What if Governments Shutdown the Internet?

[passionsurf]

What if Trump nukes the entire world?
What if a gigantic asteroid hits our planet killing all life?
What if the Earth suddenly starts to spin in the opposite direction?

....what if you stop smoking pot for just one day? ... then maybe you'll stop asking your "what if" questions.

[JonasMatk]

I don't believe the internet could be shut down. Look at the infrastructure that's based on the Internet. All the IoT devices that need a constant connection. It would be disastrous.

[Pettuh4]

All governments of the world cannot come to a conclusive decision to shit down the internet because they can't all agree without a different view from other governments and besides the internet is usable globally so any attempt to shut it down will affect everyone else including governments machinery and their daily operations so it will be difficult for them to decide against themselves.

[Yassin]

It is not possible for the government to prevent Bitcoin transactions by censoring the internet. With VPNs and web-proxies being easily available, that will be unpractical. So the only option left is to block internet altogether. It is never going to happen, as there will be widespread anarchy and chaos.

I think not much different from other countries, many unemployed are now starting to get jobs from bitcoin

[wahb]

I don't believe the internet could be shut down. Look at the infrastructure that's based on the Internet. All the IoT devices that need a constant connection. It would be disastrous.

i think no government can afford to shutdown the internet. internet in now using officially in ever office. and i think it will be a great damage for a government if they shutdown the internet for a single day. bitcoin is no doubt depending on the internet connection but i think there i no thread to bitcoin from internet side, because internet will be there forever and is really getting improved from time to time.

[Gintama214]

   The Government has the power to shutdown internet especially on big countries but the problem is that if they do their would be a big chaos around the world because most of our technology in our generation now is run by internet and if it goes shut down there would be a big downfall in economical and in our technology in our world but what can the government can do is that they cal block bitcoin from processing if they don't want bitcoin but I think they will not do that because bitcoin has not done anything illegal in the internet or the people who are using it and they can actually earn more money if they start investing on bitcoin especially businesses that run by the governments. So there are a lots of positive things that can the government that can benefit on bitcoin that negative and I do think that sooner or later they will join and bitcoin will spread around the world. 

[naidray]

First of all do you think government will do that just because of transacting of by using bitcoins? They can banned sites to access it but to shutdown the internet is a big problem for the government .Establishments and government uses over the use of internet will stop .Almost all of the things now were run by internet connections the security , banks etc. Don't ever bother yourself thinking up on that things instead do your best to make out bitcoins if you need .

Government will be having no reasons to stop internet hence why government would ban Internet.
Bitcoin has ability to bring some happiness in to our life. I think if they will take any action about banning people will do protest against it and will put pressure on government to lift ban from internet and bitcoin.

[Fatanut]

If your government shuts down the Internet, do a reality check. You might have spent such a long time inside your room that you didn't know your country has a new president and you're in a communist country now. Once they shut down the Internet, that means they are not open to other countries anymore. You can't get information from other country and vice versa. A lot of establishments will close down. Almost every company relies on the Internet. Marketing, advertising, agriculture, every single field has already upgraded their hardware and is using the Internet to make it even better.

It's such a dumb decision to shut down the Internet entirely just because of bitcoin. That's like burning down the whole house just because you saw a spider inside.

[sonawer]

Even the Chinese can not make control over the Internet within their country. So what can we say about attempts at world control? I think even if there is an attempt to capture the nodal points, then the crypt owners very quickly on the basis of the existing will conduct alternative networks)

[mornabo]

It is really impossible that the government will shutdown the internet. The government can't shutdown it because they are not holding the internet and also they don't have a reason to shutdown it.

I think the government can do anything. They have any authority within a country. They can close the internet access of a country. Such as a country with a closed system. The government is very likely to turn off the internet But in the current era it seems impossible

[jovs]

It is not possible for the government to prevent Bitcoin transactions by censoring the internet. With VPNs and web-proxies being easily available, that will be unpractical. So the only option left is to block internet altogether. It is never going to happen, as there will be widespread anarchy and chaos.

Government can shut down anything they want to shut down. It has happened before and nothing happened. Why do some government countries stops access to some sites, its because they can do it.  A government in a country shut down the country's internet for hours because election is going on and they don't want citizens posting updates on the social media but the effect will be haphazard and that is one unique thing about bitcoin and why they cannot stop its penetration and reason why they are now looking for ways around it.

I also agree that the government have the power to control the electricity and Internet itself. If there is a reasonable thing to consider. But if they going to do it to stop the transactions maybe it is not that a big thing to consider for them to disconnect the internet for the both providers and the people who using Internet for personal purposes and transaction through bitcoin. It for me it is possible but it will not happened as far as the system of bitcoin developed and adopt to the changes of technology.

