In 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security asked Scot Borg at the United States Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit organization to look into what might happen if the Internet went down. Borg and his colleagues analyzed the economic_________of computer and Internet outages (中断) in the US from 2000 onwards. Looking at quarterly financial reports from the 20 companies that claimed to be most affected in each case, as well as more general economic statistics, they discovered that the financial impact of the an outage was surprisingly_________—at least for outages that lasted no more than four days, which is all they studied.

“These were instances where_________losses were being claimed — in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars.” Borg says. “But while some industries like hotels, and airlines firms suffered a bit, even they didn’t_________very big losses.”

It turned out that losing Internet_________for a few days just made people_________their work. “People carried out all the same activities they would have done had the internet been up, but they just did it two or three days later.” Borg says.

In some cases, shutting down the Internet for a short time might even_________productivity. In another study, Borg and his colleagues analyzed what happened when a company suffered an Internet outage that lasted four hours or more. Rather than use their thumbs, employees did things that they would_________put off, such as dealing with paperwork. The result was a boost for_________. “We jokingly suggested that if every company__________their computers for a few hours each month and make people do the tasks they__________, there’s be an overall productivity benefit,” Borg says. “I see no reason why that wouldn’t also__________to basically the whole economy.”

Travel probably would not be affected too much__________, either — so long as the blackout lasted no more than a day or so. Planes can fly without the Internet, and trains and buses would continue to run. Longer outages would start to have an effect on logistics (物流), however. Without the Internet it would be__________for businesses to operate. “I’ve suggested that people and businesses should have a plan__________Internet loss, but I haven’t heard of anyone doing that yet.” Eagle-man says.