Senate Panel Approves Cybersecurity Bill 269
GovTechGuy writes "A Senate Committee approved a bill that would give the president an emergency 'kill switch' over the Internet, but added some restrictions to the bill. The president may no longer simply assert that the threat remains indefinitely, he must now seek Congressional approval after 120 days. Still, privacy advocates are concerned about the government's ability to shut down private networks. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) 'said she was disappointed to read reports that the bill gives the White House a "kill switch" for the Internet, an authority she says the president already has under a little-known clause in the Communications Act passed one month after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. ... Collins [argued] the new bill actually circumscribes the president's existing authority and puts controls on its use.'"
Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait a minute, is this the USA or North Korea I'm living in?
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I don't know.
In the USA there is public debate of the law and it's pros and cons are discussed. People can public voice concerns and safe guards and restrictions to the law may added to avoid or at least minimize abuses.
On top of that people are free to make stupid comments comparing the US to a totalitarian dictatorship and not be thrown in jail.
If you live in North Korea there is no restrictions to what you can see or read except that government protects the people from having to see any lies. And since t
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In the USA there is public debate of the law and it's pros and cons are discussed.
That's true right now, except it won't be true for the internet after the president uses the kill switch.
I am appalled that anyone can even begin to think this is a good idea.
I've feared from the very beginning that the whole "net neutrality" debate would yield sweeping, draconian policies for the internet. Well here we go....
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest you actually read the law.
The Communications act already give the president permission to do this. It was passed right after WWII started.
Do you think you could send a telegram to Japan or Germany in 1943?
Nope.
The really rampant fear that people seem to have is just mind numbing at times. Yep go ahead and please debate this but do not use such silly chicken little fears in the debate!
All that can do is make anyone questioning this bill to look like a nut job.
Instead of this boarder line pathological fear let us all reason.
Why should we pass this law?
What benefits will it have.
What risks are involved.
How can we prevent abuses while keeping the benefits there are any?
No president will use this law lightly because it would be stupid. This would be at the same level as declaring martial law.
Besides if the government would never use this to silence opposition or debate.
They would use bot nets to make classic DOS attacks on sites that couldn't be traced or some other tactic that would be more subtle and wouldn't disrupt commerce and the smooth running of the internet.
To use the big red switch would be clumsy inefficient, and just stupid. Please if the government was going to be that evil don't you think they would be as smart and effective at being evil as some random poster on Slashdot?
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The really rampant fear that people seem to have is just mind numbing at times. Yep go ahead and please debate this but do not use such silly chicken little fears in the debate!
That's right, because there is just no precedent that the Federal government would ever chase a thread of legitimacy into outright oppression. They would never declare a common weed to be an illegal substance, and then spend billions of dollars every year to incarcerate otherwise innocent citizens. There is no way that this silliness would extend to giving police the power to shakedown and search people without a warrant, protection against such being explicitly declared in the Constitution.
Nope. You're
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Here it's the corps who have strict control over the media.
Joe six packs doesn't know shit about ACTA for a reason.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you are in NK you won't see this reply.
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hint: the US already has "control over the internet".
Can someone explain? (Score:2)
Re:Can someone explain? (Score:4, Informative)
From what I understand, they would shut things down at the ISP level.
"What's the point of a modem noise, if you are unable to connect, Mr. Anderson?" sort of thing.
Re:Can someone explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how anybody in America will be able to use the internet to get news or communicate with other Americans in a time of emergency if this should ever go into effect.
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I don't see how anybody in America will be able to use the internet to get news or communicate with other Americans in a time of emergency if this should ever go into effect.
Maybe we need an RFC for "IP over Ham Radio?"
Or can the government jam Ham Radio bands if they feel like it as well?
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I don't see how anybody in America will be able to use the internet to get news or communicate with other Americans in a time of emergency if this should ever go into effect.
Maybe we need an RFC for "IP over Ham Radio?"
Or can the government jam Ham Radio bands if they feel like it as well?
There is one, called Packet Radio. Although as far as I know it's really slow.
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But why would the US gov be using insecure, best effort US rust belt quality patched up Bell junk?
The US gov has its own networks?
How would it work? Your cable, adsl, wireless service would just not see your isp for x hours and tech support would be a recording about technical difficulties.
Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, your local religious lead
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Yep, this is more about the government controlling its citizens communications in a time of crisis than about actual "security".
There is a large feeling and sentiment out there that believes things were much much better when citizens got information from only a handful of easily controlled and managed sources than from each other.
Its true freedom vs. perceived freedom.
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There will now be three big red buttons on the president's desk; "Nuke", "Net" and "Nurse" (installed during the Reagan era).
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Most likely, every ISP in the US would be required to respect an order by the president to shut down communications between certain points on the Internet. Thus, if a website such as Wikileaks should somehow manage to get their hands on embarrassing videos of possibly illegal wartime activity, the president could issue a shutdown order under the guise of a national security and thus require all US ISPs to block access to said embarrassing videos.
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[...(] no, you can't use the internet to send the message that the internet needs to be shut down).
Generations of script kiddies prove you wrong. Getting it working again that way may proof a little more, ah, challenging though.
Joe Lieberman (Score:4, Insightful)
Joe Lieberman is a republican mole in the Democratic party. This much should be obvious from everything that he has done so far, his stance on the health insurance is a good example.
Remember, he is the guy who wants to spend about 187 million to upgrade the Secret Service systems/hardware (pork belly spending obviously), and now he is the guy who came up with this 'Cybersecurity Bill'.
Obviously this has nothing to do with any cybersecurity, the politicians will approve it, whether republicans or democrats, so that they have a way to kill dissenting opinions and news that the Internet allows to spread around. One of the arguments Lieberman gave for this is that China can do it so USA should also be able to. Does USA want to follow China in terms of treating the dissent, the freedom of press, the freedom in general? I guess now, that everything else is made in China this is just the next logical step - import their governing principles as well (at this point it doesn't seem that much needs to be imported anyway).
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Joe Lieberman is a republican mole in the Democratic party.
Hey! We don't want him either. He's like a mysterious festering lump. No one knows when exactly he got there, we're all pretty sure we want him gone, but he won't just go away on his own.
Sen. Lieberman (DINOSAUR-CT) (Score:2)
Joe Lieberman is a republican mole in the Democratic party.
Progressive blogs and forums have a word for him: DINOSAUR. It stands for [punditkitchen.com] "Democrat in name only, sorry-ass undercover Republican".
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You don't like him so you just assign him to the other party?
I don't think the republicans really want him either.....
He's exactly the type of old school political hack that needs to be cleared out of Washington regardless of what party they belong to.
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While I agree it's absurd for people to randomly assert people in their party don't belong...
Lieberman is not a Democrat. Really and truly. Democrats run and get elected on Democratic Party tickets.
Re:Joe Lieberman (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a Republican, and I really can't stand the guy. Remember, this is the same Joe Lieberman who has supported in the past activities that involved censorship of specific media (music albums, etc.).
I'm currently reading the bill as was linked from this comment [slashdot.org], and it reads as though it were crafted by Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, and all the other "security" vendors who would very much like to be granted a fantastic revenue stream required by law to line their pockets (aside: I suspect it was crafted by them or by lobbyists for their industry)! What I mean specifically can be best explained by reading a small snippet of S. 3480:
This is on page 49 of the PDF. There's 10 pages of recommendations about acquiring "tools" to achieve specific goals--in other words, purchasing the required devices from recommended vendors. The entire bill if it survives as it is written is nothing other than a government-issued directive to dump a significant amount of taxpayer money into various security firms in effort to protect national resources. Though, what worries me is that there appears to be mandates for federal oversight of private systems to ensure that they're following best practices. Coming from the same government that has used the password "password" to protect critical systems, I can only fear that such a mandate would be much more harmful than any sort of purported "cyberattack."
If you read the FAQ [senate.gov] the Senate has posted relating to the bill it is clear that no one on the panel has any understanding of what "security" really is. Worse, while the FAQ claims that this bill restricts the powers given to the President under the Communications Act of 1934, I can't help but read into S. 3480 that it is going to involve so much government oversight that we might be swamped simply trying to implement all of the requirements. I hope I'm wrong; I am not a Congress critter, so it's feasible this language might be directed exclusively toward Federal networks.
The Slashdot summary appears to be incorrect. It appears that the time limit placed upon such measures is 30 days. However, I can't help but think that it can be extended indefinitely. From the bill:
I really hope that doesn't imply such an action could be extended indefinitely, but the way I'm reading it sort of suggests that if the President or the director of the office this bill creates d
Won't affect me (Score:2)
I have the Internet on my computer, have had since 1995.
