Sen. Bond Disses Internet 'Kill Switch' Bill 171
GovTechGuy writes "Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) has introduced his own cybersecurity legislation with Sen. Orrin Hatch, and he had some harsh words for a competing bill sponsored by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Bond said that bill, which has been criticized for allegedly giving the president a 'kill switch' over the Internet, weighs down the private sector with mandates and puts too much on the plate of the already overburdened Department of Homeland Security. Sen. Bond's bill would create a new position in the Pentagon, reporting directly to the president, in charge of coordinating all civilian cybersecurity. Any private-sector involvement would be voluntary and free from legal challenge, rather than mandated."
Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need a military-like "big red button" in the boss's office that shuts down all Internet systems... that would open us up to even worse problems. (Did anybody watch the recent CNN special "We Were Warned: Cyber Shockwave" about this situation exactly? If you shut down all civilian communications, how are you going to tell workers where they're needed? A simple attack somewhere along the power grid, and nobody will know where the fault is to repair it.)
But, there is something we should give over in this area. The ability to kill programs that are causing damage to other systems or the Internet structure. Basically, if food has a problem, we recall what had the problem, not all food. If MS-SQL has a problem, we have an Internet outage... what if Microsoft was able to say "You must patch to version 7.3.43... we've got a security problem with 7.3.42." Basically, if you're running a "wrong" version of an application, you shouldn't be allowed to expose that to the Internet... you're just going to spread the worm of the day once you get caught by the bad guys. Can we have some good guys shut you down first?
The difference is clear... you don't shut down the whole Internet when things go bad, you shut down the bad application. SysAdmins will notice their service is down, and hopefully will get a nice clear message that they've put off the patches for too long, and if their server wasn't already spreading the worm, it was about to before the kill switch got in the way.
This is much like the college solution where if their honeypot detects that you've sent out a worm packet, they tell the nearest network switch to cut you off. You notice your IM client can't connect and neither can your web browser, and call IT. The Internet isn't down... you're down for the safety of the computers around you. Bring your machine to IT, pay for the cleanup service and a free copy of the college's favorite anti-virus, and while you carry your machine back to the dorm they turn your port back on.
This is just basic cyber-defense. You're totally secure if you unplug everything... but then you also lose the services which are the point of having the server. We need to use the good servers to keep some level of communication going... and spread the word that the bad servers need the patch that was released a few months ago! When things go wrong, you don't throw the whole thing out without trying to fix it first!
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Insightful)
Under this system, of course Bittorrent would end up being classified as a "bad application".
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For all of ten seconds.
That's the end of freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
And of course that would stop them once the technology is in place.
For all of ten seconds.
It wouldn't just do that. Think about the enforcement mechanism that would be required to make this operate : all computers in the world would need to answer to a single, global command authority. This authority would immediately be used to "end piracy", for obvious reasons. Even unconnected operation would have to be subject to government approval (or else you could use that to sabotage the system when it gets reconnected).
And given that unless this is implemented globally, it would be a financial disaster
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Insightful)
s/Bittorrent/every fucking application that The Authorities didn't approve/
The only system I can imagine where this might work, is if the creator of the software was the only one with the power to blacklist a version of it, and nobody for Free Software. And of course they can only blacklist something if an upgrade is available for free.
Now for the fun part: how do you decide whether you're talking to a good version, a bad one, or a really bad one saying it's good?
There already is one. (Score:4, Funny)
They tried to make the training video 'light' and humorous, but it still doesn't negate the fact that these plans have already been put into action.
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing.
Government is fine. Keep CORPORATIONS out of my bedroom. They have no reason to be there.
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We just need a simple legal standard. If you're causing harm to the network by hacking other machines, you must upgrade. If you're simply using more bandwidth, you get charged for your overage. If you're doing something that manufacturer didn't intend like running Linux on your router, you're fine.
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Interesting)
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With the good-intention Chernobyl that is modern copyright legislation
Recent copyright legislation has no basis in any good intentions, unless they're intentions to leave large inheritances to RIAA/MPAA members' children.
