Internet Shutdowns Show Physical Gold Is Ultimate Protection

“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.

Sadly this is not the case. As you will see government-sanctioned internet shutdown and cyberterrorism are ever-present across many nations. The result? Individuals must protect their own freedom and safety of their assets as the authorities may have other priorities.

Internet shutdown increases government powers

Until then, many governments had assumed it was not possible to turn off internet access to their entire nation, due to the decentralized nature of the network. But soon after, governments across the globe educated themselves about AS numbers and internet routing, and started using their power to set up systems that would allow them to order network shutdowns.

What was originally only intended to be used in more extreme circumstances has quickly devolved into officials using their powers for all sorts of questionable – and often political – reasons.

Internet shutdowns can be either at the will of the domestic government or a form of financial or military warfare from an outside authority or organisation.

India is where we see the highest number of authorised internet blackouts. Here government policy states that whilst such action requires the highest-level official in charge of domestic security – the Ministry of Home Affairs for the whole country or a state’s Home Department official – to sign off on any shutdown a junior member can shutdown the internet for a full 24-hours should gaining permission be unfeasible.

Many in Western countries might dismiss such government behaviour as perhaps a feature of developing nations or despot-led countries. Not so. In the UK  the Communications Act 2003 and the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 gives internet suspension powers to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. This can be done either by ordering the shutdown of operations by internet service providers or by closing exchange points.

When questioned about such a power a government representative said that it would have to be a very exceptional circumstance that led to the shutdown of the internet. However, those circumstances have not been specified and therefore cannot be challenged. Who is to say from one government to the next or one perceived threat to the next what an ‘exceptional circumstance’ is?

One person’s exceptional circumstances differ to another’s. For example, it’s interesting that in India the majority of shutdowns happen in Kashmir, the region which is heavily involved in a  political border dispute. The same goes for Turkey which since 2016 has allowed authorities to implement an internet ‘kill switch’ to “partially or entirely” suspend internet access when deemed necessary.

In most countries government-sanctioned internet shutdown is now part and parcel of policy. More often than not they are justified by their use in protecting citizens. However, as Deji Bryce Olukotun, Senior Global Advocacy Manager at Access Now explains:

There is no evidence that shutting down the Internet helps prevent terrorist attacks or stops them while they’re occurring.

Internet access: a human right

There are 3.5 billion internet users around the world, approximately 50% of the global population. It is therefore unsurprising that internet use is increasingly considered to be a human right by many.

“As the Internet is a key enabler of many fundamental rights, including freedom of speech and expression, such frequent disruptions have been a cause for concern,” states InternetShutdowns.in.

“They threaten the democratic working of nations, and also point to the gradual normalization of the mindset that permits such blanket restriction on Internet access.”

Where there is internet access managing your day and business online is just an accepted fact of life, particularly in developed countries. When indicators such as the political, economic and social impact of the web, connectivity and use are considered the UK and US are ranked in the top three for web use by citizens.

The Internet helps us realize our human rights, including freedom of expression and privacy. When governments shut off the Internet, people can’t communicate with loved ones, run their businesses or even visit their doctors during an emergency. – Deji Bryce Olukotun

One would also assume therefore that our governments understand the importance of internet security and have several measures in place to prevent the likes of military-level cyber attacks or DDOS attacks from terrorist organisations.

Not so, the most progress that has been made by Western governments in recent years has been in regard to how much control they have over the internet as shown by the aforementioned policies.

Ten years ago Estonia experienced what appears to have been a state-sponsored cyberattack of unimaginable proportions. Citizens found they were unable to access bank accounts, websites, social media and infrastructure began to fall apart such as traffic lights no longer working.

This was not down to an internal failure. It was quickly clear that there had been an attack from outside the country. It was a Distributed Denial of Service Attack — an orchestrated swarm of internet traffic that swamps servers and shuts down websites for hours or even days.

The result for Estonians citizens was that cash machines and online banking services were sporadically out of action; government employees were unable to communicate with each other on email; and newspapers and broadcasters suddenly found they couldn’t deliver the news.

The Estonian government reacted in a manner that other governments should have been proud to follow. They used it as a step to up foreign policy and gain immense understanding and training on all matters of cybersecurity.

The attack on Estonia may have been Russia telling the rest of the world that it had the capabilities to bring a country to its knees should they be displeased.

The wheels of finance and banking also could grind to a halt if an event compelled all U.S. Internet Service Providers to cut off all Internet access. A shutdown of the stock markets, where billions of dollars are exchanged daily, might prove especially crippling.

But this isn’t just about disaster at a government and national level. Consider businesses and the impact on their operations. How many organisations assume internet access is a given? How many base their business offering on the existence of customers being online?

Dangers of Digital Gold

Consider companies that offer digital gold an an investment or store of value. These electronic platforms offer investors access to pooled gold in large gold bar format.  Investors do not know which part of a particular gold bar they own. Sometimes such investments are mis-labelled as allocated gold.

Not only this, but these platforms are “closed loop systems”. This means liquidity and pricing are dependent on a single platform, website and company. The investor is in effect “captive” as they would be to a bank account or having to deal with one single stockbroker. Should the company be acquired by a bank, venture capitalists or other institution, the spread between buy and sell and overall costs could rise. The client would have no choice but to accept the increased charges.

We are in no way casting aspersions as to the good name of BullionVault.com or other digital gold platforms. We have a lot of respect for them and what they have achieved. However, we view them as a great way for people to speculate on gold, silver and platinum and go long and short, rather than as providers of financial insurance and safe haven long term investments.

The point we are making is that investors concerned about systemic risk, including cyber risk, should consider the cyber and electronic threats to their investments – with whatever provider they may be with.

Higher rate of victimisation: don’t be a statistic

Even if you live in a country that was not victim to an internet shutdown, consider the following relevant information:

– According to a study by Incapsula 30.5% of non-human web traffic is compromised of ‘bad bots’. These bots are responsible for stealing data and distributing malware.
– Symantec’s 2017 Internet Security Threat Report reported that more than $3 billion has been stolen from businesses in the past three years.
– The United States’ Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) report that more than 4,000 ransomware attacks have occurred every day since the beginning of 2016. A 300% increase over 2015, where 1,000 ransomware attacks were seen per day.
– This is a major financial problem. The Brookings Institution found that the global economy lost at least 2.25 billion euro ($2.4 billion) from Internet shutdowns over a one year period from 2015-2016.

Individuals must take their own precautions, both at a computer security level but also in terms of personal assets.

More and more people need the Internet to connect and make a living, and cannot afford to lose access on a routine basis. The worst thing we can do is sit and do nothing. – Deji Bryce Olukotun

Internet shutdowns and cybersecurity attacks compromise our democratic freedoms. The shutdown of the internet by governments should only be allowed in the most extreme of cases. Sadly as we see in the likes of India it is often used as a first response.