[Kerwood]

Recently I started working on a project with some others on a course for Emergency Managers and Information Technology people around Critical Infrastructure.

I found this timely article on the subject from just two days ago and thought everyone here would be interested in it, even though it is for IT type folk it points out some vulnerabilities.

Technology pretty much controls everything these days.

The article is long, but well worth the read.

Five Doomsday Scenarios for IT: Tech Apocalypse

 

[skud]

Interesting read. I have take exception to Google and Bing going down as apocalyptic though.

 

[Kerwood]

Interesting read. I have take exception to Google and Bing going down as apocalyptic though.

Yeah, bing I would not consider apocalyptic either. While google going down would not be apocalyptic right now it would cause some severe disruptions.

Many businesses, mostly small and mid-sized use google for a great many things from email to hosting. Some big companies do too. The thing to watch with this is google's expansion.

They are currently working on hosting information for major cities and they are expanding to being provers of broadband as well.

They are working on having a monopoly on information and data and how it moves over cyberspace into the future. So if you take the deeper dive into it yes it could be apocalyptic.

 

[grebetrees]

Wait until the 2012er's get ahold of that 110-year solar flare cycle notion. But then maybe they won't read the article all the way through.

"We are all familiar with the 11-year solar flare cycle," says Schlanger. "What most people are not aware of is the 110-year solar flare cycle. The 110-year cycle is massive when compared to the 11-year cycle. The affects of the 110-year cycle would be very similar to that of a nuclear EMP. We are currently due for the 110-year solar flare."

 

[Tusken Raider]

That was most interesting reading

 

[Kerwood]

grebetrees, yes I concur, not many people know about the impact of solar flares. I did a piece on that on my blog last July.

The most interesting thing is that it has occurred not that long ago. In 2003 over 20,000 people in Sweden lost power, and two Japanese satellites were disabled. In 1998 a GIC (Geomagnetic Induced Current) induced blackout in Quebec, Canada.

Lets not forget the most famous of all on September 1st 1859, in which telegraph lines were completely burned up leaving only ashes behind on the ground.

If this last one happened today, we would face some serious issues.