The Virtual Apocalypse

Puica Marian Cosmin

Universitatea din Craiova, Facultatea de Stiinte Exacte

Abstract
The spectacular development of the internet gave birth, ever since its inception, to the apparition of
hackers. The more the internet network expands and perfects, the more ingenious the methods hackers use
become. Theres a silent and continuous struggle between information security agencies and anonymous
groups of cyber terrorists. Aside from solar flares, the cyber war is a real threat to the security of our
planet. At this rate, a nation could be economically and military affected, its road, marine and aerial
infrastructure could be paralyzed, and the electricity system could fall. Governments lead a continuous
struggle against these threats and allocate huge amounts of money in order to ensure information security,
but the fight is far from over, because theres always room for increasingly more sophisticated cyber
attacks, which causes the specialists to be prepared at all times.

tioning the idea that the US Government was

the one that invented the global communications network.
The fact is that Berners-Lee has been ennobled by the queen of Great Britain in 2004 for
his early work on the internet, also sir BernersLee was awarded by The Time Magazine, and
was considered one of the most important 100
people of the 20th century.
It is clear from the announcement by the
head of the United Nations telecommunications, Hamadoum Toure, which said according to AFP that the number of internet users
rose from 500 millions in 2000 to over 2 billion people in 2012, that the internet has an
extraordinary success. By taking into account
the fact that our planet has over 7 billion people, turns out that one in three persons has
access to the internet.
There are many internet applications.
There is almost no area in which the internet
can not be used. The display and transmission of information occurs and can be realized
almost instantaneous, so a report can travel

n the year 1989, british Tim Berners-Lee

created the World Wide Web, thus opening the path to the most spectacular technologic revolution of the century, surpassing
even the vision of its inventor who considered
that In the future, the children will search
through the cereal boxes for breakfast and
they will take out something from inside the
box and stick it on the fridge and then navigate the internet with its help.
Even though the US Government assumes
this huge invention, claiming that The Pentagon created the internet, to secure the information networks in case of a nuclear assault
since the 60s, things are not quite so.
Vinton Cerf is the one who developed the
TCP/IP protocol, the backbone of the internet.
Tim Berners-Lee created the hyperlinks,
important elements in a web page, which are
related to various sources.
Within this context, the prestigious daily
newspaper Wall Street Journal recently hosted
an editorial on this controversial topic, ques-

around the world in a few days.

Web pages, E-mail, the telephony service
on the internet, the transfer of data files, internet TV, E-commerce, interactive network
games, internet banking, management and
control of artificial satellites, security of the
nuclear warhead are just a few areas of coverage of the internet.

that in 2013 the earth will be struck by powerful magnetic radiations that will reach an
unprecedented level.
These radiations that are emanated by the
solar flares could affect a major part of the
population of Earth, disrupting national electricity networks that may overheat, navigation
equipment and major satellites would damage, so on.
Unfortunately this scenario can happen,We know it is coming but we dont
know how bad it is going to be, declared dr.
Richard Fisher in an interview with The Daily
Telegraph, also adding: It (solar flare A/N)
will disrupt communication devices such as
satellites and car navigation, air travel, the
banking system, our computers, everything
that is electronic. It will cause major problems
for the world.
Destruction of terrestrial and underwater
cables represents another threat which concerns the global network of the internet.
PC Magazine recently brought into discussion the old iron collectors incident that occurred in march 2012 when an old lady from
Georgia managed to leave Armenia without
internet for more than 12 hours when she
sliced through a fiber optic cable while looking for scrap metal.
Although cable infrastructure is very
broadened, from the trans-oceanic cables up
to the satellites, the destruction of the internet
could also occur from here.
But you can not only talk of incidents but
also attempts of some individuals to prove
that they can destroy the entire global network of the internet.
At the beginning of 2012, Sam Biddle from
Gizmodo suggested that he can destroy the internet through cable cutting, thus eliminating
the root servers and destroying all the data
centers. In support of his intention he stated:
The Internet is a network of networks. The
laptops in your house, the desktops in your
office, a server farm in Moscow-theyre all
wrangled together by these byzantine cable
connections. Kill the connections, and the networks cant speak across oceans. The Internet

