# Hypothetically, if the world's best hackers came together, how much damage possible?



## Phusius (Aug 28, 2012)

Let's say, best hackers in the world from all nations came together.  Had unlimited resources as in money to buy parts, or whatever they need.

Could they shut down the entire internet for a month or a week even?  (I am just trying to guesstimate how much power even the best hackers have in the the most recent of years.)


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## Bo$$ (Aug 28, 2012)

Phusius said:


> Let's say, best hackers in the world from all nations came together.  Had unlimited resources as in money to buy parts, or whatever they need.
> 
> Could they shut down the entire internet for a month or a week even?  (I am just trying to guesstimate how much power even the best hackers have in the the most recent of years.)



Theoretically anything is possible...
I wouldn't like to see that happen at all...


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## Phusius (Aug 28, 2012)

@Bo$$  I don't want to see anything like that either, I just am not entirely sure what the elite hackers are capable of and I want to understand better.  Anomynous and Lulsec didn't impress me, they shut down some stuff for what a few hours at most, maybe stole some credit card information, etc?  All very minor imho, but if they had the power to shut down the internet for top retailers like Amazon or something for more than a week, that could cause quite a hiccup in the stock market or something.


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## OnePostWonder (Aug 28, 2012)

We've seen a nuclear facility be afflicted by a virus in the last year or so, so I'd wager to say they could do more than shut down the internet.


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## sneekypeet (Aug 28, 2012)

They wouldn't take out the net, they can't! What would they do with no interwebz?


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## tacosRcool (Aug 28, 2012)

Too many nerds in one place! Isn't that what the Star Wars conventions are for?!


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 28, 2012)

The internet is too decentralized and diverse for anyone to "shut down the entire internet."


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## manofthem (Aug 28, 2012)

Phusius said:


> Let's say, best hackers in the world from all nations came together.  Had unlimited resources as in money to buy parts, or whatever they need.
> 
> Could they shut down the entire internet for a month or a week even?  (I am just trying to guesstimate how much power even the best hackers have in the the most recent of years.)



They tried that... John McClane stopped them!  Firesale extinguished!


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## phanbuey (Aug 28, 2012)

I would predict that alot of the real professional hackers with the most experience already work as whitehat or are in IT security.  Alot of the malicious stuff gets caught fast.

But if the world's best hackers got together, the impact would only be limited to the scope of what they wanted to attack.  Especially if they pulled out all of the stops (including dating that ugly girl from accounting on Match.com to get access to systems).


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## Phusius (Aug 28, 2012)

sneekypeet said:


> They wouldn't take out the net, they can't! What would they do with no interwebz?



The economy would probably crash hard if no internet for an entire week.  Every business in the modern era is connected to it.


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## Norton (Aug 28, 2012)

Why would a hacker take out the entire net??? How would they tell anyone how cool they are for doing it?

That would be like sawing a branch off of a tree while your sitting on it....


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## Phusius (Aug 28, 2012)

Norton said:


> Why would a hacker take out the entire net??? How would they tell anyone how cool they are for doing it?
> 
> That would be like sawing a branch off of a tree while your sitting on it....



Some men just hate, they want to see the world burn.  Alfred from Batman


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## cadaveca (Aug 28, 2012)

Phusius said:


> Anomynous and Lulsec didn't impress me.




They shouldn't. They did not really do anything special, hack-wise. DDOS attacks are the lamest possible...A real hacker puts a backdoor silently, and captures ALL network traffic, then uses it, WITHOUT DETECTION.


Taking a site out, making your "hack" public, is not how it works...I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a viable way to draw attention, but truly, not that useful, either socially or financially, and ultimately, is a case of a bark worse than the bite. Once hte victim know they are being hacked...it's not really much of a hack, is it? They simly unplug, change hardware, power back up with new MAC IDs and new routing hardware, and your DDOS hack is useless...


Is it possible to shut down the internet? Technically, no. Anyone with a router at home ahs thier own internet, and with wireless, can connect to other routers...and even though you might take down ISPs, you'd never actually prevent networking, os no, they could not kill the internet.


LIke, for example, the best example I cna come up with...create a virus that flashes the BIOS of a motherboard, OC's the machine, and then destroys the CPU via voltage. THAT might kill the internet.


Guess what...similar tech is in any new Intel PC.


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## Delta6326 (Aug 28, 2012)

Realistically to shut down the internet you would need to create a Trojan and have it go into all the servers around the world and at a preset time have it send out virus to all computer for a few min. then once it hits a certain time whip all the hard drives connected to those servers and computers...

Chance of this being able to be done 0.0000000000000000001% 



manofthem said:


> They tried that... John McClane stopped them!  Firesale extinguished!



 Thats what I was going to say!


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## Sir B. Fannybottom (Aug 28, 2012)

manofthem said:


> They tried that... John McClane stopped them!  Firesale extinguished!



It's okay, Jen has it.


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## Munki (Aug 29, 2012)

You mean worm?