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Who decides what is the 'correct' software?
Is it a whitelist or blacklist?
How is it enforced, what if I have it lie?
What technical implementation does this need?
Do we begin licensing programmers?
Do we install TPM in everyone's computer, effectively ending innovation and free speech?
Too many people are eager for a benevolent king.
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Funny)
Not exactly sure. But I am pretty sure that the answer to every one of those questions has the word "money" in it.
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Not exactly sure. But I am pretty sure that the answer to every one of those questions has the word "money" in it.
Really? I thought it was 42.
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I'm not worried about CORPORATIONS--they only want my money. Government wants my money and my LIFE.
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Sigh. No, it's just that not every argument against Big Government can be dispelled conveniently by invoking Sinclair Lewis.
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you understand that they're all controlled by the same people, you'll feel much better.
Re:Stop that task in the name of the law! (Score:5, Funny)
Government is fine. Keep CORPORATIONS out of my bedroom. They have no reason to be there.
I'm sure the users of KY disagree with you there...
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Or Bemco. [bemco.com]
You assume everyone has control of their server (Score:3, Interesting)
Most sites are running off of crappy shared hosting services, and the guy actually running the site has no idea how the server was configured, and whether current (or any!) security patches have been applied. He can do things like call phpinfo() to make sure that's at least current and intelligently configured, but he has no idea if the server itself is set up well, and more importantly, no way to fix it if it isn't.
This creates a huge problem if the server is pulled. Suddenly, all the shared hosting accoun
No (Score:2)
While I'm very much in favor of disconnecting zombies and computers running network-degrading malware, I am not at all in favor of disconnecting people's devices for not running approved versions of software (or, worse yet, for not running approved software packages). To do so is to give ISPs far too much control over my computer for not enough benefit.
I think the key is to invest in:
1) Attack detection tools, to disconnect users who are knowingly or unknowingly participating in online attacks.
2) Safer codi
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I don't know that the internet killswitch option precludes what you're suggesting. I think the killswitch idea could be likened to grounding all planes after the 9/11 attacks. Pretty fricken draconian, but the didn't know which planes had bad guys onboard.
The killswitch option clearly doesn't make sense if you know where the attack is coming from. It may also not make sense in general for other reasons, such as is there a potential situation on the internet comparable to the 9/11 attacks where one only k
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So you're legalizing planned obsolescence?
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The worst-case scenario is that someone abroad has managed to set up their own command-and-control network inside the country and is using that to interfere with the normal operation of an online infra-structure system such as a traffic light system, electricity or water supply (makes me think someone's been watching too much Whiz Kids). They wouldn't know where the commands are coming from, or how they are getting to the site of attack, so the best option is to shut down the entire Internet. Much like the
International concerns? (Score:3, Insightful)
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we'll nuke them
How about this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a rarity if government regulation actually helps, and even when it does "help" it either creates larger problems down the road or fixes something else the government did.
Other than the initial creation of the internet, it has been largely a private affair and that is responsible for the majority of its growth.
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Re:How about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about this... (Score:4, Informative)
Our energy sector is insanely regulated also. The BP oil spill wasn't caused because of deregulation but because the morons "we" elected to congress thought it was a good idea to artificially cap liability.
Likewise, the problem we've had with the net is a lack of regulation rather than too much of it.
So what are these problems with the internet that are because of a lack of regulation that will magically become better with regulation? In almost every single case regulation simply leads to corporations screwing the public even more because they can game them and the public losing in higher prices and less choice because it makes it harder to start up a business or to compete with established companies.
The firms like MS and the ISPs that do very little to curtail the soft targets aren't going to get better knowing that they'll face even less regulation.
MS pretty much lives on the regulation we call software patents and copyright. ISPs got the way they did by screwing the public by taking money to provide internet access and then unilaterally changing the definition of the internet to their own interests.
