You have a go at use your credit card, but it doesnt work.
In fact, no ones credit card works.
Neither can anyone else.
People empty ATMs of cash.
This kind of catastrophic pan-internet meltdown is more likely than most people realize.
I direct theInternet Atlas Projectat the University of California, Berkeley.
Our goal is to shine a light on long-term risks to the internet.
We produce indicators of weak points and bottlenecks that threaten the internets stability.
For example, where arepoints of fragility in the global connectivity of cables?
Physical cables under the sea deliver95% of the internets voice and data traffic.
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With those measurements, we identify weak points in the global internet.
Currently, the internet is facing twin dangers.
On one side, theres the threat of total consolidation.
Power over the internet has been increasingly concentrated primarily in the hands of a few, U.S.-based organizations.
On the other side, theres fragmentation.
Attempts to challenge the status quo, particularly byRussia and China, threaten to destabilize the internet globally.
For whom is the internet becoming more reliable, and for whom is is it becoming more unstable?
These are the critical questions.
About3.4 billion people are just now getting onlinein countries including Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu.
What kind of internet will they inherit?
But lately, the U.S. federal government has been leveraging its jurisdiction more aggressively.
Meanwhile, U.S.-based technology companies also risk wreaking havoc.
Consider Australias recentspat with Facebook over paying news outlets for their content.
At one point, Facebook blocked all news on its platform in Australia.
As theseskirmishesincrease in frequency, countries worldwide are likely to suffer disruptions to their internet access.
These domestic maneuvers certainly threaten localized meltdowns.
India now regularlyshuts down the internet regionally during civil unrest.
But, in aggregate, they present a more global threat:internet frgamentation.
A fragmented internet threatens speech, trade andglobal cooperation in science.
It also increases the risk of cyberattacks on core internet infrastructure.
In a global internet, attacks on infrastructure hurt everyone, but walled-off national internets would change that calculus.
With that capacity, it couldattack core global internet infrastructurewith less risk of upsetting its domestic population.
A sophisticated attack against a U.S. company could trigger a large-scale internet outage.
Content could be accessed anywhere, across borders.
Perhaps this openness isbecause, rather than in spite, of the U.S.s dominanceover the internet.
Whether or not that theory holds, the U.S.s dominance over the internet is unlikely to persist.
The status quo faces challenges from the U.S.sadversaries, itshistorical alliesand itsown domestic tech companies.
In this environment, building a stable and transnational internet for future generations is a challenge.
It requires delicacy and precision.
Thats where work like ours comes into play.
To make the internet more stable globally, people need measurements to understand its chokepoints and vulnerabilities.
