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What Do You Think About An “Emergency Off Switch” For The Internet?

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What Do You Think About An “Emergency Off Switch” For The Internet?

from JoeUser Forums

 

In light of the recent events in Egypt where we saw an “Emergency Off Switch” used for the first time, my memory was jarred.

Last year, Senator Joe Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) proposed just such a switch. He did so because of concerns regarding a cyberattack on the USA.

Just two hours ago, NYConvergence (a tech magazine for the NY, NJ and CT area) reported Sen. Lieberman wants to re-propose this legislation ( LINK ).

There are several ways to look at this: Security, freedom, abuse potential… and others.

I’d like to hear what you folks think: Do you favor an Internet “On-Off” switch? Under what conditions? Who should have that power and when? Who should be able to stop or review such a decision?

336,330 views 199 replies
Reply #26 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It would be funny if it already existed, and senator was just not high up enough on totem pole to know about it?

 

:P

Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

So Obama's "Kill switch" would be to pull the plug on the DNS servers. That would shut down the internet for not only the USA, but the world (with the exception of their country codes root domains).
Liebermann. Not Obama. This bill is being pushed by Senator Joe Liebermann, independent of Connecticut. I don't actually know if Obama has made any statements on this issue whatsoever.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #28 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Okay. My two cents. First, good ole Uncle Sam has had for some time now the ability to 'shut down' as it were, the internet but not as it is commonly understood in terms of shutting down. The technology was developed side by side 'with' the internet. Uncle Sam never ever does something without having an out already in place. The government can't shut it down as in cutting people off from one another but he can control the where and when and to whom a user may go. There is constant monitoring of the net after 9/11. The ISP's are required, just like the FCC rules, to relinquish control during a state of emergency or cooperate with any government agency that happens to hold priority. The government isn't stupid. They know that shutting down something so vast would instantly set off protests everywhere and for good reason. you don't maintain control by giving the people a reason to take that control away from you. As for a cyber attack. That is far more likely than a nuclear exchange. A cyber attack targets communications. An atom bomb targets people. You can use one to trigger the other but to what purpose. Why destroy the very thing you want to control. You can't control the hearts and minds of dead people. A lesson Uncle Sam is only now beginning to learn. So yeah. When push comes to shove Uncle Sam can shut it down in a heartbeat. You just won't know it.   

Reply #29 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Sounds good to me Uvah. Just leave the WC alone is all I have left to say.

Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Okay. My two cents. First, good ole Uncle Sam has had for some time now the ability to 'shut down' as it were, the internet but not as it is commonly understood in terms of shutting down. The technology was developed side by side 'with' the internet. Uncle Sam never ever does something without having an out already in place. The government can't shut it down as in cutting people off from one another but he can control the where and when and to whom a user may go. There is constant monitoring of the net after 9/11. The ISP's are required, just like the FCC rules, to relinquish control during a state of emergency or cooperate with any government agency that happens to hold priority. The government isn't stupid. They know that shutting down something so vast would instantly set off protests everywhere and for good reason. you don't maintain control by giving the people a reason to take that control away from you. As for a cyber attack. That is far more likely than a nuclear exchange. A cyber attack targets communications. An atom bomb targets people. You can use one to trigger the other but to what purpose. Why destroy the very thing you want to control. You can't control the hearts and minds of dead people. A lesson Uncle Sam is only now beginning to learn. So yeah. When push comes to shove Uncle Sam can shut it down in a heartbeat. You just won't know it.
My understanding of the situation (based on the mini-scandal that erupted when the news came out) is that although the NSA is monitoring all internet traffic through US ISPs, they do not in fact have the capacity to sort through and understand all that information. And there is a big difference between being able to monitor things and being able to actually affect them. The powers that be can order the ISPs around all they want, but I'm not sure they would be entirely capable of knowing what to tell them to do. If they gave the wrong order, who knows what would happen...

