I do agree with you. I know a fair number of HAMs who continue to network with other radio operators. They are always on standby in the event of a major communications breakdown for public service reasons, and have warehouses of parts and tools in their sheds/homes to repair their radio hardware, as well as hand-powered generation equipment. Mad respect to those people. I’ve sat down with them for a few hours and have enjoyed listening to their projects.

I also used to work for a Data Center. I hear you there with limited Transit providers. There used to be many more in the past, although consolidation has occurred, and continues to occur. I know SprintLink is under T-Mobile, Level3 is now under CenturyLink/Lumen/whatever you want to call them. Smaller, regional providers I used to use like FiberTech Networks are now under Crown Castle, and Crown Castle is now in the process of merging with Zayo. Providers like XO Communications and UUNet are all under Verizon now. Charter/Spectrum is in the middle of merging with Cox. Frontier is merging with Verizon. Windstream is Windstream… The list goes on, and on, and on. Even though the Data Center I worked at bought as much bandwidth as we could from every major transit provider that is in our local POP, the POP/IX sites, as you mention, are the biggest risk, and that is where targeting will occur.

The Military already has their own private communication network. They don’t have to do anything. But if they want to seize Starlink, then yeah, that’s the absolute worst case and countries are already exploring ways to avoid that doomsday situation for them. SpaceX already needs to deal with the government for their launches and Orbit coordination.

As for Cryptocurrency, that brings us back to the general issue at hand with Crypto (and subsequent memecoins). If MAGACrypto were to become the de-facto currency for US, will anyone else accept it for trade? USD is only as powerful as it is because it is the global trade standard. Cutting off the US from trade by severing communications networks will completely devalue the USD. Crypto isn’t going to function without a communications network. If you have to convert from MAGACrypto to USD just to do trade, then MAGACrypto is worthless. I hope no administration in the US, is dumb enough to actually do that. Even if the current Admin and a few past admins have put in the work to make something like that possible. The US, after all, created the technology to do that to begin with.

The overly restrictive DRM preventing you from getting above 720p video on a streaming service that you pay for is generally reason enough alone to pirate.

The US hosts a lot of critical infrastructure for the rest of the Internet, still. There have been a lot of projects to decouple from the US for this exact reason. If you also look at Cable maps, the connectivity between Europe and Asia relies on those high capacity links going through the US. There have been more connections constructed between Europe and Asia to eliminate the US as the only path over the years, but some of those cable routes also tend to venture through contested / not-so-friendly territories. Thus, transit over those paths is also more expensive!

We also have to consider that Starlink can only do so much. I believe they have trialed or have even activated Inter-satellite connectivity. But that is still a US-based company, and other countries like China are working to launch their own constellations out of fear that US and Europe-based Satellite companies can just come in someday and turn off service.

Also, cutting that Fiber will break the Public Telephone Network, which is essential for any business. I don’t know how many Telcos maintain Satellite uplinks between continents these days for the PSTN, but the end result won’t be pretty for anyone. Total economic collapse, especially for the US!

I know the IA has mentioned in the past they have projects in place to try to back up their archive. I hope their backup plans are true, and if they are attacked by the US, they can relocate to a new safe haven and come back online quickly. The IA has been such a wonderful resource for research and accountability.

I suppose the major bit of hope I have about the IA is with their partnership with the Library of Congress.

As for ISPs shutting down Torrent users, I suspect they would do that strictly based on bandwidth usage alone. I know my local Cable company will send nastygrams if they see you using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth compared to other customers. I’ve seen them also shut down Business Internet accounts for doing the exact same thing!

I think it is safe to say The Onion has basically turned into a Time Machine rather than a Satire site. It seems to be predicting just how crazy things will be in the future.