Comment by gruez

>One of the best conspiracy theories I have heard recently is that the CCP can use one of their reconnaissance balloons to instantly switch every device that has a Chinese radio chip into DDOS mode.

This is a terrible conspiracy theory. Given how much Chinese IOT devices active in the West right now, the CCP doesn't even need to fly a balloon into the US. They can just pressure its IOT vendors to push a firmware update that broadcasts the DDOS signal.

>If that were to happen it could plausibly generate enough congestion to seriously degrade a significant portion of the public Internet.

At best it'll take down 2.4ghz communications, not the entire internet, or even all wifi networks. 5 Ghz/cellular networks will be spared because cheap chinese IOT devices don't operate in those frequency ranges, or the band is too wide for devices to jam. Moreover any important systems/institutions would presumably have hardwired connections, which are completely immune.