We don't need regulation there, we need sane patent reform, we need a return of sane copyright, we need a correct definition of internet, we need to end all public handouts to businesses, etc.
When consumers have choice they will be more effective than "regulation" ever will be. The problem is regulation almost always reduces chocie.
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There will never be choice in the US regarding internet. At least, not until some insanely different technology is invented. Currently, it doesn't look like that is going to happen in our lifetimes.
Why?
It costs money. A lot of it. Running multiple identical cables to your door, just for the sake of competition, is not efficient nor practical, and it's not g
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It costs money. A lot of it. Running multiple identical cables to your door, just for the sake of competition, is not efficient nor practical, and it's not going to happen for good reason. Deregulation just means that the people who own the one or two cables that do exist are free to rape you for all you can reasonably give them, and give you as little as they want in return. We are ALREADY seeing this happen, so don't go claiming it is somehow not the case.
Yeah, and that good reason is if/when those companies rape you through rate increases and service deterioration.
Is there problem regulation? Yes, there is. There is a lot wrong with giving out artificial monopolies to ISPs in places where none is needed to motivate installation of the wires, and I have horrible problems with the fact that it seems cities cannot give internet to their population without being sued by some private company. On the other hand, I'm sure you think that cities providing internet is evil, because it runs counter to "the free market..."
Yes, cities providing internet usually will cripple their citizens by either not funding it though use taxes, or by discouraging private industries from giving higher-quality internet. If they do fund it purely via use taxes and don't discourage private industries from competing, I have no problem.
The government you at least superficially elect, but monopolies you have no say in. You cannot vote with your feet if you have only one option. It has been proven time and again that when infrastructure is handed to private interests, with no public competition, bad things happen. 10 points to you if you can figure out why that's the case
Bullshit again. I have a great say in monopolies. Here is a hint, if I don't pay taxes what hap
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However, that still does very little to prevent corporate collusion which is a serious problem here. The big players always figure out a way, and even nationalizing a whole slew of infrastructure isn't going to prevent that. We need a public ISP, that's the only option I see mak
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As someone here said to me (with a very good reason), the ISP business is a natural monopoly. How do you fix that without regulation?
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ISPs, on the other hand, deal with physical connections from your house to the backbone. Every new player in that market means a new chain from one end to the other. That means a few million dollars. Where is this money g
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An ISP is really no different than any other business that needs lots of capital like a pawn shop or the like. You focus on quality in a small geographical area then you move out from the center.
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Lets see here:
The USPS is a complete and utter mess filled with idiot workers and BS policies for no reason whatsoever and ever-increasing rates. Nearly always Fed-Ex or UPS does a better job of doing, well just about everything.
Etc.
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I dunno. I'm not convinced that Fed-Ex or UPS would be able to move letters across the country for 44 cents even if they were allowed to.
You'd probably pay $1.50 or $2.00. Though you would get a guaranteed arrival date...
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Number one is they think they needed to change my home address not once, not twice, but three times. Ranging from things like changing "street" to "terrace" then from "west" to "east" all really without notifying... anyone else. So my city taxes got sent to the wrong address, I kept getting magazine subscriptions months late, and general chaos. Number two is that they leave terrible letters and stop delivering my mail because there is "too much sno
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As a casual user of USPS and Fedex overseas, I find USPS the best fro delvery time by far.
Isn't it great when people use anecdotal evidence?
Slashdot should have a -1 deluded libertarian mod.
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Um, you run it the same way you run every business. You get capital from the bank, run cable through someplace small, like a neighborhood, rent space on the cable from a major ISP or get enough capital to run your own line. An ISP is really no different than any other business that needs lots of capital like a pawn shop or the like. You focus on quality in a small geographical area then you move out from the center.
That plan requires the cooperation of a major ISP. What if they all decide they don't want to rent? Why would they want to rent to the competition? The fact that this happens at all is because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which essentially forced the big boys to play nice with the CLECS.