Congressional Approval email not received . . . (Score:2)
The president may no longer simply assert that the threat remains indefinitely, he must now seek Congressional approval after 120 days
President to Congress: "Look I sent you guys an email asking to extend the Internet being turned off, and nobody responded!"
Good idea in theory... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm probably crusin' for a brusin' by saying this, but there probably should be some form of last defense for computer systems throughout the nation. In the event of a highly-destructive fast-spreading virus, being able to shut off all connection at the ISP level would buy enough time for security researchers to find a way to negate the threat.
That said, I have qualms about the implementation. Some proposals:
1) The killswitch needs to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Either all ISPs are mandated to shut down or none. The economic magnitude of such a decision would force any internet shutdown to be only used in the face of an even worse threat.
2) The requirements for activating the shutdown need to be more specific than "an emergency." Japan was able to spend itself into debt by repeated use of "emergency" spending. The requirements for a shutdown of the internet should be a clear and widespread danger to computer systems.
3) 120 days is far too long of a time to have before the decision should come up for review. Four months without computer-to-computer communication that has become integral to the economy is far to long to be granted without oversight.
I have not yet had a chance to read the PROPOSED bill. Note that this story is about the bill making it out of committee, not becoming law. Does anyone have a link to the text of the proposed bill?
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Think of the children, right? Fast spreading viruses and all that other nonsense, that's in the hands of the admins of the ISPs, who right now can do what they find necessary to fight those threats, that's part of their jobs.
However this bill has nothing to do with any of that. This bill is about Joe Lieberman, about his 187 million dollars he wants in pork belly spending for the Secret Service in his state, it's about the politicians getting tired of all that dissent, of people not watching the news on t
Re:Good idea in theory... (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone have a link to the text of the proposed bill?
Ask, and ye shall receive [senate.gov]. Note: PDF link
I found it at this page [senate.gov].
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"test, evaluate, and facilitate, with appro- priate protections for any proprietary information concerning the technologies, the transfer of tech- nologies associated with the engineering of less vul- nerable software and securing the information tech- nology software development lifecycle;"
NSA trickle down for your next Windows, Mac and Google device.
Re:Good idea in theory... (Score:5, Insightful)
Much like the old guys at the Whitehouse I think you've been watching too many Hollywood movies. The destructive power of this kill switch is ironically the only thing dangerous enough to warrant even having a kill switch. Even if there was some kind of "super virus" that was taking out routing on the internet, shutting the internet seems about as effective as killing the patient to save their leg.
I'm really yet to read any scenario that makes sense where having this would be useful. I can think of many cases where the government could happily abuse it for political reasons - particularly if they had the power to shutdown political opposition in order to "protect the public from terrorism."
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Much like the old guys at the Whitehouse I think you've been watching too many Hollywood movies.
This [wikipedia.org] was not a Hollywood movie. I will agree that the scenarios where this could be abused far outnumber the number of scenarios where this bill would be useful. However, it is impossible to prove that there exists no scenario where this power would be necessary.
Even if there was some kind of "super virus" that was taking out routing on the internet, shutting the internet seems about as effective as killing the patient to save their leg.
An analogy to counter yours would be the treatment of heartworms in dogs. If you take appropriate preventative measures there shouldn't be a problem. However if you fail at that, the treatment for heartworms is a small dosage of arsenic.
I can think of many cases where the government could happily abuse it for political reasons - particularly if they had the power to shutdown political opposition in order to "protect the public from terrorism."
And here I
Thomas link (Score:2)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.3480 [loc.gov] -- really though, there should be a law, or at least a "best practice" requiring that bill numbers be reported in print and links to Thomas be report in on-line journalism. They stupid article linked in the /. summary didn't even give the name of the bill. I had to find it searching for the 3 co-sponsors, plus the Senate committee name. And then, it was one of 11 results. This is why people are uninformed, even when they're not lazy.
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There needs to be a colon ':' at the end of the link or it won't work... it got cut off by slashdot formatting.
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I've been thinking something similar. In the case of a fast, adaptive virus, it might be essentially impossible to clear out an infestation without being able to slice the Internet down into smaller chunks (e.g., isolate the US, or each state, or smaller). 120 days is far, far too long; 30 days then having to explain what's going on would be much more sensible to me...
Virus or meme? (Score:2)
When you talk about destructive viruses this could be a way to stop destructive memes (mind viruses) from spreading. This seems to be about information control and I'm definitely against that and all forms of censorship. If something is so dangerous and so much of a secret that we'd have to shut down the entire internet to keep it from spreading, or if an idea really is so destructive that its better to shut the internet off, the kill switch in all likelyhood is going to cause more harm than any possible w
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30 days is too long.
I have no idea why we need to have any time limit at all. If the president does this, and Congress asks him why, he should have to respond, even if it's two hours later. And Congress can undo it at any time.
I don't understand why we'd give the president the ability to do shit like this for any amount of time without permission.
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Wait, we already have an Air Gap between essential systems and the internet? (Except NASA and the US army, according to Mr McKinnon). You mean... Joe Terr'rist can't fire up his Mac and shut down the entire power grid to the US from Iraq? Was Die Hard 4.0 a total brain fuck? [penny-arcade.com]
What about mobile data and s
I disagree. (Score:3, Insightful)
The passing of this bill will be the end of the internet and the end of all free speech on the internet. The US government will be able to determine what is or isn't dangerous enough to shut off the internet. In my honest opinion it's just ridiculous to give something as important as the internet BACK to the government. They had the internet and gave it to corporations and this is what lead to the internet as we know it, and now they want to go back to how it was?
No virus, no worm, is so much of a threat th
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...there probably should be some form of last defense for computer systems throughout the nation.
Why? I'm serious. Why would we need that? Here's how I see it: Some fast spreading worm tricks everybody else's OS into copying it onto their hard drives and executing it. Then the worm approaches my computer. It says "Please copy me onto your hard drive and execute me." My computer says "No", because I don't use the same pathetic vulnerable OS as everyone else. But all the masses want to be safe, so they give the president a kill switch. All this does is put the responsibility on the government to bear ou
Time to get a hard copy! (Score:3, Funny)
Yeap, this means it's time to get a hard copy of the entire internet so we can just keep surfing in offline mode.
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Would suck to work at archive.org during an emergency - wandering hordes of internet addict zombies would converge on the place from all over to get their fix.
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Yeap, this means it's time to get a hard copy of the entire internet so we can just keep surfing in offline mode.
Hard copy? That's a lot of paper!
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There is, to my observation, currently a back-up effort under way in Norwegian IP blocks. Just hop on a plane and ask everyone you see if they would contribute their portion of the recovery data! /generalizing can be fun sometimes
ISPs (Score:2, Interesting)
Obviously the simplest way to implement such a 'feature' is to go after the ISPs, set some sort of a coordination framework among the ISPs, mandate that those ISPs set up a bunch of new hardware/software/whatever it takes to cut out subnets/IP addresses/entire cables from the rest of the Internet. This is not going to improve the democracy of the country of-course, but that's the point, remove the dissenting voices, and of-course the motives are as always 'pure' - there is a cyberwar going, didn't you know
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Isn't this against the whole purpose of ARPANET? (Score:2)
120 days seems too long (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that 120 days before needing approval from Congress is about 113 days too long. Maybe 118 days too long. Assuming the President had a valid reason to use this power, it's reasonable to think that Congress would approve similarly. The internet is pretty fricking important, and it's hard to imagine it going away for four months.
Also, of course, shutting down the major pipes won't make the internet disappear, it will just send it back to the Dark Ages of the early 1990s, when people manually connected their computers together and the routing software took care of the rest. Maybe IRC would see a comeback.
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This was a Dr. Seuss poem, wasn't it?
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The terror organizations that this law undoubtedly targets rely on a working, global Internet to function. Without it, they are dead in the water, whereas our government and military can continue with our own proprietary Intarwebs.
There are no E-Terrorists. (Score:2)
I've been on the internet for a long time and I've seen all sorts of hackers. I've never met any of these E-Terrorists. Everybody who is anybody knows how to function in the real world. Cyberspace is only used as a communication tool and if the USA were to shut down the internet the criminals and terrorists, along with the majority of hackers and smart people would just go to another network and on top of that it would be something decentralized and it would be something spontaneous.