Reply #31 from WinCustomize Forums Top

What really needs to be done is ask Al Gore what he thinks of a kill switch, after all, he invented the internet. ;)

Reply #32 from WinCustomize Forums Top

There is that.

Reply #33 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting CarGuy1, reply 31
What really needs to be done is ask Al Gore what he thinks of a kill switch, after all, he invented the internet. ;)

Only...ONLY because it was you that asked, Mike:

 

Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 27

Liebermann. Not Obama. This bill is being pushed by Senator Joe Liebermann, independent of Connecticut. I don't actually know if Obama has made any statements on this issue whatsoever.

Understood.  However, the switch would be in the hands of the president, so it would be his switch (Lieberman's bill).

Reply #35 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Controlling mass communications is a typical war strategy.  Somebody's going to do it.  I suppose the question isn't so much "Do you want somebody to do it?" as it is "Who do you want to do it?"  Answer becomes "My side", whichever side "My side" happens to be.

Reply #36 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Dr, reply 34

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 27
Liebermann. Not Obama. This bill is being pushed by Senator Joe Liebermann, independent of Connecticut. I don't actually know if Obama has made any statements on this issue whatsoever.

Understood.  However, the switch would be in the hands of the president, so it would be his switch (Lieberman's bill).

That's an assumption. Perhaps the ultimate responsibility would be his, but Operations probably in the NSA would have actual "immediate" control.

 

Reply #37 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Understood. However, the switch would be in the hands of the president, so it would be his switch (Lieberman's bill).
Not necessarily. It may be given to the pres. in the text of the bill, but the linked article merely states that it would be in the hands of "the U.S. Government". That could mean anybody, including the Pentagon or (heaven forbid!) the Department of Agriculture.

Controlling mass communications is a typical war strategy. Somebody's going to do it. I suppose the question isn't so much "Do you want somebody to do it?" as it is "Who do you want to do it?" Answer becomes "My side", whichever side "My side" happens to be.
The problem is that this would not simply "control" mass communications as destroy them. It worries me a great deal to see the phrase "civilian access" to the internet in the article as well- it seems to me (as I've said before) that from a tactical perspective, you would want to cut off the areas most vulnerable to, and likely to be the target of, a cyberattack- utility companies, first responders, and the military. Not civilians. If the United States is doing such a shoddy job of serving its citizens that they think propaganda blitzes by China would have a reasonable chance of working, then they have bigger problems than the internet. (Not saying that they are... remember, I'm still trying to look at this from inside Liebermann-land).

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

If you do your research it was obvious that the government simply pressured the service providers via phone calls until each had shutdown their portion. It didn't all go down at once, but had a few minutes delay between each one. In other words, SkyNet will still win, you are all doomed, make your time ha ha ha, ha ha ha.

Reply #39 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The problem is that this would not simply "control" mass communications as destroy them.

Yep, just like bombing television and radio stations.

Reply #40 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Dr, reply 34

Understood.  However, the switch would be in the hands of the president, so it would be his switch (Lieberman's bill).

 

Or anyone that you elect to office as well.

Reply #41 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting DrJBHL, reply 36

Quoting Dr Guy, reply 34
Quoting Scoutdog, reply 27
Liebermann. Not Obama. This bill is being pushed by Senator Joe Liebermann, independent of Connecticut. I don't actually know if Obama has made any statements on this issue whatsoever.

Understood.  However, the switch would be in the hands of the president, so it would be his switch (Lieberman's bill).

That's an assumption. Perhaps the ultimate responsibility would be his, but Operations probably in the NSA would have actual "immediate" control.

 

Reply #42 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It would seem to me that such a "kill switch" would already exist somewhere since we're talking wiring and connecting....two things that can be un-wired or disconnected...they just don't want us to know about it. As far as our military...if these idiots don't already have something in place to protect our secrets then it's probably already game over...and they just don't want us to know about it.