Presumptive threats
This paper aims to approach a bold subject,
namely to do a relevant and rational analysis
about the consequences of the possible disappearance of the internet.
I will not address this topic from the angle
of a science fiction movie, but by starting from
the reality of the digital era that has revolutionized all the areas of our life, which makes
me ask myself: How will mankind be in the
post digital era?
Given that we are so addicted to the internet, as we do so many things online every
day, paying our bills, socializing with friends,
watching movies, music videos, making online shopping, performing research activities
and so on, how could we live without it?
The causes that may trigger the end of the
internet
The cyber war can sink the planet in total darkness. Eugene Kaspersky the founder
of the Kaspersky Lab, emphasizes in an interview with the BBC that the greatest threat
to mankind is the cyber war, bringing in discussion the effects of the Stuxnet worm attack
on the iranian nuclear plants. If these attacks
reach their target, mankind will be thrown in
the era before electricity (about 200 years ago).
Only this aspect and is enough to terrify
us and to unleash a disaster on the planet
in all the areas. A power outage that affects
only one third of the mankind would generate
an indescribable chaos. A simple exercise of
imagination puts us in a fearful reality.
Magnetic storms.
Another imminent
threat to mankind are the magnetic storms,
and on this issue Richard Fisher, head of
NASAs Heliophysics Division, warned us
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is instantly fractured.
If just one of these scenarios would come
true, mankind would be thrown into chaos,
and generalized panic would be hard to manage and would produce millions of victims.

ternet is to get rid of all the people.

Cyber attacks
Of all the dangers that concern the internet, cyber attacks are by far the most dangerous, and a cyber war could start at any
moment.
The main target for cyber attacks are the
governments and the transnational companies, large corporations.
The author of the Cyber Threat Forecast
for 2012 report, Alexander Gostev, stated
that the majority of cyber attacks concern the
governments and arms-producing companies,
financial and banking operations or research
activities. Extractive, energetic and food industries and transportation and pharmaceutical companies are also concerned.
Experts of the Kaspersky Lab believe that
the cyber criminals will update their methods of cyber attacks so they may be able to
compete with the IT security companies. The
main weapons for destroying data in a specific time like Kill Switches (logic bombs),
will become more affordable because theyre
easy to make.
But the governments of the world take security measures against these cyber threats.
For instance, Iran has carried out, for the first
time, a cyber attack and defense exercise in
the last day of year 2012, according to a press
release of an iranian military spokesman,
quoted by AFP.

Concrete countermeasures
At the same time governments could be
exceeded in taking some immediate actions,
given that this will be primarily an institutionalized crisis in which there will be no communication.
To start with, terrified people will realize
that they will no longer be able to procure
food, having unusable cash cards, they wont
be able to move around with public transport,
health system would be in collapse, a generalized turmoil would lead to unpredictable
reactions from groups of panicked individuals.
In time things would return to normality
but what will the consequences be? Material
and human costs would be huge and mankind
would suffer a catastrophic involution.
But all of these nightmare scenes can be
prevented.
IT expert Dewayne Hendricks, known as
the Broadband Cowboy said that The first
thing you need to know about the Internet,
is that there is no such thing as the Internet. The Internet is merely a series of highly
distributed packet switchers. People tend to
think its this one thing - and its not - its
important to get this idea across that its thousands of independently owned and operated
networks - networks that are tied together
by physical connections that use a common
protocol. The Internet works like the Borg
Collective of Star Trek - its basically a kind of
hive mind. Its like trying to defeat the Borg a system thats massively distributed, decentralized, and redundant.
Not even a massive electromagnetic pulse
(EMP) would be able to completely destroy
the internet because, says the same specialist,
The Internet is not just technology, its people - you can trust people, theyre resilient,
because The only way to bring down the In-

Information security reactions

On the other hand US announced that they
will allocate 350 million euros for the construction of a replica of the internet, a reduced
scale model, for the purpose of counteracting
cyber attacks, BBC reports. In the same context, NATO plans to establish a special team
that works against cyber attacks, declared Luc
Dandurand, NATO C3 Agency expert.
In 2007 The New York Times revealed that
The Pentagon will create a cyber command,
complementary structure for 16 agencies subordinated to the DSA in order to protect government computers. The measure was taken
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as a protection against cyber attacks on some

US, British, French and German governmental
information systems of The Pentagon.
A state can use these tools to exert its
power. States are beginning to understand
that, and in a lot of ways the Chinese are taking the lead, and the Russians as well, said
Ned Moran of the Terrorism Research Center.

tems to accomplish its unknown goals.

