Well, as was stated, they indeed can shut down DNS servers located in US. However, this will be VERY temporary and non-global solution, as DNS caches will keep working for 1-4 days, and hooking up own DNS root and propagating it through ISPs will take only several hours once officials decide to do it.

And thats why such bills are very good thing - the more publicity and abuse on US side the more chances that EU and other country authorities will take preemptive counter-measures to the issue and just finally force their ISPs to use only local DNS roots or implement some other fall-back strategy.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, especially when a snake-oil salesman is giving directions and handing out free kool-aid.

Obama has said something about it:  He lambasted Mubarak for hitting the Egyptian kill switch.

The problem with any such kill switch is who/what has authority over it.  If it were ever to be implemented here (a really bad idea IYAM), we should never, never give sole authority over it to any individual office-holder, President or otherwise.  That would make a really bad idea a completely insane idea.

I'm OK with methods to protect our internet infrastructure from cyber attack, that 'isolate' us from foreign connections in an emergency (assuming that is technically feasible) but I'm not OK with an internal kill switch.

While there may be tens of thousands of ISP's, the number of actual cables in and out of the USA is far fewer - roughly 44; less than one per state. As such, if you wanted to isolate the USA from the global internet, it is doable.

Similarily, here in Norway there is just ONE hub connecting north and south.

The internet is not very vulnerable to random attacks. However, to targeted attacks it is quite vulnerable.

I am not so scared of Lieberman's 'off-switch' - suggestion. I am not convinced it would do any good, but in certain worst - case scenarios, it would be a good option to have. Ultimately, by the time you realize you need to throw the switch, it is most likely too late, though.

Implementation would mostly be by laying the legal and technical framework down - tell the line owners that in case we call, you need to have a plan / way to turn off your hubs and backbone lines. There would not be an actual switch in an office somewhere.

You can see the results of a CNET poll on this subject HERE

It referred (essentially) to an expansion on the wartime powers of a President, and did not probe conditions where some the majority might agree.

Khardis - if you realize that (by the time....too late), do you not think that the powers have already realized that as well?  So the urge to pull it early - and thus too often and for little or no reason - would be greater.  There is an old saying in management.

better to ask forgiveness afterwords than to ask permission beforehand.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20030332-281.html

In Australia we also have politicians determined to control the internet, and it has been dragging on for so long now but they just cannot let go.

Now the federal government are rolling out a new national broadband plan which everyone thinks they are doing for the benefit of all Australians, but i will bet money on it that in the end this will 'just happen' to touch down in some way that will give the government more control over the internet.

This is the new evil of modern democracy.... it is the insatiable desire to be in control of everything and the inability to tolerate something they do not control such as the internet. They just cannot stand it, it makes their eyes twitch just like the police boss of the pink panther (peter sellers movies). 

Let me pose a directed question:

Let's say (for the sake of fun) there is/are control switch/switches to the transoceanic cables and satellite "up/down" transmissions. Now, let's say strong evidence comes into the NSA's (or other agency's ) possession that a concrete plan and date/time exist to perpetrate a cyberattack on the US Government and all it's Agencies existed. Doesn't matter who or the motive.

Add in a simultaneous or preparatory attack on privately owned PC's to subvert them to be a botnet/DNS attack net against businesses and critical command/control nodes and critical communication nodes.

In this scenario, you are the President/Commander in Charge of the switch/switches and the security of the US and the well being of it's citizens.

What action do you take? Why? I'm honestly interested in your thinking.

http://www.nbn.gov.au/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network

The 10mb/sec figure came from the opposition with their BS dumb arse mobile network. One of the reasons they lost the last election.

Shut down the GOVERNMENT access (to and from) the internet.  That secures the government from the hacks, allows us to still browse myalmamater.edu and amazon.com.  In other words, do not use a sledgehammer to kill a fly.

Thanks. That is why I asked for the correction.  The 1gb is what some of the tighter countries are working towards (like S. Korea), and it seemed outrageous from the price/performance standpoint.

That just makes it a costly bauble instead of an expensive boondoggle!

This is a interseting topic but really nothing more then a maybe or what if. The only way the entire Internet could go off if is there was a Off/On switch which tihs post is about. The rest of it is all guessing and opinions which are fine but just saying. I read every link just posted and saw nothing that shut the entire Internet down in fact the attack on the goverment Personal computers didn't even shut them down and was fixed quickly. It was mentioned before but lets be real people are getting paid a lot of money for research. I'm not saying research isn't needed but the US does get carried away. Years ago and I will use Equal Sweetener as an example. It was used by many then pulled for about 3 to 5 years. Now it is being used again and has been for several years. Well I'm sure a lot of people made a lot of money first saying to pull it then the years it took to OK it again. This is only a small sample as it happens with drugs, etc. and everyone has seen this with many other things. There are billions spent on BS every year but yet people are staying out of trouble but making a lot of money and for all I know a lot of this may be part of making money as they know they can get away with it. So lets say there was a cyber-attack. If it happened there would be a major plan behind it other then to shut our Communications down. So if we use the off switch to do it the other plan would still be able to take place. I'm also sure the Goverment and other high profile places have everything available as of now in place and working on better protection as I write. So, let those important places shut down if they have to but let me worry about my own computer with a botnet attack or anything else.