What would we do if we suddenly couldn't use the Internet or our phones any longer?  For a lot of people, such a scenario would be unthinkable.  In fact, it felt like the "world is ending" for many AT&T customers on Thursday.  The disruption to AT&T's network only lasted for a few hours, but it created quite a frenzy.  If we are going to see this much panic for an outage that happens for just a few hours, what would our society look like if Internet and phone communication was down for days, weeks or even months?

Once the outage began, federal authorities moved very rapidly to determine whether it was a cyberattack or not…

Federal agencies are 'urgently investigating' whether the massive cellular outage that plagued Americans on Thursday was a cyberattack.

The Federal Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are on the hunt to track down what disrupted service AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and a dozen other cellular providers.

While the agencies have not shared details, a security expert told DailyMail.com that the outage has hallmarks of a hack.

Lee McKnight, associate professor at Syracuse University in New York, said the widespread nature appears to be 'a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack on core Internet infrastructure.'

I have a feeling that they will assure the general public that it was not a cyberattack no matter what they discover.