And I could be wrong...but didn't our current internet belong to the military at one time...and they just passed it on to us for a better model? I remember reading that somewhere some time ago.

Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 2
First off, I doubt it would be possible for one country to actually "shut off" the entire internet. There's just too many servers in too many places. I don't think it would even be feasible for a country the size of the US to take itself off of the internet for any length of time.

...

Quoting FutileEmotion, reply 17
- Could the US shut down the entire net for everyone everywhere?  No, not without resorting to DDOS attacks and other nefarious schemes.  They could make it difficult by taking themselves offline, but thats about the end of it.

In fact, in the case of the US, it will be very easy... DNS server are located in US... shutdown the DNS server and browser will not be able to translate a URL address in a IP address...

US gov is already working on a similar tool for stop piracy :

http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/09/28/worldwide_authority_for_american_copyright_cops

The main mechanism of the bill is to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS), which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate.

A other article : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/29/engineers-slam-internet-censorship-ahead-key-vote/

If something like this is created, it will not be very difficult to shutdown any site in the US... in fact, it can work world wide since US DNS server are the master server... unless that you begin to memorize IP... by example, addresses 192.0.32.10 IPV4 or 2620:0:2d0:200::10 IPV6 in place of www.example.com !!!

Seem that large scale internet censorship is something who can be made easily in US...

So Obama's "Kill switch" would be to pull the plug on the DNS servers. That would shut down the internet for not only the USA, but the world (with the exception of their country codes root domains).

Should the government have such authority? No. Government abuses everything it is allowed to do. If you cede that power to them, you have just lost another part of your rights, freedoms and liberties.

Soon of later, they will have the authority... at the time being, there is some scary bills proposed by political that almost nobody know about...

 

 

Reply #44 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Only...ONLY because it was you that asked, Mike:

That's it, the thread is complete.  :')

Reply #46 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

And I could be wrong...but didn't our current internet belong to the military at one time...and they just passed it on to us for a better model? I remember reading that somewhere some time ago.
I've heard that, and a lot of other origin theories for the 'net, and I have no idea how much of each of them is real. My understanding works something like this- the technology behind the internet was developed by two British scientists specifically for the supercollider research facility at CERN. It was then adopted by a number of tech/geek groups and computer corporations which later joined together their local internets to make one big one. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was one of these local adopters, using an internet called the ARPANET that either got subsumed into the larger internet or abandoned and replaced by it. Of course, a lot of this is conjecture and is probably wrong. But I think only the military itself says it "created" the internet.

It would seem to me that such a "kill switch" would already exist somewhere since we're talking wiring and connecting....two things that can be un-wired or disconnected...they just don't want us to know about it.
Simply pulling out wires would take a looong time and probably require SpecOps-type "visits" to a large number of telecom companies. A logistical nightmare.

As far as our military...if these idiots don't already have something in place to protect our secrets then it's probably already game over...and they just don't want us to know about it.
They do have security measures... they're just not particularly effective. The secrets are out, and we do know it. Just google "WikiLeaks".

Reply #47 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Back to the original question 'What Do You Think About An “Emergency Off Switch” For The Internet?'.  I'm over sixty, didn't find my way on to the internet untill late in life.  I'm retired, I wouldn't miss it.  Sorry.   :beer:  

Reply #48 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Simply pulling out wires would take a looong time and probably require SpecOps-type "visits" to a large number of telecom companies. A logistical nightmare.

Yeah that would be nuts to try and pull all the wires. I was suggesting that the "kill switch" already exists. If I were them I would definitely have something like that in place...just in case...and if they don't they're idiots.

Reply #49 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It's about as unlikely...and as dangerous as an off-switch for the entire world's electricity supply.

Reply #50 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting FutileEmotion, reply 17
- We would work around it.  We would use phones to dial out into foreign ISPs, and in the meantime we would see massive riots as twelve million WOW subscribers took to the streets.

ROFL - :rofl: