UNESCO is warning that the number of internet shutdowns is increasing worldwide. According to Statista.com when reporting data provided by digital rights platform accessnow.org, “internet access has been curbed 116 times in 30 countries since January 2016.”

“Internet shutdown: An intentional disruption of Internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information.” – Access Now.

One question that so many ask when first hearing about bitcoin is ‘what if the internet stops working?’ Bitcoin and crypto proponents scoff and point out that there is no singular ‘off button’ i.e. it would be near impossible.

According to ‘father of the internet’ Tim Berners-Lee, this is true:

“The way the internet is designed is very much as a decentralised system. At the moment, because countries connect to each other in lots of different ways, there is no one off switch, there is no central place where you can turn it off.”

Try telling that to the one billion plus people in India who have experienced over 54 internet shutdowns in the last two years.

Or those in Egypt who on January 27th 2011 could no longer get online as the government shut down the internet in response to the pre-Arab Spring protests.

Even in the EU, ten years ago technologically advanced Estonia appears to have been a victim of Kremlin-sponsored cyber warfare, when Estonians found they could no longer access their bank accounts. Individuals and companies could not use their computers for the simple daily tasks that we take for granted today – such as email.

The above three examples are not rare occurrences. In the last two years alone there have been 116 situations where governments or state sponsored hackers seem to have found the ‘off button’ for the internet across 30 countries. That’s not counting all of the incidences when there have been other cyber attacks that have ‘merely’ affected vital internal systems and disrupted key infrastructure for large sections of society.

So whilst countries might be more connected than ever, that isn’t much help to the citizens who find themselves very much disconnected whether on a mass or individual scale. Internet shutdown is definitely possible and it is happening: 

“There are several ways to shut down the Internet. One way is to make sure that when you type in a web address, such as dw.com/mediadev, your Internet service provider doesn’t allow you to find the underlying IP address. Another way is when an Internet service provider messes with the routing tables and removes key details so that packets of information traveling on the web aren’t allowed to travel to their final destination. Governments are using increasingly sophisticated methods to disrupt communications”

This isn’t just a disaster for those using bitcoin, this is a disaster for anyone who relies on an internet connection be it for communication or accessing their finances. Many in the West look at internet controls as something that is exclusive to developing nations or those more on the totalitarian-regime end of the political spectrum.