Research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project seems to indicate that the Internet will suffer some form of massive, devastating attack some time within the next ten years. Apparently, 66% of industry experts believe that the Internet will fall victim to a catastrophe (perhaps from terrorists). In a time where the westernised world is becoming increasingly dependant on the Internet to work, shop and do business, this could have serious consequences for western economies, which is exactly what potential attackers would want. Exactly how this would happen is anyone's guess, but an attack on the root DNS servers would probably do something fairly nasty.