Delta6326 said:


> Realistically to shut down the internet you would need to create a Trojan and have it go into all the servers around the world and at a preset time have it send out virus to all computer for a few min. then once it hits a certain time whip all the hard drives connected to those servers and computers...
> 
> Chance of this being able to be done 0.0000000000000000001%
> 
> ...


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## Nordic (Aug 29, 2012)

You wouldn't have to be a hacker to stop the world wide web. You could just cut some strategic internet wires underneath the ocean.


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## Delta6326 (Aug 29, 2012)

Munki said:


> You mean worm?



Yes, that too.


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## the54thvoid (Aug 29, 2012)

Hmm.

Shut down the internet....

Isn't that what China does to its own citizens?

Besides, there's more internet lurking under there, in the dark...


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## AphexDreamer (Aug 29, 2012)

The question shouldn't be how much damage is possible but what would their intentions be?


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## m1dg3t (Aug 29, 2012)

Taking down the internet would achieve what many governments, businesses, politicians, etc hope for already; a cease to easily accesible information/knowledge.

You would be doing _them_ a service


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## bbmarley (Aug 29, 2012)

kevinheraiz said:


> it's okay, jen has it.
> http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:and9gcsenqty6kxv1lvc-g0e5fglqr7yyzvc7ah79l5und5prq1gwanzrw&t=1



lol


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## natr0n (Aug 29, 2012)

It would be nice for them to reveal some truths that all the governments hide from us.


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## W1zzard (Aug 29, 2012)

Phusius said:


> Let's say, best hackers in the world from all nations came together.



they would probably be busy copying warez/mp3/porn and then play counter-strike


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## tacosRcool (Aug 29, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> they would probably be busy copying warez/mp3/porn and then play counter-strike



You know, you may be right! Too bad I rape them at Counter-Strike


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## 95Viper (Aug 30, 2012)

Phusius said:


> Had *unlimited resources as in money* to buy parts, or *whatever they need*.



Would not be wasting it on the internet...  PARTY TIME!


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## lilhasselhoffer (Aug 30, 2012)

Why in Hades would they kill the internet.

DNS servers allow you to type in something easy to remember.  Without DNS the internet is useless to 90% of people.  The remaining 10% of tech savvy people can type in IPs directly.  That's what I'd have done if I had a group of hackers, given how relatively easy that would be.


Sufficiently talented black hats can do a lot.  Anonymous and Lulzsec had only a small fraction of the black hat community, and they managed government website takedowns, DDOS, and other large scale attacks (LOIC anyone?).  Imagining that in the hands of, many more, capable people and I'm scared...  

Problem is, humans are still fundamentally greedy.  Why kill the internet, when you can mine credit card data?


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## Easy Rhino (Aug 30, 2012)

sneekypeet said:


> They wouldn't take out the net, they can't! What would they do with no interwebz?



lol exactly. 

"let's take down the internet!!" said internet hackers.


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## Disparia (Aug 30, 2012)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> Problem is, humans are still fundamentally greedy. Why kill the internet, when you can mine credit card data?



For the lulz.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 30, 2012)

If all hackers got together the only best thing they would have to do is to shut down the guy computer who continue to send us "Free gambling". Free porn" and "Enlarge your penis".


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## Solaris17 (Aug 30, 2012)

direct attack on multiple ISP/data center main frames and just start a system wide ban of class A/B/C subnets. everyone would DC eventually


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## Kreij (Aug 31, 2012)

Technically you couldn't destroy the internet, but you could disrupt it on a massive scale for some period of time. If you could write some malware that targetted routers (not computers) and wiped out the all the routing tables (including backup tables and redundant routers), everything would come to a screaming halt.

It would not be easy, but a wide scale disruption of just several hours would cause trillions of dollars in losses.
When you got caught (and they *would* find you), you would spend a long time in a small room as "Bubba's wife".


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## OnePostWonder (Aug 31, 2012)

Kreij said:


> Technically you couldn't destroy the internet, but you could disrupt it on a massive scale for some period of time. If you could write some malware that targetted routers (not computers) and wiped out the all the routing tables (including backup tables and redundant routers), everything would come to a screaming halt.
> 
> It would not be easy, but a wide scale disruption of just several hours would cause trillions of dollars in losses.
> When you got caught (and they *would* find you), you would spend a long time in a small room as "Bubba's wife".



Or he could find himself in a menage a trois:

With one of the prisoner workers no less!


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## ZenZimZaliben (Aug 31, 2012)

Nothing would get done. They would all argue over which modded  and custom compiled linux distro is the best.


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## Drone (Aug 31, 2012)

Oh the interference ... I think they would cancel each other out.


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## D007 (Aug 31, 2012)

If they had the power to piss off the wrong people, they would find themselves on some very dangerous peoples hit lists.. Hacking a computer won't stop a squad of seals from placing a bullet between your eyes.. You threaten the security of the country, the country will respond and it will not be with some lame, 3 hour hack..


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