With Their Powers Combined, They Can Save the Internet

If there is ever an Internet catastrophe, never fear, the internet domain name watchdog, ICANN, has it covered. In case of an attack on the web's infrastructure, they have distributed parts of a key that will reboot the entire system. Here's the awesomest part: the keyholders are from seven different countries -- Britain, the U.S., Burkina Faso, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, China, and the Czech Republic -- but they'd all have to converge on a secret U.S. base to activate the system. Sort of like the old cartoon Captain Planet (see video), but for saving the Internet, not fighting environmental bad guys.

[T]here are now seven individuals out there holding keys to the Internet. In the aftermath of a cataclysmic cyber attack, these members of a "chain of trust" will be responsible for rebooting the Web.

The seven members of this holy order of cyber security hail from around the world and recently received their keys while locked deep in a U.S. bunker. But the team isn't military in nature. The Internet safety program is overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit watchdog group that has access to a security system designed to protect users from cyber fraud and cyber attacks.

Read the full story at Popular Science.