Shutting down the intern
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Took a few days to really admit and later hackers passed information and data to the press from government computers.
So 120 days is just fine to keep things closed, tight and slow leaks.
That would put our country into complete chaos. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is like the talk of martial law and plans to build camps. Shutting down the internet will trigger so much chaos that there would be riots in the streets. To shut off the internet for MONTHS would create more chaos than 911, more chaos than Katrina, it would be like a blackout that lasts for a month where the majority of young people wont know how to communicate with their friends and family. They wont know how to get their news. They'll be confused and will accept news from random sources.
Also theres n
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Without internet, there's no "work" for me to go to. My internet is my phone, and pretty much my only way to communicate and get news. You think your bank will operate without internet?
Shutting it down to prevent a disaster? Eh? Shutting it down *is* the disaster. Doing it for 120 days... that's just INSANE. These are the folks who are running this country???
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Yes they are.
An 'emergency' could be something like.... (Score:3, Interesting)
A new Disney flick leaked - if not stopped immediately that could cause irreparable hard to the entertainment economy.
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Exactly, the quality of a law is not judged on how well it does what it was supposed to do, but how robust it is to abuse.
And as someone earlier said, 120 days is about 117-119 days too long (assuming the power is needed in the first place).
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But you're right, the time should be limited to the time needed to organize an emergency meeting, perhaps +1 day. So 1-3 days sounds just about right.
But if you is it needed i'd say NO, they can better make a kill-switch law for the power grid, we only have like 15 minutes ahead warning for a
Actual use (Score:5, Funny)
Michelle: Are you coming to bed?
Barrak: I can't. This is important.
Michelle: What?
Barrak: Someone is wrong on the Internet.
Michelle: Oh, for the love of-- {pushes button}
If you care, maybe set up UUCP? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you care about information continuing to flow if/when the TCP/IP networks are shut down, maybe you should look into setting yourself up as a UUCP node and making peering arrangements? Remember how UUCP mail and news worked? It was a bit like telephone-based bit torrent. It was completely decentralized. As long as you could set up a phone connection with your nearest peers, the data would flow.
Theres several options I know of. (Score:2)
You have alternatives to the internet which involve the use of radio. You can communicate very well over the radio. You can send email, you can browse websites, you can do all of that. It's not necessarily going to be as fast but it depends on the power of your antennas.
Need not be telephone or radio either. (Score:2)
You can communicate via laser, via microwave, and theres probably other ways I don't know about.
If the internet goes down a spontaneous network will replace it probably overnight.
I'm tired. (Score:2)
Re:not likely to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Say what? I think you are mistaken. Certainly, nothing in the Constitution seems to give the President that power.
Although, of course, the government simply ignores the Constitution all the time.
habeus corpus (Score:3, Informative)
The president does not have the power to suspend the constitution , the president does have the power to suspend habeus corpus during rebellion or invasion where public safety may require it. In ex parte milligan supreme court said
that civilians could not be tried by military courts when civilian courts were functioning
Re:habeus corpus (Score:5, Insightful)
The power to suspend habeas corpus is stated in Article I of the Constitution, which mean that Congress, not the President, has that authority. Lincoln simply ignored the ruling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Merryman [wikipedia.org]
So the congress can shut off communications? (Score:2)
You are saying they could pass a law to close off the electromagnetic spectrum and shut down all communication in this country? That would put us back into the dark ages, and I can't see how anything the terrorists could do could be worse than that.
Re:not likely to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
For most people, it's the possibility part that bothers them.
Removing knee-jerk reactions and looking at this objectively, I can understand why the government would need the power to do this...but with all the public attention they've been giving to "cybersecurity" lately, I can completely understand why this makes people very nervous.
Of course, the most common argument (one which I agree with) is why are mission critical systems accessable from the "normal" Internet in the first place? Why aren't they built on an entirely seperate network that sees zero interaction with the "public" Internet, like something akin to a CCTV system?
