying that "everybody can connect to his neighbors' wifi router" because what the fuck are those wifi routers supposed to be connected to when your cable/dsl ISP has turned out the lights and gone home?

Re:There is no point in this.

[lwsimon]

It doesn't matter - he's saying that the tech exists out there now, and there is a need for communications - if the internet as we know it shut down today, a new system would immediately be implemented that served the same purpose.

Re:There is no point in this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiight. It's not about technology being there. If gov wanted to kill it (for some scary political reason, such as "only turrists use the internet"), they'd simply kill it, and you as an individual wouldn't be able to do anything about it [ie: for example, they outlaw civilian use, manufacture, and sale of all communication equipment]. That's it. The ``Internet'' as we know it is no more. Anyone caught running a server is arrested, etc. Think it can't happen? Think again.

Re:There is no point in this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't see a point in imagining not having the Internet."

I do. :)

http://www.myspace.com/

Re:There is no point in this.

[synaptik]

I don't see a point in imagining not having the Internet.

The point in imagining it is: the prospect of engaging conversation with peers, in an online forum. It doesn't have to be a plausible situation if it generates entertaining dialogue. If that isn't obvious to you, perhaps you should get out and socialize a little more, AFK. But I agree with you on one point: it would be far more interesting to focus the conversation on the withdrawal phase, and not the acceptance phase.

Re:There is no point in this.

[CAIMLAS]

This may have escaped you, but if "the Internet" has been shut down, connecting to your neighbor's wireless router, or setting up a community wide wireless network for that matter, would be of comparably limited utility. You wouldn't have 99% of what the internet has to offer available to you - global information.

That's the whole point of the Internet in the first place: long-distance communications across a multitude of people, with large amounts of data. Your neighbor's data would be more easily acquired by walking over, talking with him, and possibly exchanging a flash drive.

As far is it "never happening": recall just a couple months ago when Iran did just this to their people (or foreign countries did it to them, whichever)? The Internet was "shut off" - internal and external routing was, essentially, not there. It only takes one squad of goons knocking down the door to the telco center and commanding them to cut the wires* for things to be very seriously disrupted.

*metaphorically speaking

This thread is shit and Timothy should be ashamed.

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't even valid material for Idle.

*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

That doughnut looked soooo good...

What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Animats]

All it would take is one really bad Windows Update to turn off 70% of the Internet.

Question for Homeland Security: who has access to the master signing key for Windows Update? Who does the background check on those people?

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[John Hasler]

> All it would take is one really bad Windows Update to turn off 70% of the
> Internet.

Yes but we're discussing the part that would actually be missed.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Fujisawa Sensei]

All it would take is one really bad Windows Update to turn off 70% of the Internet.

And there would be great rejoicing from the Linux geeks.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[gmuslera]

"it"? What runs most of the (dedicated) servers of internet isnt exactly Microsoft products, the server side and people that dont use Microsoft products will still be there. Not sure how to call an internet with <10% of actual spam, <5% of port scans and automated tries to attack, <1% anonymous cowards posts and >5k% more available bandwidth... but "paradise" is a good first try.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Tom]

All it would take is one really bad Windows Update to turn off 70% of the Internet.

No, not really. It would turn off maybe 5% of the Internet, namely those servers that a) run windos in the first place and b) have admins stupid enough to roll out without testing.

It would know a whole lot of clients off the Internet. But the only thing the rest of us would notice is that things are faster and there are less dumb comments on the sites we frequent.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[selven]

Allowing for truly malicious behaviour from Microsoft, they could force a worm onto the 70% of computers that are grabbing stuff from microsoft, and let it spread to the other 30%. They could even put a Mac and Linux-compatible worm on their Office software to catch those people who run Office for Mac or Office on Wine. Maybe 2% of those computers that regularly connect to the internet would survive.

Ok, step back. One single company could bring down 98% of the internet all on their own? That is a VERY scary thought.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? If you turned off THAT part of the internet, the remaining measly 30% would be more than enough because you'd be killing 90%+ of the spam bots that clog up the system. It would be an instant "Internet Upgrade".

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[maxwell demon]

The botnet operators would certainly see a sudden network failure. :-)

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Jesus_666]

Actually, they wouldn't get very far. Most servers would still be unaffected because they either run neither Windows nor Wine or run Windows but don't receive patches at day 0 because of testing. So if we take "the internet" to mean "websites", they get 10-20% at most.

As for the clients: If they do infect 70% of all Windows PCs with a worm that then spreads to the other 30% that would only destroy Windows as nobody would trust them anymore. In the short term many Windows computers would fail - until two hours later when people are finished reinstalling Windows. The computers could become reinfected but it'd take the virus companies two or three days at most to develop effective countermeasures. Anyone with some kind of live-CD lying around would be back in the net within minutes.

The only way for this worm to keep computers off the net would be to damage the hardware - which is fairly difficult to do nowadays. Plus, all new PCs people buy would probably be sold with either a) the effective countermeasures preinstalled or b) a Linux live-CD bundled in so people can use the net while the AV companies do their work.

Macs and Linux boxes would be largely unaffected. Yes, you could write specific attacks but that would a) mean that Microsoft will immediately get killed over this (having a worm in your update system is possibly an accident; simultaneously having the worm and a bad Office update from that very same system attempt to compromise all non-Windows PCs is most likely not) and b) not be very successful - OS X isn't particularly hardened but many Linux distros come with SELinux enabled by default.


I'd expect maybe 10% of all servers and 80% of all home computers to fail in the short term with most users being back online within a week. The much larger damage would be done to Microsoft as they would be blanketed in lawsuits/prosecuted and customer trust would hit zero. Apple and every commercial desktop Linux vendor would come out as the winners.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Anonymous Coward]

>All it would take is one really bad Windows Update to turn off 7% of the Internet. You know, the ones who have a licensed windows copy installed and do update it.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[c_sd_m]

And after what seemed like an eternity, October would finally come. The seasons would pass and, as every other year, September would eventually begin again.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Joe Jay Bee]

Or less comments in general. Not only "dumb" people use Windows. Given that it has a 90%-odd market share, you'd see a massive drop in traffic all across the Internet. Some small sites could lose their entire viewership - if funded by ad views, they'd lose money too.