Experts points of view
But things dont stop here. The US
must prepare itself for a full-scale cyber attack which could cause death and destruction
across the country in less than 15 minutes.
This statement belongs to former White House
counterterrorism advisor Richard A Clarke,
quoted by The Telegraph, adding that Americas lack of preparation for the annexing of
its computer system by terrorists could lead
to an electronic Pearl Harbor.
In his warning, Mr Clarke paints a doomsday scenario in which the problems start with
the collapse of one of Pentagons computer
networks. Soon internet service providers
are in meltdown. Reports come in of large
refinery fires and explosions in Philadelphia
and Houston. Chemical plants malfunction,
releasing lethal clouds of chlorine. Air traffic
controllers report several mid-air collisions,
while subway trains crash in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. More than 150 cities
are suddenly blacked out, he adds.
Tens of thousands of Americans die in
an attack comparable to a nuclear bomb in its
devastation. Yet it would take no more than
15 minutes and involve not a single terrorist
or soldier setting foot in the United States,
writes Clarke in his book titled Cyber War:
The Next Threat to National Security and
What to Do About It. And its not about a SF
novel, but one whose author is able to know
the vulnerabilities of one of the strongest nations in front of a cyber attack, a nation that
depends on a overwhelmingly percentage on
the internet.

Fighting an invisible enemy

In march 2012, Kaspersky Lab discovered
the most dangerous computer virus of all
times, used as a cybernetic weapon against
several countries. This malicious program,
identified by the name of Worm.Win32.Flame,
was created for cyber espionage and has the
ability to steal confidential data, screenshots,
stored files, contact data and so on.
Preliminary researches discovered that this
malicious software exists "in the wild" (without being detected so far) for more than 2
years, and due to its highly complex level, no
antivirus software was able to detect it.
Dubbed Flame by Kaspersky, the malicious code dwarfs Stuxnet in size - the groundbreaking infrastructure-sabotaging malware
that is believed to have wreaked havoc on
Irans nuclear program in 2009 and 2010.
The researchers say that Flame may be
part of a parallel project created by contractors who were hired by the same nation-state
team that was behind Stuxnet and its sister
malware, DuQu.
Stuxnet and Duqu belonged to a single chain of attacks, which raised cyberwarrelated concerns worldwide. The Flame malware looks to be another phase in this war,
and its important to understand that such cyber weapons can easily be used against any
country, said Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and
co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, in a statement.
Still related to the Flame malware,
Kasperky Lab expert Alexander Gostev said
in a statement that One of the most alarming
facts is that the Flame cyber-attack campaign
is currently in its active phase, and its operator is consistently surveilling infected systems,
collecting information and targeting new sys-

Ending notes
Still, the internet network continues to expand, becoming ubiquitous in all areas of human activity, but at the same time increasingly
more complex computer attacks continue to
develop, increasing in direct proportion to the
expansion of the internet.
At this rate cyber-terrorism can become a
more serious threat, being situated in the 10
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//io9.com/5944558/could-someone-reallydestroy-the-whole-internet.

possible events that could lead to the extinction of the entire human race.
Paraphrasing Andre Malraux, I believe
that the 21st century will either be cybernetic or it will not be at all.

5. PC Magazine article by Damon Poeter; http:

//www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383278,
00.asp.

6. Richard A. Clarke, Robert Knake, Cyber War: The

Next Threat to National Security and What to Do
About It (April 2010)

References
1. AFP article (Sep. 2007); http://afp.google.com/
article/ALeqM5izkiUz-8u1rsvfDH29rJEsd17clw.

7. The Daily Telegraph article by Alex Spillius

(May 2010); http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

2. CNET article by Steven Musil (May 2012); http:

worldnews/northamerica/usa/7691500/Cyberattack-could-fell-US-within-15-minutes.
html.

//news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57442473-83/
massive-targeted-cyber-attack-in-middleeast-uncovered/.

8. The Daily Telegraph article by Andrew Hough

(Jun. 2010);
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

3. Gizmodo article by Sam Biddle on How to destroy the internet (May 2012); http://gizmodo.
com/5912383/how-to-destroy-the-internet.

science/space/7819201/Nasa-warns-solarflares-from-huge-space-storm-will-causedevastation.html.

4. io9 article by George Dvorsky (Sep. 2012); http: