So they're propaganda outlets (Faux News, newspapers, etc.) will say "root name servers attacked", or "terrorists attack internet", then immediately turn on these devices they probably recently installed to make a small problem huge so everyone is affected and they get they're internet 911.
Quoting: kenw232 561183Root servers, ie the DNS central servers, don't cause the internet to go down at all. The network is not affected in any way, in fact (unless the admin of that network is a complete retard anyway).
ALL DNS is for is to make it easier for humans to reach an address. It turns 216.194.67.12 into www.godlikeproductions.com (and the ip is still another level of human readability, in actuality its a 4 byte binary string)
Doesn't help your average unsavvy computer user, but someone who knows an ip can just browse to that IP directly (or even the decimal equivalent of that 4 byte binary works in browsers often enough).
You want to make sure you aren't overly affected by the DNS root servers going down? Find your local 'hosts' file and add your favorite sites and their IPS, and you will be able to browse to a dns address no matter what the root servers are doing.
(But beware if a website changes ips, you will have to change it in that file too).
Lots of guides about the windows/linux hosts file out there.