It'd be no minor thing.

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Anonymous Coward]

An EMP discharge weapon (a nuke could do it, but better alternatives can and probably do exist) used in the ionosphere or closer could shut off not only the internet if placed properly, but just about kill the power grid as well. Military strategists have been contemplating this for YEARS, it is not news.

OTOH, a bad Windows Update? Really, now, I didn't know there was any other kind? ;-)

Re:What would happen if Microsoft turned it off

[Tom]

That 90% figure that gets thrown around all the time includes corporate desktops, which are almost always a MS monoculture. If you'd sample just the machines people have at home, I'm fairly sure the numbers would be different. No question, windos would still be way ahead of everything else, but my estimate is more in the 75%-80% range than 90%. At least as soon as you figure in the many people who dual-boot (which has become quite a large number with Boot Camp on Macs).

It's the not-too-distant future?

[derfy]

Next Sunday, A.D.?

Re:It's the not-too-distant future?

[pushing-robot]

Slashdot is one of the few places where a future spent trapped on a satellite watching bad movies with sarcastic robots could be considered utopian.

Re:Slashdot

[ma1wrbu5tr]

If they turn off the internet, it is this guy's fault.

White album

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess I would have to buy the white album.

Oh Crap!

[ma1wrbu5tr]

I'd better download teh interwebz now, while I cn still get em,

might just..

[ma1wrbu5tr]

save newspapers and phone companies and political parties... oh my!

Re:This thread is shit and Timothy should be asham

[hollywench]

Anyone who posts as anon coward should be ashamed.

having lived pre-internet..

[pbjones]

Books will be read, assignments will be completed by students, TV will return to the entertainment center of the livingroom, people will not stay up all night, games will be payed on a board, you'll have to pick up a pen and write to people, or dust off your printer. (you do know that impact printers were cheaper to run and lasted longer than inkjets) I would welcome that future. There was data transfer before the 'net, BBS, forums, chat, can all work without the net, thus we may just find a different way to do net-like things.

DEAD.MP4

[SEWilco]

Death of the Internet predicted.
MPEG at 11.

I suspect I would have a very difficult time...

[sherifffruitfly]

Playing EVE.

WARNING

[Wonko the Sane]

Sites like cracked.com (and tvtropes.org) need an explicit warning:

"Caution: After clicking on this link you may lose all awareness of the passage of time. If you have anything that you need to do in the next 3-4 hours you probably don't want to go there"

Re:WARNING

[KingAlanI]

and bash.org. And UrbanDictionary. And Wikipedia. And Slashdot. And so on.
You'd get mod points if I had them

Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you shut down the internet? It's just a series of tubes!!!

I would sence a disturbance...

[bertoelcon]

in the force. It would be as if millions of voices cried out and instantly could find no more porn.

Everyone would have to sync their watches

[Anonymous Coward]

...so that each morning at precisely 3 AM EST they could get out on their rooftops and exchange the latest "In Soviet Russia" jokes.

Without WoW

[SuperNumberOne]

LARPing would become very big on ESPN

Maybe I'd Be Capable...

[jesdynf]

... of doing a goddamn crossword again. My *shortcuts* have shortcuts to Google. How the hell am I supposed to resist the sum total of all human knowledge when I'm stuck with "42D: 1972 Red Sox shortstop (8 letters)" and all I've got is a tentative P crossing through the second space?

Doug Adams wrote about it ten years ago..

[Destoo]

Doug Adams wrote about it ten years ago, and it still applies.
http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html

A couple of years or so ago I was a guest on Start The Week, and I was authoritatively informed by a very distinguished journalist that the whole Internet thing was just a silly fad like ham radio in the fifties, and that if I thought any different I was really a bit naïve. It is a very British trait – natural, perhaps, for a country which has lost an empire and found Mr Blobby – to be so suspicious of change.
(...)
I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:
1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.
Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.

Re:Doug Adams wrote about it ten years ago..

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod Parent Up!

The Series of Tubes...

[Shadyman]

We could rebuild it. We have the technology.

Re:The Series of Tubes...

[Anonymous Coward]

We could rebuild it. We have the technology.

Sure, but it'd cost six million dollars! Who's got that kind of money?

Re:The Series of Tubes...

[maxwell demon]

Bill Gates.
But I don't think I'd like the Internet he would build.

OMG WTF?!?

[planetjay]

I demand Cmdr Taco BUY MODEMS now just in case!

The idea of Door to Door Rickrolling...

[masmullin]

...Is a terrifying prospect. Truly horrific post-apocalypse shit that is!

Re:The idea of Door to Door Rickrolling...

[plasmacutter]

...Is a terrifying prospect. Truly horrific post-apocalypse shit that is!

I can spice up this flight of negative fancy for you: 70% and growing of the US population is F-A-T FAT, and the rest of the western world is slowly beginning to follow.

Re:The idea of Door to Door Rickrolling...

[poofmeisterp]

...Is a terrifying prospect. Truly horrific post-apocalypse shit that is!

I can spice up this flight of negative fancy for you: 70% and growing of the US population is F-A-T FAT, and the rest of the western world is slowly beginning to follow.

Rick Rolling door-to-door might help people lose weight if they are the Rollers.

Re:The idea of Door to Door Rickrolling...

[masmullin]

Fat like this chubby mofo?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Tried it

[kaoshin]

I had my cable Internet disconnected for about three years after being online ever since the first ISP arrived in my city in the 90's. Keep in mind that I am a PC gamer, amateur coder, and during this time worked as an enterprise deployment specialist and a senior support engineer. Although I did have Internet at work my use of it there was quite restricted. While others spent their spare time surfing, I was always wondering how the lazier folks had spare time. My coworkers would always be in shock when I told them I didn't have Internet. I disconnected it due to financial issues, general boredom and lack of interest in what seemed to just be a huge increase in ads and spam. Early this year I had my Internet service restored and I also bought a blackberry, so I am probably back online again for good this time. One of the first hardships I endured was with gaming and there were many choices I was left out of because of game companies either catering exclusively to those with Internet, or crippling features to discriminate against anyone who isn't online. There were a wealth of games to play though so it ended up a minor inconvenience. I found it more difficult to do paper billing again, and using the phone book and paper dictionary. It really made researching anything more difficult, but the times where I would regret not having Internet are truly numbered. I like having the convenience because it is a minor to moderate hassle at times not having access. The most confusing thing to me is that I think I totally missed out on that whole social networking thing and I don't really understand it. I've heard people talk about it, but basically it makes no sense to me, but maybe that is because it is just stupid. Sometimes I think to myself, I just missed out on three years of adware and people infecting each other with stupidity.

A World Without Warcraft - OMG

[xt7]

What will I do with all the free time? No more raids and pugs. Dear lord, I'll actually have to go out on friday nights and weekend. Wait.......... maybe there's something else we can do...... break out the books we're going back to DND...... Roll the D20.

I'm prepared

[Nyder]

if they turn the internet off, then it will give me time to watch all the videos, anime, and read all the comics & ebooks i've downloaded.

I have a huge pile of disks just waiting for that day.

Goods times bring back BBS'S

[genner]

I remember the good old days before the internet was everywhere. We had ascii and RIP graphics, door games, and FIDOnet.

If anyone needs me I'll be leveling my L.O.R.D. character.

Re:Goods times bring back BBS'S

[YourExperiment]

If anyone needs me I'll be leveling my L.O.R.D. character.

No problem. I doubt anyone's going to need you. :)

The French Reply

[Anonymous Coward]

Marie Antoinette says "Let them eat ad-hoc wifi"

WHAT IF THEY TURNED OFF THE ... WATER !!

[Anonymous Coward]

What if they turned off the gas?

What if they turned off the power?

What if they turned of the TV?

What if they turned off kdawson?

And I don't mean "in Russia", I mean in the goold old US of A !!

Granted, they can mince kdawson and fed the scraps to the crows, but the rest !!! IMAGINE IF YOU WILL !!

 

Re:WHAT IF THEY TURNED OFF THE ... WATER !!

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a planet where they did that, can't remember quite where but it was a few hundred years back. The idiiots never stopped squabbling enough to achieve enlightenment.

hmm.

[Nekomusume]

I think we'd just kill "them", and replace them with folks who'd turn it back on.

No worries

[DarkEntity]

If the Internet goes down, the Internet will just route around it. That's how it works, right?

Return of the BBS!

[Tracy Reed]

I could dust off my old Wildcat! floppies and external modems and UUCP and Fidonet and door games and it would be just like the old days all over again! Now having seen the future I'm not entirely sure that would necessarily be such a bad thing. The Internet and the web really made things so easy that everyone was able to jump on and the culture was diluted to the point of destruction. If we went back to the pre-Internet days September would finally end!

Answer...

[evilviper]

Option #1 Sears & Roebuck:

Netflix would print out a catalog every year, and mail a copy to each member. Several pre-paid postcards would be included, where you scribble down the ID# of the movies you want in your queue.
A few large internet retailer concentration sites like Buy.com, Amazon, etc., would put out a magazine every year as well, and send out a few smaller inserts every month or so to subscribers.

Option #2 BBS

All large internet sites get phone banks, which people can dial-in to. Dial-up to Netflix to reorder your queue. Dial-in to Google to find the product you want (which lists the phone number of the company of course), then disconnect and dial-in to the best company to place your order. Dial-in to UPS to track the status of your package.

Option #3 Tape-swap

Netflix catalogs are distributed to all subscribers by mailing CDs every few months. People can print-out their queue, or mail back a mini-CD.

Wikipedia lives on by interested parties mailing a self-addressed stamped envelope with a flash drive inside to Jimmy Wales. Volunteers dump an up-to-date copy of the Wiki onto each flash drive. Also included are a handful of applications for various operating systems which allow locally viewing and editing your local copy of the Wiki. After you've made a significant number of changes, you again mail your SASE + flash drive to Jimmy, and get your updates merged, and your Wiki updated.

Option #4 UUCP
Web companies band together to come up with an offline electronic message distribution system. Companies adapt their online presence into something workable via a USENET system. Updates are asynchronously distributed in a hierarchical fashion from group to group, and city to city, and then back up the chain again. Lengthy delays are involved, but the messages get through most of the time.

Google becomes a directory of USENET groups, Netflix barely changes, Amazon changes their product catalog slightly, but continues to operate. Dupes on Slashdot have plausible excuses. Facebook/MySpace continue as before, with even less privacy. Twitter continues to be a popular way to distribute messages despite being completely unrecognizable, and having no advantages over standard messaging. RIAA/MPAA as pissed off as ever as the movies and music continues to flow.

I would die.

[Zarf]

No literally. I would die. I'm at least half cybernetic now. Not with bio-mechanical implants or anything... I rely heavily on the internet as an "exo-cortex" and I would no longer function cognitively without the internet. I would be as useless as a surgeon without a scalpel... a race car driver without a race car... a politician.

Re:Slashdot

[AlamedaStone]

Doesn't look like something you'd find on the Innernette!

http://trickfist.com/funny-vids/the-innernette.html

Re:Slashdot

[kdemetter]

If they turn off the internet , we will create our own version, which will be better than the previous.

Re:Slashdot

[John Allsup]

'better than the previous'??

Surely good enough in all the right places would suffice. It would be cheaper that way.

So what is meant by 'turning off the internet'?

[w0mprat]

The internet is really a collection of communications protocols. So what is meant by 'turning off the internet'?

The reality is all the worlds communication infrastructure could be considered "Teh Internets" with the exception of traditional systems, the postal service, telegraph, analog and early digital phone exchanges. At a fundatmental level these systems are information networks just the same.

So where do you draw the line?

Are we cutting out HTTP + HTML and friends?
Is this extending to international internet routing, BGP, etc etc?
International links only? WAN? LAN? or...
...hypotheticall would we shut down any direct computer to computer communication? This would have to include modem communication, as this could be used for internet-like networking.

What no one has pointed out is how the postal service and telephony systems would collapse without internet. Since these services depend on on infromation services and connectivity to transport data, manage inventory, and other aspects of such operations.

So not only is switching off the internet possible, but we wouldn't have the faintest idea where to begin.

Re:So what is meant by 'turning off the internet'?

[selven]

Switching off the capability that allows a computer to link up to any computer, even one dozens of nodes along, within 1 second and with only a single click from the user. That includes HTTP, SMTP, FTP, Telnet, etc. although you could still connect to a computer over a single wire, or wirelessly to one five meters away.

Yet another reason...

[PrimaryConsult]

for LAN play in SC2.

Could be real with the Cybersecurity Act of 2009

[unwastaken]

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but there was legislation introduced this year to allow the president to shut down the internet in an emergency. The bill is called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. Imagine if they wanted to shut down the phone system or TV/Radio systems in an emergency. Read about it here and here.

Amateur Radio

[ZebadiahC]

Do it the old fashioned way... Ham radio operators have been communicating world events from one continent to another for decades. ( learn it for when twitter fails)

Re:Amateur Radio

[poofmeisterp]

Do it the old fashioned way... Ham radio operators have been communicating world events from one continent to another for decades. ( learn it for when twitter fails)

.. but but but... that means they have to study for a short period of time. That means they have to take a test that takes a short period of time. That means they can't do everything NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW like their brains have grown to expect, and can't deal with differential from!

I pity. I've even helped with two disaster relief events as a ham, and people just look at me with glossy eyes because they don't understand a word I say when I try to describe what RF transmission is.

Oh, wait... I'm supposed to be "normal" to fit in. I'll act like I don't know anything.

*ahem*

What's "amateur radio?" :>

Older games only

[phorm]

Except that might only work with older games, now that the newer ones seem to require either authentication-via-internet or playing via an internet lobby (gee, thanks steam and battle.net)...

That's actually one of the big issues raised about Starcraft 2... no way to play a local multiplayer without an internet connection...

Re:Older games only

[webmistressrachel]

Hey dude, your lawn server crashed and burned. Rachel

Probably meshed wireless networking

[Casandro]

They would probably switch to meshed wireless networking.

Culturally it would be more like in the BBS days with good local connectivity, but very little remote one.

Those networks are of course much harder to controll so piracy will still be there.

Re:Probably meshed wireless networking

[nostriluu]

I often wonder why this doesn't happen.. Get most people to share their wifi (in exchange for free internet), supergeeks will set up wired caching hubs. Layer on some social networking so it's more difficult to exploit. Voila, free citizen-net!

Re:Probably meshed wireless networking

[Amphetam1ne]

The thought that people would bother to do this for a reason other than piracy baffles me.

Re:Probably meshed wireless networking

[poofmeisterp]

I often wonder why this doesn't happen.. Get most people to share their wifi (in exchange for free internet), supergeeks will set up wired caching hubs. Layer on some social networking so it's more difficult to exploit. Voila, free citizen-net!

Wow.. flashback to The Underground Railroad. :)

Re:Probably meshed wireless networking

[Casandro]

Well it's already done in some parts of Germany under a project named Freifunk. I participate in one of those projects and have 2 routers running, connected via TINC with the other routers on the network.

Re:Slashdot

[Z00L00K]

If the internet is shut down we will see a resurrection of Fidonet.

What will actually cause most trouble is that most people has turned over to internet banking instead of mailing payment orders or standing in line in the bank or post office waiting for their turn to pay their invoices.

Re:Slashdot

[1s44c]

If they turn off the internet , we will create our own version, which will be better than the previous.

Keep the marketers and all of Africa off it.

Replace flash with something less nasty.

Devise some auto-healing thing that disconnects misbehaving ( windows ) machines. No more botnets or DDOS attacks.

If we had to we could not only rebuild it but build something far better.

Re:Slashdot

[1s44c]

'better than the previous'??

Surely good enough in all the right places would suffice. It would be cheaper that way.

Not if you take the TCO into account. Look at the huge costs of dealing with botnets, network worms, and spam that we are already paying. If we could disconnect misbehaving nodes automaticly people would have a real reason to make sure their machines don't misbehave.

Kick 'their' ass...

[JoshHeitzman]

...and make 'them' turn it back on. Who is 'they' anyway? Just want some names and addresses so I know where take the case of whoop ass when 'they' turn off the internet.

All Things Being Equal

[PingPongBoy]

If the Internet was turned off, all things being equal, people will hack up something with ubiquitous wireless routers (and anonymity and all the other wishful Internet hacks would reign), and Microsoft will offer a replacement in a week. Otherwise, some great oppressive force would be at work.

Let them shut down it for more freedom

[miceuz]

Well, being lived in times before internet i would say, that wouldn't be a tragic event.

We had all the low-fi technology - BBS systems accessible via modems, FidoNet running on that, local guerilla networks for illegal file sharing, gaming and internet connection sharing.

Being the first to put a cable from my window accross the yard to the window of my friend in our block and have seen these grassroots networks explode in two years (people were chaotically interconnected long before real bradband providers came) i have no fear loosing the internet. Ok, search would take a week instead of seconds and programming text books would get their value back.

btw i'm from former soviet ussr where the internets shut down you :)

Re:Slashdot

[vxvxvxvx]

With Blackjack! And Hookers!

