Wally Bowen of the Mountain Area Internet Network ponders whether the U.S. could be cut off from the Internet the way Egypt was.
After seeing what some anti-spam servers can do, I can say wholeheartedly that it can.
On National Public Radio last Saturday, host Scott Simon opined that a “central shutdown” of the Internet as occurred in Egypt was “unthinkable if not impossible” in the United States given the “thousands of Internet routes and providers” here.
Simon noted that Egypt’s four primary Internet service providers could be shut down “with just a few phone calls.” But the U.S. has only four companies — Comcast, Time-Warner, AT&T and Verizon — controlling most of our broadband access. More than 90 percent of U.S. broadband users have only one or two providers, a cable or telephone company, to choose from.
via Could the Internet be shut down in US? | citizen-times.com | Asheville Citizen-Times.