4 ms·

I think you're underestimating just how reliant all but the most trivial firms are on reliable communications for even basic operations, and just how many of th

I think you're underestimating just how reliant all but the most trivial firms are on reliable communications for even basic operations, and just how many of those communications touch the internet at some level. Sibling comment mentions "just in time" supply chains, even "once a month" supply chains would collapse because nobody would know what to load in the trucks, and nobody would know which drivers were supposed to go where. I would not assume that government benefits payments would work unaffected, and especially not that you could "call the state for voice auths" (that sounds like something that involves VOIP and an outsourced datacenter). Ironically, the big banks and credit card clearing houses and the electronic payments they facilitate would probably be among the least affected, because they still largely run on in-house mainframes and dedicated lines. Assuming that the POTS telephone network still work, the last generation of credit card terminals (dial-up) might actually still work.

StudentStuff 9y ago
Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Esp. among wholesalers, faxing is still very popular. With regard to voice auths, I doubt the state would have their hotline go down, rarely do they use the public internet to backhaul calls. Most credit card processing is over IP. Chains like Kroger (and their 200+ subsidiaries), Walmart, etc would not be able to process cards. A small double digit segment of small businesses would fail over to processing over phone, but most Verifone and FD terminals have dial disabled.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Hmm. Likely not working either given that telcos have migrated their backbones to fiber/internet long ago, and the exchanges between telcos are quite possibly also reliant on Internet.
chiph 9y ago
Do any businesses still have the old credit card impression machines? Where you run a pressure roller over the card to make a copy of the numbers on a multi-part carbonless form? Because my most recent card doesn't have the raised info on it to take an impression.
- dwyerm 9y ago
  I'm sure many of them have the machines, still. The new kids pull them out from under the counter top and muse, "What are THESE for?!" Aside from what you said about the embossed cards, I suspect the greater problem is probably the multi-part forms. I've seen embossing machines more recently than I've seen a stack of credit slips. For what it is worth, you can take a decent impression of a card with an ordinary piece of thermal receipt paper and a firm rubbing with a soft plastic like a Bic pen barrel or a thumbnail.
- nxc18 9y ago
  I worked in a grocery store about 5 years ago and the machines went down. We used the impression machine and everything was fine. It may break some rule, but there's no reason you can't just write all the information down. That's ultimately just a slower version of what the impression machine does.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Yep. And still in common use in some places.

StudentStuff 9y ago

Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Esp. among wholesalers, faxing is still very popular. With regard to voice auths, I doubt the state would have their hotline go down, rarely do they use the public internet to backhaul calls. Most credit card processing is over IP. Chains like Kroger (and their 200+ subsidiaries), Walmart, etc would not be able to process cards. A small double digit segment of small businesses would fail over to processing over phone, but most Verifone and FD terminals have dial disabled.

mschuster91 9y ago
> Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Hmm. Likely not working either given that telcos have migrated their backbones to fiber/internet long ago, and the exchanges between telcos are quite possibly also reliant on Internet.

chiph 9y ago

Do any businesses still have the old credit card impression machines? Where you run a pressure roller over the card to make a copy of the numbers on a multi-part carbonless form? Because my most recent card doesn't have the raised info on it to take an impression.

dwyerm 9y ago
I'm sure many of them have the machines, still. The new kids pull them out from under the counter top and muse, "What are THESE for?!" Aside from what you said about the embossed cards, I suspect the greater problem is probably the multi-part forms. I've seen embossing machines more recently than I've seen a stack of credit slips. For what it is worth, you can take a decent impression of a card with an ordinary piece of thermal receipt paper and a firm rubbing with a soft plastic like a Bic pen barrel or a thumbnail.
nxc18 9y ago
I worked in a grocery store about 5 years ago and the machines went down. We used the impression machine and everything was fine. It may break some rule, but there's no reason you can't just write all the information down. That's ultimately just a slower version of what the impression machine does.
reaperducer 9y ago
Yep. And still in common use in some places.