Right on. And more importantly, we are the IT staff who maintain it.
As programmers, we control their software. As DBAs, we control their data. As systems administrators, we control their servers. They do nothing unless we allow it. They are deaf, dumb, and blind without us.
So to your point, Lady Lucky, that 90% of us won't hear anything in the first 24 hours ... realize that the IT staff will know of any such plans in advance. The first wave of our defense against such actions, will be software-based. So the warning will go out in advance.
Yes, they are. They certainly are. Heh heh heh. In addition to Rule .308 and Rule LPG, there's Rule TCP/IP, Rule IOS - and a host of others.
Dead on! Nothing like a $5 billion satellite surveillance system being taken out by a $1,000 network switch or 50 cents worth of wires. If a national asset is turned on the people, the people that work that asset can disable it fairly quickly. Deaf, dumb, and blind won’t win a war. Even the military has plans of what to do in case a military asset is used against the nation.
And it is no longer simply a question of the internet, and people dialing up with 1440 baud modems...
It’s MUCH more complex now. People might fear what would happen to them if the internet went down, but even beyond individual users, there are tens of thousands of businesses in the country that could not run without it. Include in that summary government itself.
My point being that the government wouldn’t just shut down the net some night, because the results would be catastrophic.
Also, with all the other platforms and technologies these days, there are tons of other communication pathways/protocols. If the gummint decides it needs to shut down the net, it is committed to shutting down all the cell phones as well, and indeed the land lines. Cell phones worldwide can get/send emails/video/images to/from the net.