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Re:not likely to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
They do, for the most part, and for most of the agencies (DOD, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc...). They have redundant network capabilities served both by wired and wireless means (micro-wave and satellite transmission capabilities). The "business" apps at those agencies do not necessarily have a private network. The terminals that serve you the internet at a great many of these agencies also have access to these other applications that interact with the "shadow" networks. Also, the same network providers that provide you and me with our "pipe" (AT&T, Verizon, Quest, etc...) also provide the "pipes" to the other, "shadow" networks. Should the systems at those installations become targets for malicious assault, then it could shut down entire sectors of the economy. The NASDAQ is one such "highly available" system that could be harmed, even though they have their own network. The financial networks that carry SWIFT, Cirrus, Visa, and ATM transactions would be susceptible even though they are on private networks. I'm not sure how turning "off" the internet will help. Wouldn't removing access to the internet have the same effect as a DDOS attack? The outcomes are the same aren't they (i.e. loss of connectivity)? The real goal of cyber attack is either one or both of the following:
Gain Access
Deny Access
If I were a cyber-assassin bent on disabling large networks for the purpose of disrupting an economy, I now would have two tactics available to me. I could launch my DDOS against a financial network or sufficiently large commercial target and hope to disrupt their capabilities. The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
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Data Theft or Data Compromise
Shutting down access to NASDAQ for a few hours would be pretty catastrophic, no doubt. Imagine for a moment, however, if an attack were able to manipulate the data, corrupt it, trace sources for transactions, gain access to corporate bank accounts, file transactions through NASDAQ credentials
And how would it do that if it's secured properly? (Score:2)
If they have basic knowledge of information security it wouldn't be possible to do all that. Sure they might get physical access to the machine, but to actually manipulate data on it, corrupt it, trace sources and gain access to bank accounts? Now you are getting ridiculous, as ridiculous as expecting hackers to steal the nuclear codes and launch nukes.
Very VERY unlikely. (Score:2)
They do, for the most part, and for most of the agencies (DOD, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc...). They have redundant network capabilities served both by wired and wireless means (micro-wave and satellite transmission capabilities). The "business" apps at those agencies do not necessarily have a private network. The terminals that serve you the internet at a great many of these agencies also have access to these other applications that interact with the "shadow" networks. Also, the same network providers that provide you and me with our "pipe" (AT&T, Verizon, Quest, etc...) also provide the "pipes" to the other, "shadow" networks. Should the systems at those installations become targets for malicious assault, then it could shut down entire sectors of the economy. The NASDAQ is one such "highly available" system that could be harmed, even though they have their own network. The financial networks that carry SWIFT, Cirrus, Visa, and ATM transactions would be susceptible even though they are on private networks. I'm not sure how turning "off" the internet will help. Wouldn't removing access to the internet have the same effect as a DDOS attack? The outcomes are the same aren't they (i.e. loss of connectivity)? The real goal of cyber attack is either one or both of the following:
Gain Access
Deny Access
If I were a cyber-assassin bent on disabling large networks for the purpose of disrupting an economy, I now would have two tactics available to me. I could launch my DDOS against a financial network or sufficiently large commercial target and hope to disrupt their capabilities. The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
There is a higher probability of terrorists robbing Fort Knox than the probability of terrorists hacking the shadow networks and NASDAQ. The amount of security is so ridiculous that most terrorists would be killed or arrested before they can even attempt it. The idea of terrorists targeting NASDAQ is completely ridiculous but even if somehow they managed to gain physical access to these computers they'd still have a very difficult time. It's not going to be as simple as writing a script, or worm, it's going
Re:not likely to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you understand why the government would need the power to do this can you explain it to me? If a company is compromised, either the company or the the upstream provider could yank it offline. In most cases the upstream also has an upstream, all the way to the backbone connections.
Wouldn't it be better for the administration to simply communicate with the backbone providers? If the backbone is compromised, they should have their own kill switches - or else the governmnet can't order them to do anything anyway. I don't see what this adds, the ability is already in here.
If the administration calls up a backbone and says there is a cyberattack going on and you need to shut things down, let's think about what this means. The administrative arm of the governmnet knows something is happening and the backbone has NO IDEA? That's not possible. The backbone would learn via SANS or CERT or whatever else just like the backbone would, and if the gov knows before the backbone there is serious mismanagement going on.
Shutting it down would become a goal for the terrorists. Let's MAKE THEM TURN OFF THEIR OWN INTERNET. It worked with the WTC attacks, they hate our freedoms so we took them away ourselves. This will be no different. To turn it up to 11, anyone who is for this law is helping terrorists and qualifies for treason.