I, for one, welcome

[Anonymous Coward]

our new Internet turning off overlords!

Re:Slashdot

[PFI_Optix]

Right up until someone decides that "misbehaving" includes "submitting content of which we do not approve." The last thing we need is for the internet to give some powermonger the tools to easily silence dissent.

Re:Slashdot

[supernova_hq]

Devise some auto-healing thing that disconnects windows machines.

There, fixed that for you.

Most stupid /. story ever

[he-sk]

How do you turn off the internet? You can't. People would just link up again with each other. The genie is out of the bottle

Unless you've wiped most of humanity or brainwashed them into anti-technical belief systems, people will network.

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[selven]

It's a what if. Sort of like "what if magic as described in World of Warcraft 3.1 existed in the real world". The point is not to think about how it happens, it's to think about the results.

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[maxwell demon]

How do you turn off the internet? You can't. People would just link up again with each other. The genie is out of the bottle

Unless you've wiped most of humanity or brainwashed them into anti-technical belief systems, people will network.

Cut all communication cables and put up massive jammers to prevent wireless networking.

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[poofmeisterp]

...wiped most of humanity or brainwashed them into anti-technical belief systems...

Need I say more? :)

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[he-sk]

Then why are you posting here?

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[poofmeisterp]

Then why are you posting here?

Well, that would be because a lot of people have a sense of humor. Turns out that several don't.

What do the kids say these days...? I believe it's "my bad."

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[he-sk]

I believe it's "my bad."

Indeed.

Re:Most stupid /. story ever

[poofmeisterp]

I believe it's "my bad."

Indeed.

Politics. There's a very common and unfortunate outcome to people in that position. They get caught.

It's Slashdot's fault, right?

I forget, do politicians need to have the last word?

...and now my work here is done.

More badwitdth, higher latency

[Upphew]

And post office would see business blooming.

if we are ever under the boot of tyranny

[circletimessquare]

the shock troops of that tyranny will be composed of sweat drenched hysterics like you

you're obviously spasmodically fearful, with a ridiculous fantasy life to go along with it of imminent attack and subjugation. this means you are easy to manipulate. all someone has to do is paint a picture for you of some sort of tyranny out there out to oppress you, just beyond the horizon. framed in the rather ridiculous hysterical ways you imagine, along with a group of fellow adrenaline basketcases you trust, and off you will go, ride of the valkyries blasting, guns ablazing: the vanguard of tyranny

i'm in no way joking. study history. ask yourself who was at the front of the line putting down civil society for the sake of the autocrat. look in the mirror fool: your brain stinks of panty twisted fear, you're so easily manipulated its not even funny. you are pure voluntary cannon fodder. you're a fucking tool, literally, you are tool: press the right buttons, and off you go

Re:if we are ever under the boot of tyranny

[R2.0]

I'd be able to understand you better if it wasn't for that damned whistling-in-the-wind noise surrounding you.

Re:UUCp: Bring it back!

[agw]

What do you mean "bring back"? Has there been a more powerful successor to UUCP been invented yet?

(Still using UUCP over SSL/TCP to smarthost for emails. Can switch that back to direct modem connection easily, still have the config.)

Re:Slashdot

[ThePhilips]

LOL. And 15 years ago people like you have been complaining about how expensive Compuserve is...

If they turned off the internet.

[CFBMoo1]

The RIAA and MPAA as well as the newspaper business would have one word about that article.

"Tease!"

On a more serious note, think of all the MMO addicts suddenly without a game. Imagine the daily grind for them now as they try to cope without farming. On one hand they'd never have to worry about gold farmers. On the other the source for their main addiction would be gone and it would be an interesting wake up to reality for some who let their local social contacts slip away.

The Internets.....

[IHC Navistar]

"What If They Turned Off the Internet?"

-I'd have to go get a real-life girlfriend.

But, seeing as how the Internet is still up and running, Seven-Of-Nine will suffice nicely.....

As much as I hate Rickrolling, the idea of doint it door-to-door actually sounds kinds funny.....

no internet

[Anonymous Coward]

my apartment would finally get clean

Re:no internet

[maxwell demon]

Really? There's so much you can do with a computer without Internet connection ...

If they turned off the internet...

[Leghorn]

I'd have to go back to ham radio...it's what geeks did before computers.

Re:If they turned off the internet...

[poofmeisterp]

I'd have to go back to ham radio...it's what geeks did before computers.

You're reading a comment from one right now.

We can't have people understand what ham radio is, or ANYTHING about how it works. That feeds "thought" and "knowledge" and "learning."

We're supposed to let schools do that. Which brings me to the next point.. What will school be like nowadays without internet? I leave you to your thoughts.

Thinking is evil; don't get caught. ;>

Unemployment would go up?

[pgmrdlm]

More people would be hired to handle paper payments. IT people would be let go. 1). Online security? What online security. Business's would crash. 1). Amazon. 2). E-bay 3). Google I was sitting here trying to figure if more people would be hired or let go. I actually think more people would lose jobs then would gain.

Re:Slashdot

[eric-x]

Dude, we already have that on the net. ':/

Taco is preparing for it...

[argent]

Letting stories like this show up outside "Idle"? He's pre-loading his karma.

Re:Taco is preparing for it...

[poofmeisterp]

Letting stories like this show up outside "Idle"? He's pre-loading his karma.

How do you fire karma?

Oh, wait, we both just did it. :>

Fixed that for you

[xOneca]

I can't believe no one has fixed that!

Cracked.com asked readers to GIMP what life would be like in an Internet-addicted society learning to cope without it.

FTFY.

Re:Slashdot

[maxwell demon]

Everyone can turn off the internet. You just have to press the red button.
(Make sure JavaScript and popups are enabled for this site)

Re:I'd have to get my torrents via FedEx

[PopeRatzo]

Troll??

