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

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.

[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.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

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

South Park had this covered

[Anonymous Coward]

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

They covered basically every topic in there

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.

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]

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?

[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".

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.

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: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: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.)

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: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: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.

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: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.

[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.

[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: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: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.

[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

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: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.

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.