10 Days. Darkness/Darnkess.
Hosts file last updated: 9/11/2022
There has been much speculation on the "10 days of darkness" as it has come to be known. One theory is that it will be an Internet outage. (also known as RED2)
Last updated: 3/11/2022
DNS - Domain Name System
DNS is used by nearly everything on the Internet. It is how your device (computer, mobile etc.) resolves the human friendly name to an address devices understand.
It has been a theory of ours for quite some time that if they take out the Internet, one of the easiest ways will be by killing/poisoning the DNS system. People like Brian Krebs and others have complained for YEARS how insecure DNS is, thus why we suspect this is a big target.
Additionally, having observed the big Google outage in late November 2020, we noticed something while people were mentioning they couldn't access gmail. We did not see a single issue with YouTube or gmail or any other google service during this platform-wide outage.
Once we determined our setup had no issues we theorized it is because we run our own private DNS setups. Our DNS setup saves (known as caching) DNS names so it does not need to look them up again for a period of time. This being the case, we saw no outage, therefore it is very possible that Google's DNS (or Internet DNS in general) might have been a big cause.
Therefore, what is listed below is a possible workaround (works on computers only, not mobile devices unless you have your own private DNS). If you know how to set up your own caching DNS server in your own home (MacOS and Linux can use dnsmasq), we would recommend doing so now (make sure it's behind a firewall so its hackable profile is greatly reduced.
What to do
First, download this file:
hosts
Next, follow the directions at this site to learn how to edit your own computer's hosts file:
Edit Hosts File
Once you have learned HOW to edit your own hosts file, use the downloaded file from this site to cut and paste into your hosts file ONLY IF THE INTERNET APPEARS TO GO DARK.
Do not edit your hosts file unless there is a massive Internet outage that appears to be in the US or worldwide (or you prefer avoiding any potential DNS issues and just want to use the hosts file directly).
This in theory could provide limited access to some sites should the Internet go down. If you know how to use a command line, you can add your own entries to the provided list.
If you run your own site, feel free to take these directions and the file to place them on your own site.
Go with God and may God bless you all.