This is some of my best stuff. My A-game.

I'm hurt. This time you guys have gone too far.

Re:Slashdot

[maxwell demon]

Actually more trouble would come from the fact that many banks are not any more set up to handle all customers mailing payment orders or standing in line in the bank.

Credit card checks

[weave]

I know a lot of credit card checks go over modem and not the Internet, but I do remember being a cashier in the 70s and having to not only swipe credit cards through an impression machine, but also check it against a "hot list" to see if it was valid -- which was a printed booklet. No idea how often that thing was updated. Amazing.

They made a mistake...

[poofmeisterp]

I believe that van pic (in the article), that says it's the chat room for under 18 only, is a little off. I believe they are supposed to be Volkswagen Type-2 "Minibus," not a well-painted and labeled new one.

Thought I'd throw in my $.000002 worth.

*snark*

The Future

[BigBadBus]

For goodness sake, don't let the Discovery Channel read this thread. There'll be weeks of interminable documentaries if they do....

The Great Un

[maxume]

Navels would go un-gazed.

Crap would go un-auctioned.

Twits would go un-twat.

CDs wouldn't cost $199

[elecmahm]

Most people I know that still don't pay for music don't acquire it via BT or other online means -- it's literal in-person P2P. Unless the big bad government is going to single remove every LAN card and jam all wireless signals, and ban recordable discs, people will still be able to share music.
The irony is that without the Internet, the RIAA may actually see its sales barely improve, if at all; people have tasted freedom and won't be likely to put on those shackles again. Long Tail artists will suffer greatly, though. The only TV I watch right now is on the Internet (legally, thanks to the currently-free Hulu), but if the Internet disappeared, I'd just not watch TV anymore.
Oh, and I disagree with those that say this topic isn't relevant for /. simply because it appeared in Cracked. This is a very interesting (IMHO) what-if scenario.

Cracked.com? On My beloved Slashdot?

[Jay Tarbox]

that's it. I'm outta here.

Re:Slashdot

[B00KER]

You don't know it; buy it is the sixth interaction.

They already turned off the internet.

[Organic Brain Damage]

What you are seeing now is not the internet. It's a clever simulation put in place by those that want you to believe the internet is still running. But it's not.

McCain willl turn off the Internet soon

[Max_W]

"McCain Moves to Block FCC Net Neutrality" www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/174221/mccain_moves_to_block_fcc_net_neutrality.html

It will be turned off sooner than one may think. If McCain passes his bill, only big corporations will be able to use the Internet. The Man in an ISP will be able to decide what you want to see.

McCain hates the Internet so much after Obama defeated him using Internet that he wants to destroy it. It is not that unrealistic. There are other rich guys who may own 14 houses and who may hate the Internet too.

How sell The Office, or The Windows, or The Movie, when everyone may publish his own office, his OS, her movie?

It makes them compete with everybody else, while they are accustomed to use under-carpet tricks to gain an advantage.

MMO Addicts

[Amphetam1ne]

I predict a lot of WoW players getting together to form 24hr drop-in DnD centres.

Re:Slashdot

[mikkelm]

*golf clap*

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

They have the internet on computers now?

Interesting questions

[AlpineR]

What is this, digg? Cracked joke pages don't belong here.

So you're saying that an idea should rejected because of its source, regardless of the value of the idea itself?

I think the title of the Cracked article is indeed interesting: What would happen if the Internet disappeared? Many of the Slashdot commenters here are responding with insight and information. And many of the doctored photos are insightful themselves: garage sales and newspapers would regain importance, brick-and-mortar stores would regain power, and lonely people would stop meeting fabulous mates online.

Personally, I felt the need for something like the Internet when I was in high school (late 1980's in a town with 18,000 residents). I hated how hard it was to find information about local events. Or how you were limited to music played by your crappy local radio station or tiny college record shop. Magazines were gold mines of information for special interests like computers and rocketry because there were just not enough knowledgeable people locally. Mail order was as important for worldly and niche interests as much as online ordering is today.

Some commenters say that the Internet can't be uninvented. But what if it becomes subject to widespread censorship? Or pay-per-byte? Or 90% of Earth's population dies from a new plague and maintaining an open, high-speed digital network surpasses the survivors' capabilities and priorities.

Also: It's funny. Laugh.

Re:Interesting questions

[mcgrew]

But what if it becomes subject to widespread censorship?

In 1946, Murray Leinster's "internet" ("Tanks" and "logics") was censored, and the story revolves around one particular "logic" (PC) overcoming the censorship and the horror the lack of censorship would unleash.

Or pay-per-byte?

I never thought I'd pay for local phone service by the minute, but I guess anything can happen. However, POTS was never by the minute, and minute rates for cells have been dropping. Now I have Boost and don't have metered service.

It could happen, but like phones it would take something radically new, and even then unmetered would probably win. It's not like gas or electricity, where the more the company produces the more it costs.

Or 90% of Earth's population dies from a new plague and maintaining an open, high-speed digital network surpasses the survivors' capabilities and priorities.

Um, with 90% of the world's population gone I don't think you're going to have any problem finding as much of anything as you want -- unless this "plague" is a disease that strikes food crops. You'll still have the internet, provided you have electricity.

Now, this "cracked" magazine; slashdot's FA is from a magazine about crack? I didn't RTFA (silly FA if you ask me) but I hope it's about cracking networks and not smoking crack. "If the internet magically dissapears" sounds like something a crackhead would think up.

What if they turned off the internet?

[ComputerGeek01]

I'm sure some how Time Warner would find a way to bill me for it.

Route around it

[jmrives]

My guess is that people would route around it. Acoustic modems would see a resurgence in popularity. Clever arrangement of wifi routers and bridges would help to create ad-hoc networks. I suppose it also depends largely on what you mean by "They've turned off the Internet". At what level has it been "turned off"? Is it just that the DNS routers have been shut down? Have the ISP hubs gone dark? There is a lot of physical network still in place. Someone is bound to find a way to make use of it.

Wireless Leiden

[fritsd]

If the Internet went down, Pringles would make a killing selling their crisps cans to be used as amplifiers for municipal WiFi such as in the Wireless Leiden project.
(Disclaimer: I've never used a wireless network in my life so YMMV, but I went to a lecture about Wireless Leiden once)

Many didn't turn the Internet on...

[Dzimas]

63.3% of US households had cable/dsl Internet Access in 2007. The others get along fine because they're disinterested in technology, are poor or simply don't read well. I occasionally run into people who don't have an email address or computer at home. They're often the most interesting people to talk to because they rarely work in a IT-related field and aren't bombarded by the same Internet crazes and memes as the rest of us. These guys are the master carpenters, mechanical wizards and people who prefer to spend time outdoors exploring the world.

Re:Slashdot

[houstonbofh]

If they turn off the internet , we will create our own version, which will be better than the previous.

Keep the marketers and all of Africa off it.

Don't touch my Ubuntu, you power grabbing Microsoft Shill! ;)

The problem is that there is no region that has nothing anyone wants. And malware, spam, botnets, come from everywhere.

It wasn't totally cool before web/net

[Ilgaz]

As a person who spent a lot of time at real BBS scene (in my own country), IRC (before the web), I think people overrates those times. There were same amount of idiots, lamers, trolls and even Microserfs around. They were just less visible to ordinary people.

No more internet?

[nurb432]

People might have to go read an actual paper book, or go out in the yard and toss a ball to their friends.

1st initial effect

[dontmakemethink]

Playboy sales would skyrocket.

Sounds like "Little Brother"

[infosinger]

Private peer-to-peer network...

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

What would happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, we'd have to return to the land. Men and women have to work hard, getting up early before the sun comes up and workin' until the daylight is gone. Boys and girls would have to walk to school again, preparing for a life that is hard but honest and just, their cheeks made rosier by the outside air. Families would come together out of need, and abandoned values would have to be larned again to be passed on to the later generations. Yes, it would be tough, but G*d willing, we will prevail in the purity and sanctity of our precious bodily fluids...

Re:Slashdot

[hoover]

"If the internet is shut down we will see a resurrection of Fidonet."

Oh happy days! The whole thing went downhill once they started adding pictures, anyway.

"One Second After" book - no electricity

[peter303]

The premise is all electricity stops working in the USA (maybe rest of the world) probably due to a mssive EMP pulse. Its suggested this comes from a set of nukes. Or it could have come from a massive solar storm like that of 1859.

Re:I'd have to get my torrents via FedEx

[melikamp]

May be it was a girl?

Turn it off? Who would be that mean?

[rubi]

If the internet somehow went "dark" or non-functional, many millions of us who live in countries not in US/Canada or Europe/Japan would end up just as uninformed, under-developed and just plain ignorant as we have been in the past. The internet is the one thing that has allowed an incredible amount of knowledge to permeate troughout the whole planet and taken entire countries out of the dark ages.

Re:Slashdot

[1s44c]

Don't touch my Ubuntu, you power grabbing Microsoft Shill! ;)

Only the name is African. I don't think any significant part of any Linux distribution was developed in Africa.

The problem is that there is no region that has nothing anyone wants. And malware, spam, botnets, come from everywhere.

Malware and botnets certainly come from everywhere. The email scams and fake craigslist adverts that mention Jesus and western union always seem to come from Nigeria. It's like that's all they use their Internet connections for over there. It's really sad but it does seem to be true.

Re:Slashdot

[1s44c]

Right up until someone decides that "misbehaving" includes "submitting content of which we do not approve." The last thing we need is for the internet to give some powermonger the tools to easily silence dissent.

It does not have to be human controlled. I was thinking of a system to throttle down bandwidth or connections for hosts that connect to a large number of different hosts on the same port in a short time.

i.e. A bot would start sending mail out as fast as it can, the network would see this and slow it down to limit the problem. It would slow SSH password guessing, worms, and all kinds of bad stuff. Bittorrent clients would have to adapt by limiting their connection rate though.

Chance to win a radio contest!

[Silver Surfer 1]

I could finally stand a chance at winning a radio call in question!

Die google die!!!!

Re:Slashdot

[Bertie]

Yeah, pull up the drawbridge, we can't have poor countries catching up on us, can we? And everybody knows that all scammers are African and all Africans are scammers, right? There's no way any Westerner would try and con innocent people.

website

[phorm]

Hey Rachael,

I colo with a few buddies and it was recently moved to a new server. Unfortunately they did so whilst I was away, and missed the DB's. There wasn't anything really useful in that one anyhow, though I'm a bit more miffed about the loss of my gallery2 database.

Once I figure something useful to put up there I'll probably have it back. I'm great at the technical area of things but not so much at the "decor" which attracts visitors, any suggestions?

Re:website

[webmistressrachel]

I'm being trolled, aren't I? Well I'm only here to feed the ducks anyway... Why not try my HTML only, JavaScript-less bbs / political news system? :-O

You can have the layout for free as it's the same colour as your lawn - http://www.manchestergreenparty.org.uk/ yes i do have the right to the code and html as it's mine, but not the articles (Green Party). As for the custom forum / news / events system, thats for sale but im sure i'm being trolled but its late and im lonely so thank you and goodnight, troll! I bit! ps I'm Rachel, the common slutty spelling ;-D

Re:website

[phorm]

Not a troll at all, what makes you think so?

My original site (domain in the WHOIS) started because I had a 'net account that allowed hosting, and enough hardware to do so. Other than a photo gallery, most of my own content has been a been a bit lame, but since I had space and CPU to spare, it mainly hosted a bunch of friends who are fairly decent at anime and other such things.

