They Came In Search of Better Software. The Internet would almost certainly survive even the worst imaginable breakdown of routers and other essential equipment, a new study finds. But the same structure that makes the Web resistant to this kind of random ruin also increases its vulnerability to organized attacks. No matter how many routers break down, those in the system will not notice it.
Routers are specialized computers that link together the Internet's smaller regional networks.
They act as Internet traffic cops, deciding how best to send each packet of electronic information to its destination. At any given instant, an average of three of every 1,000 Internet routers experience a technical glitch that puts them temporarily out of commission. Reka Albert and Hawoong Jeong wrote last month in the journal Nature. Another study, published online by Israeli researchers, suggests that up to 99.9 percent of all routers would have to fail to cause the Internet to break down completely. But this resilience does not extend to organized attacks by hackers bent on breaking the system, the Notre Dame study found.