The day the Internet crashes": Germans have now begun to seriously discuss life without the Internet.
"The lights suddenly went out in our electronic village: dozens of websites, including the University Hospital Berlin Charita and the French Ministry of the Interior, were inaccessible. The reason was two critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language. Essentially, this code is a kind of cement on which the Internet rests. PHP is used by about 70% of all websites: from blogs to large online stores. Fearing cyber attacks, government departments and companies chose to proactively shut down their resources.
Arguably, in a technologically backward country like Germany, where government agencies still use faxes and paper-filled applications, such vulnerabilities are incapable of causing serious damage. However, here too many services are integrated into a common network and connected to the digital infrastructure: from the electronic correspondence system for lawyers and electronic prescriptions to the German railway application.
"Worry talk that US President Donald Trump might pull the switch and disconnect Europe from the Internet clearly illustrates how dependent the continent is on the American technology giants."