The "lawn" site was originally intended to be a blog of sorts and/or a discussion about technology and various other things, and how they've changed over time. Since the layout sucked though, it got less than a dozen *real* hit a month, and plenty of spammers. It then mostly turned into a game of testing forum-based anti-spam measures to see how well it kept *them* out, but still no real content.

Sad since my job used to be maintaining forums for some fairly prominent (but not my own) domains...I just can't seem to drive useful traffic to my own.

I should probably take this to email before I get nailed as massively OT though. If you care to talk further it's the one in my whois. I do appreciate feedback, and suggestions/collaboration are always welcome.

p.l.s. (post lack-of-signature) I don't think I've been called troll quite so much in one message. Still not sure why

Re:website

[webmistressrachel]

Possible guilt on my part for having smugly pointed out your broken lawn? I can be a bit trolly myself (but never AC), and when suggesting my HTML-only layout and forum etc. I was a bit worried I'd be laughed at yet again by the slashdot in-crowd (you know, the Drupal and PEAR users) for my hamster-powered-yet-beautiful, SECURE, HTML-only, IE 4+ Firefox+ Lynx compatible server-side PHP-only validation, Amstrad style programming (phew!) over there on the link.

But on the other hand, I had to take the risk of being trolled because if you were genuine, I thought that layout (perhaps without the Muslim and the Jew shaking hands!) would be perfect for a site about gettin' offa your lawn! So thanks for being nice, I hope you do use it, a link would be nice, and sorry I called you a troll! Rachel

Re:Slashdot

[benji fr]

That's what we call the death of network neutrality :

What if you implement this "misbehavior control" in the network, and a few months later, someone create a protocol that will NEED this kind of behavior ? (I guess emule protocol is already behaving that way ...)

We don't need no tough control on the Internet ;)

basilisks

[abarrieris5eV]

Turning off the internet will likely become necessary because of the basilisks.

Re:I'd have to get my torrents via FedEx

[PopeRatzo]

On Slashdot? Maybe she was looking for Gashdot and mistyped.

What If They Turned Off the Internet?

[LordSnooty]

Ad-hoc WiMax connections everywhere, baby. Fuggit, we'll sling Cat6 all the way down the street and beyond. We know how to do it.

The Internet? Fuck the Internet, it's the info

[CAIMLAS]

It's not the "Internet" I'm addicted to. I'm a news/current events junkie. I don't exactly get them via an RSS feed or anything like that, but I spend over half an hour a day digging through news sites and various back channel sigint blogs and the like looking for information to better connect the dots.

Without the Internet, I highly suspect many people similar to myself - and there are quite a few - would be enraged. Hell, anyone paying attention to the media for the past years+ who believes in freedom of the press would. Contemporary media outlets are, simply, bullshit mouthpieces.

Freedom of the press would have all but been silenced if the Internet disappeared overnight; hundreds of thousands of IT types would be completely out of work (if not millions - who needs to update/upgrade their software if there is no network from which to get infected?); a better half of the visible public-facing software industry would likewise just go *poof* (google, facebook, youtube, hulu, yahoo, etc.). The economy would be -gone-, as all that's left in the US of "industry" is entertainment, service, and technology - and the Internet embodies all three. Countless Internet retailers would go belly up overnight - everything from Ebay to the guy selling custom aluminum cases for iPods from a free web site.

No app store, no open source, no porn, no warez, no IM or email, and (IMO most importantly) no independent, non-establishment media/reporting (manifested in many intelligently written individual and coop blogs). This last one is, in these times, absolutely essential. Without it, we're sunk. (Who'd have thought that 'blogs' would be anything more than a trivial agitation and trend?)

Without the Internet, we're back to CB and amateur radios, AM talk radio, the local news, and whatever the telco services push down the pipe to us via DSL/SAT/CATV/etc. Those are not enticing choices.

I'm not sure I understand

[saintm]

Are they meant to be really badly photoshopped? Is that part of the charm?

There is no reason to worry

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet will be just fi

Thanks for the spoilers

[Anonymous Coward]

Great article, pity the submitter felt the need to tell us all the best ones, including the winner, thus ruining half the fun of reading it. TMI!

Old gits like me would be OK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Old gits like me at age 38, remember the time with BBS's and 8 bit micros, we'd be alright, don't about anyone under 16 though! LOL!

Re:Millions of voices - suddenly were silenced.

[BIGstan]

would cry out in terror... silently.

    Except for the calls to their ISPs...

Our help desk uses VOIP. We couldn't hear you scream.

C'mon America

[AgentSmith]

show some imagination!

It would be replaced with greased weasels! That's right. Greased Weasels.
Weasels that would be sent in tubes. Large pneumatic tubes all across America.
And you would always need to wear leather gloves or a catcher's mitt or be caught unawares
that a greased weasel might fly out of a tube right next to you. A weasel could hit you at any time.
Walking to the Post Office, around town or even at home.

Tubes. . .a series of pneumatic tubes. . . .

what a stupid way to ask this question btw

[gd23ka]

"after the riots have calmed down" we are not going to have to "cope" with anything, Al Gore and all the criminal scum like him will hang from a gallow
or possibly far worse.

What a retarded mindfucker you are for even suggesting the people would be defeated. And there _is_ a revolution brewing and it is no longer on the horizon
anymore, it's almost within earshot.

Then it would be...

[StikyPad]

Just like it was *before* the internet? Local communities of BBSes where members actually met each other, interacted, and typically didn't use idle epithets, insults, and threats. User groups where people helped each other solve hardware and software issues, where you could get exposure to and experience with such hardware and software firsthand. Sneakernets, null-modem parties, *literal* social networking, actual burning of pizza and Mt. Dew calories by carrying around computers and setting up tables. OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Door-to-door Rickrolling?

[IonOtter]

I can't be the only one who thinks that door-to-door Rickrolling would be cool...