Technology
CLASSIFIED
Rebuilding the Internet in a Nuclear Apocalypse
If you are reading this classified document, an all-out nuclear war has just broken out in the world. You are one of the lucky few chosen to restore the world’s balance by rebuilding the internet to continue the generation and exchange of memes.
Now, restoring the internet might feel like a daunting task. “Rebuilding the entire internet?” You might say, puzzled. “Do you know how big the internet is?” and begin to question the intelligence of our think tank (by the way, our think tank… it’s huge, like really big). Fear not! This is definitely not a satirical document. This is a very serious instruction manual drafted by the International Meme Exchange Committee and will provide a very detailed modus operandi for restoring everyone’s sanity.
What Happened to the Internet?
There are two main kinds of damage nuclear wars can cause to our holy internet.
- Blast Damage
- HEMP (High Altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse) Damage
Blast Damage
Everyone is well aware of the blast damage of atomic bombs. The fireball and explosion-induced shockwave cause this blast damage. The fireball itself can reach temperatures of up to 100 million degrees Celsius and generates blast winds of up to 1000 km/h.
If your meme transfer terminals (known to laymen as computers) were present within the blast radius, you might want to refer to the ‘how to rebuild a computer section’ of this document. However, if you were present in this radius, you probably have severe burns to attend to before enjoying memes.
HEMP Damage
A side effect of atomic explosions that many people don’t realise is EMP — Electromagnetic Pulse. When a nuclear warhead explodes (especially at a higher altitude), it emits gamma rays, creating electrons. These electrons interact with the magnetic field and produce multiple EMPs. These can quickly destroy any system with long cables like telephone lines and power lines and shut down the internet.
Another victim to the EMP is sensitive electronics, especially semiconductors. Semiconductors are prone to ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) damage. That’s why a lot of computer components come in special bags that protect them from electrostatic discharge. EMPs do a similar kind of damage to them.
Rebuilding the Internet
To rebuild the internet, we must first know what makes up the internet. The internet is the interconnection between two or more computers. So to build one, we need two things:
- A computer
- A network
How to rebuild a computer
“This part is easy”, you might say, “I have watched loads of Linus’ guides.”
Well, even if we consider that any Amazon warehouse survived the blast damage, the computer parts in inventories get damaged by EMP. So you might want to re-assess the difficulty of what we’re trying to accomplish here.
“Told you guys! It’s really hard to rebuild the internet.”
Whoa whoa! Hold your horses. Remember our think tank (yep, the massive one). They have a solution. Here’s a hint, move back to an older generation of computers.
“To 8-bit? Wouldn’t they be damaged as well?”
Nope, move to vacuum tubes.
Multiple experiments have shown that vacuum tubes are less vulnerable to EMP. Soviet-era fighter jets used vacuum tube electronics for the very same reason.
“What’s a vacuum tube?” I hear you say. Well, glad you asked.
Vacuum tubes are basically like the ancestors of transistors. They can do the same stuff transistors do, except they are way larger, much more fragile, inefficient, and generate a large amount of heat.
Here’s a crash course on ‘How Vacuum Tubes work.’
A simplified Vacuum tube Triode
a — anode
g — grid
k — cathode
- The U-shaped wire below the cathode plate is the heating filament. It heats the cathode plate till it emits electrons (remember thermionic emission from high school?).
- The cathode is at a negative potential, and the anode is at a positive potential. These voltages are usually in the range of 250–500 V.
- The grid is like a gate. When it’s at a negative potential, it repels the emitted electrons, and when it’s positive, it attracts the electron and sends them towards the anode.
Do you see the similarity to transistors? The only difference between them is the heating filaments and voltages high enough to cook hotdogs.
“Where do you find Vacuum Tubes? Aren’t they…um…extinct?”
Vacuum tubes, contrary to popular belief, are still in use. They are used as amplifiers in guitar amps, HiFi audio amps, etc, because of their excellent sound quality.
There are also many NOS (New Old Stock) tubes in abandoned warehouses, especially in Russia, that never saw the light of the day.
Once you have got all the necessary components, we want you to go to your local library and pick up a book on Computer Architecture.
“What? You aren’t going to give the complete guide?”
Well, computer architecture takes like 2000 pages to explain, and the International Meme Exchange Committee can’t afford that much paper.
By the way, don’t forget to grab a book on Basic Concepts of C++ to program your new OS from scratch and an app to make memes.
How to Build a Computer Network
Alright, now that the computers are probably up and running, we have to connect them. Ethernet cables could connect computers within your fallout shelter together but can’t connect computers across the world. Without worldwide connection, the meme economy will never be up and running at the grand scale it did before. So we are going to connect them wirelessly.
One might think, “But Wi-Fi has a range of only 300 ft.”
Who said anything about Wi-Fi? We are talking about Radio waves.
There is a protocol known as NBP meant for transferring data packets between computers using Amateur radios.
Amateur Radios or Ham radios are non-commercial radios operated by hobbyists. People do it for recreation, experimentation, and even emergency communication.
Ham radios use a part of the Radio wave spectrum, and within this spectrum, the operators can transmit voice, Morse code, and the crucial part is they can transmit data.
Computers transmit data through the internet in the form of data packets. The nuclear explosion would take out the wires connecting computers worldwide, thus taking down the internet. So, we need to send these data packets through radio waves instead. A Ham radio operator, who goes by the call sign F4HDK, developed the NPR (New Packet Radio) protocol. This NPR protocol can be used as the standard in our “Radio-Internet”. The ham radio operator, F4HDK, built a network connection that uses IPv4 standard, resulting in a blazing top-speed of 500 kb/s and a range of 300 km. These ham radio stations also act as relay stations, thus making the interconnection of computers across the world possible.
So there you have it; after locating a few hundred thousand vacuum tubes, going through some computer science books, and building a Ham radio station, you’ll have set up a computer capable of connecting to the internet.
“Capable of? After all this, the internet won’t be up by now?”
Well, at the current state, you can make memes and send them to yourself. But the most important part of the internet is the people who use it. Without them, the internet as we know it might not exist. To get other people on this internet, more people will have to find this classified document and have the fortitude to go through with it. So share this legitimate step-by-step guide to rebuild the internet and restart the meme economy.
