An Internet Hall of Fame inductee, Ben Segal was a developer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in the web’s early days and created code such as legacy-to-Internet gateways to help protocol transitions.
In a recent interview with Sputnik, Segal noted that the Internet was designed with multiple redundancies, thus making it difficult to completely shut off, save for a nuclear explosion or other catastrophic event.
“A nuclear bomb launched over a country…can do tremendous harm with electronics,” he said. “That’s been known for many, many years, and I’m quite sure all sides have got the capability to do that if they feel threatened.
“So, yes…the ultimate way to switch off the Internet is…with a series of nuclear exchanges which could happen by accident.”
