Hardware control is done through the internet because it needs to be controlled remotely. The LHC is enormous so you can easily be 10 Km from your the hardware.

Hardware control is done through the internet because it needs to be controlled remotely. The LHC is enormous so you can easily be 10 Km from your the hardware. Not to mention the hardware is also sometimes controlled remotely by researchers at other facilities such as Fermilab. Also we should remember that CERN has pretty much everything hooked up to the internet because they invented it. Which makes the whole situation pretty ironic.