How preppers plan to save us if the whole internet collapses

Vladimir Lenin is said to have warned that all societies are three square meals from chaos. But in the modern world, it is only a Wi-Fi signal that separates us from anarchy. Every aspect of our lives is reliant on computers and the internet, and when they fail, they do so with disorientating speed. This became abundantly clear during power cuts across Spain and Portugal. Traffic signals went dark and roads clogged, while emergency services couldn’t take calls and commerce ground to a halt. Even networks in Morocco and Greenland suffered because they rely on servers in Spain. Surely governments around the world have well-oiled plans in place to deal with catastrophic internet outages? They don’t appear to, says Valerie Aurora, a legend of the tech world known for her contributions to open-source operating system Linux. Concerns that no such plans exist have driven Aurora and about a dozen cybersecurity experts, hackers, radio hobbyists, and lawyers to a 15th-century café in Nieuwmarkt square in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on a radiant Sunday afternoon. I’ve come to meet them, and have no idea what to expect. What I discover is a group of dedicated volunteers drawing up their own plans to reboot the internet in the event of a disaster. The world’s only Internet Resiliency Club is currently stress-testing the technology that could restore network connectivity—and enjoying coffee and cake while they do so.