[lecongnhan123]

It is not possible for the government to prevent Bitcoin transactions by censoring the internet. With VPNs and web-proxies being easily available, that will be unpractical. So the only option left is to block internet altogether. It is never going to happen, as there will be widespread anarchy and chaos.

Government can shut down anything they want to shut down. It has happened before and nothing happened. Why do some government countries stops access to some sites, its because they can do it.  A government in a country shut down the country's internet for hours because election is going on and they don't want citizens posting updates on the social media but the effect will be haphazard and that is one unique thing about bitcoin and why they cannot stop its penetration and reason why they are now looking for ways around it.

Not possible in any advanced country and the case for an election is temporal, on a prolonged basis, no government has what it takes to effectively shut a country out of the internet. The governments are actually helpless with Bitcoin - crytocurrency in general else long ago would they have taken it under. Something not quite obvious, is the fact that the governments  that tried to stand in the way of Bitcoin actually ended up promoters of Bitcoin because people become  inquisitive about Bitcoin and hardly let go after discovering it.

Yeah they can shut whatever they want down but they will lose more than they can earn by shutting down the Internet. Maybe they can not earn anything by that but they will lose more things like can not contact to anyone, it's a bit difficulty

[revo1044]

if Governments Shutdown the Internet all the bitcoin in the world will lost

[Palider]

I honestly think Bitcoin isn't decentralized enough considering that government still controls the Internet and can easily censor or shut them down (is this even possible?) anytime.
The move by government to make us go cashless by gradually phasing out cash is even more worrisome, could make them have absolute control over us.
We need some sort of decentralized "physical Bitcoin" that doesn't depend on the Internet and can be exchanged for online Bitcoin.  It is too risky not to have offline alternatives to Bitcoin to act as backup plan for online Bitcoin in case something big goes wrong.




Pls I need to know something,  Is it possible to exchange Bitcoin with other people without being connected to the Internet?
Let say the government bans the Internet and you have your Bitcoin offline(in cold storage right?), can you exchange the Bitcoin to the next person by simply transferring some Bitcoin from cold storage to his/her computer, phone or even data storage devices(like SD Card, USB, Hard drive etc)?
If this is possible then no need for the "Physical Bitcoin"

I think if the government will shutdown the internet it will be a big mess. Almost everything depends on the internet nowadays, business, education, economy, almost everything depends on the internet. Technology use internet for faster program. Almost half of economy will down in that point when internet shutdown.

[carlisle1]

Even the Chinese can not make control over the Internet within their country. So what can we say about attempts at world control? I think even if there is an attempt to capture the nodal points, then the crypt owners very quickly on the basis of the existing will conduct alternative networks)

if there's a will there's always a way and that's how crypto people thinks so even the government will try to shut it down for sure many resources will be
use to start anther ways as crypto will leave and no one or nobody can stop that, look into the bright side instead and focus for more development.

[streazight]

If governments will shutdown the internet then bitcoin will die because bitcoin can only be found in the internet so if the internet will be shutdown by the governments then there is no sense of having bitcoin so i think it is better to just hold the 50% of our bitcoin and exchange the rest in cash so we can avoid getting stuck to this worst case scenario.

This scenario will be never happen. If ever internet is shutdown. Then there will be no connection with online news. There will no news update directly. No one will aware from different countries. Currencies will be goes down. They will lost their values. If it is happen. Because internet is connecting people around the world.

[emberbekas]

The possibility of government to shutdown the internet is very low. The Internet, is not just related to bitcoin. With the presence of the internet, it proved to have helped many people in many ways. So why should the government have to kill something that has been proven to be very useful for our lives?

[CrewKitten]

If governments shut the internet down, Bitcoin would still exist, but would be essentially unusable.

[guoyu78]

Today it would be impossible to shut down the internet or restrict any serious part of it as our whole infrastructure and monetary system is based on networking capabilities.

As you said about infrastructure. In my views there is no life without internet. If there is no internet how people would serve. So how people will know about the world that what's going on even you may know that without internet we are nothing. If you want to visit any country you get there picture first then visit. So this is poor step by government

[Pattart]

I doubt a government can shutdown the internet, particularly in the developed world were you can't do a single thing without a list of restrictions, laws and public attention, this isn't Castro Cuba or Syria, The internet won't be shutdown on whims, and asking "what if" is the same as asking about a Zombie or Alien invasion etc.. highly unlikely and next to impossible, a waste of time to consider.

Thats true dude, besides internet has become the main requirement for all human. Even government systems, finance, banks, etc depend on the internet. If the internet is dead of course all the bank's financial activity will be paralyzed. I'm sure the government will not do that