Explain with good examples why it's needed. (Score:2)
Give a situation where shutting off the internet would improve national security? I cannot think of any situation where it would influence national security. All the essential functions should be kept off the internet. All the functions on the internet shouldn't be essential for national security. As far as I know mission critical networks are not accessible from the normal internet. Anybody telling you it is, is using that as an excuse to pass ridiculous laws.
It's not in the public interest to shut off the
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You base your case on the fact that people need information in order to make wise decisions and know how to act. But your assumption is that people get good information from the internet, and that they are encouraged to act in a wise manner. If they are being fed bad information (perhaps even purposefully crafted bad information...) then wont their subsequent behavior be counter to the best interest of the nation and of themselves?
I almost entirely agree with your basic premise, but it
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If you know how to use the internet properly you learn how to filter the BS out. By now most people have a list of sites they go to (like slashdot) discuss complicated issues with other intellectuals and reach a decision. If you have no forum, no place to debate, no websites at all, it's much more difficult to make wise decisions.
Yes there will always be websites and individuals who promote ignorance. But we cannot counter the ignorance without an open forum on the internet to compare the dumb ideas to the
Re:not likely to happen (Score:5, Interesting)
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The President also has the power to suspend the Constitution, something that has never happened though several wars. Things would have to get very dire before either of these events would be triggered.
So it's OK then?
If theres no Constitution what are the laws? (Score:2)
Have any of you actually done your research to find out what the laws are if theres no Constitution? Or is it the law of the gun?
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When I hear people spout claptrap like this, I weep for our public education system. Did you go to public school? Your civics teacher let you down very badly.
I encourage you to read the Constitution. It's not a complete picture of American jurisprudence, but it's a great start. It's also not terribly long, or terribly difficult, and you can easily find read-along guides that will tell you a little bit about what it means.
Good luck.
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US public school civics class!?
Didn't they stop teaching civics in the US public schools starting in the 1960's?
The last time I checked a few years ago they were only teaching a dumbed down version of a US Constitution class in 8th grade. 8th graders are expected to memorise the answers to a US Constitution test in order to pass on to high school.
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The only way the power of the Presidency is abused is if we tell ourselves "Well this President wont abuse it.", and "Well, its just for a little while.", and "It's for their own good.". As soon as we recognize it's never OK for any President, or any Congress to overstep its authority for any reason, then we retain the power the Founders intended us to have.
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I nominate Courage Wolf
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Who decides how dire is dire enough?
Mark Knopfler, obviously.
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Mark Knopfler, obviously.
I don't know, I heard that the DoHC has him on a watch list. Rumor has it something about Arab ties [youtube.com].
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What about news from non-American sites? Are they going to implement the Great Firewall of the USA too?
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Unless of course you're being facetious and suggesting that the Patriot Act is an unconstitutional act, which I can't really argue.
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FEMA [911review.org] can [yahoo.com], and many parts of it can be (illegally, IMHO) by executive order [sonic.net].
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FEMA [911review.org] can [yahoo.com], and many parts of it can be (illegally, IMHO) by executive order [sonic.net].
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I know. Anyone would think they had invented the internet, or the computer.
Yeah, thanks. I thank the chinese for the gunpowder too.
But that doesn't give you americans the right to behave as if the Internet was yours.
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But that doesn't give you americans the right to behave as if the Internet was yours.
Yes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET [wikipedia.org] , yes it does.
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Your sort has always been just about to leave, and you always will be.
Out of interest, where do you imagine would have you?
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Woah. Take a breath. The Shift key is to the left and there's another one to the right. Punctuation improves communication.
Otherwise, I agree with the title. I can find no situation where shutting down interns is acceptable.
Why the internet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would they only shut down the internet? They aren't talking about shutting off radio, telephone, or TV. It's only the internet because the internet is the last free speech zone left in this world. To shut down the internet for any reason is to kill free speech, I cannot think of any logical reason where shutting down the internet makes sense.
A civil war situation? even if there were a civil war we'd need open communication just to know whats going on and whos winning. Who exactly benefits if theres no communication? The citizens certainly wont. And I'm talking the ordinary citizens here not the slashdot types who are sophisticated enough to figure out how to communicate by radio or other devices. Shutting down the internet hurts individuals who get all their news, all their information and do all their communications on the internet.
Honestly most of us would rather take a virus than shut down our computer.