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A "natural monopoly" is a practical consideration where the costs for two competitors with 100% penetration is roughly the same as one company with 100% penetration. There's nothing about "abusive" in there, and things which trend towards monopoly (like OS choices) aren't natural monopolies. Artificial barriers to entry, like networking effects (unrelated to computer networking, but economic "networking") don't count.
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As someone here said to me (with a very good reason), the ISP business is a natural monopoly. How do you fix that without regulation?
How do you know that the ISP business is a natural monopoly? The only reason we have ISP monopolies is because the government would not allow more than one cable company to compete in an area when cable was first being installed.
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Likewise, energy companies haven't gotten the message that they're being regulated. The recent BP debacle is hardly the only major accident in recent years due to a lack of care. There was the on down in Texas and one up here in WA,
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The financial industry isn't regulated to substantive degree. Which is what led to the great recession. Between the fraud, theft and dealing with securities which exceed the GDP of every nation the effect was shockingly similar to if there were no regulations in place at all.
No, you can't draw that conclusion. You can certainly say that our current regulations aren't working but there are two ways of looking at it, one is we have not enough regulation the other is that you have too much regulation. I tend to favor the latter as the real reason. Like I said in a previous post, there are several flaws in our current financial system. The main reason being the fiat currency we have.
When you have a solid currency based on at least -something- tangible you get rid of some of t
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Every country on the planet has currency based on nothing other than the word of the government. So to say that's the cause of the problem is a silly and pointless exercise in mental masturbation. Now we've all seen your e-peen and know it's lacking. Move on to actual issues, rather than some personal preference for the gold standard or whatever you'd like currency to be based of
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The root of the problem is that we have a meaningless currency based on absolutely nothing, with that comes insane inflation. Every country on the planet has currency based on nothing other than the word of the government. So to say that's the cause of the problem is a silly and pointless exercise in mental masturbation.
Not at all. In fact, it's the reason that every country in the world was dragged into a financial crisis caused entirely by the US and its central bank.
Now we've all seen your e-peen and know it's lacking. Move on to actual issues, rather than some personal preference for the gold standard or whatever you'd like currency to be based off. Though we had plenty of inflation when we were on the gold standard, so don't let facts get in the way of your insane rants.
Unfortunately, the "facts" you are spouting are not facts at all. Inflation in a gold standard exists because gold can be mined, so the supply can increase. But that's caused by actual labor, so it has a natural limit. Not so with fiat currency, the creators of which have no limits and suffer no consequences for inflicting inflation on those further dow
Re:How about this... (Score:5, Insightful)
The deregulation of the net, of course, is the fundamental reason for it's rapid growth and incredible utility.
Re:How about this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, I must not get it, because I'd think that it would be the other way around, that a highly regulated industry would be mostly dealing with regulated items, rather than mostly dealing with unregulated items.
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What is deregulation? I thought it was taking something that was regulated, like the airline industry, then DEregulating them. I didn't think it was taking something that was unregulated, like the Internet, and then continuing to not regulate it. I'm against Internet deregulation, because that means we have regulation first.
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I think government may be the only organization that when it fails to fulfill its responsibilities people seem to think the answer is to give it more responsibility.
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The problem with both sectors is not deregulation, but regulatory agencies that are not in fact actually inspecting to see if existing regulations are being followed (or to be more precise, ignoring violations of existing regulations). I think government may be the only organization that when it fails to fulfill its responsibilities people seem to think the answer is to give it more responsibility.
It's worse than that. The regulations are always written to provide certain protections for an industry or set of power players in the industry. Then the usual suspects float between the corporations that actually benefited and the regulatory agencies, all while assigning blame and pointing fingers and convincing the electorate if they would just allow more centralized authority everything would get better. Then when the electorate agrees they get together and figure out how to divvy up the extra money a
Re:How about this... (Score:4, Insightful)
I also wouldn't object to forcing ISPs with threat of law to actually PROVIDE what they market. If they say it's unlimited, it should be unlimited, NOT "unlimited to a point."
But government is the source of all evil, right? Hand it over to Time Warner, Comcast, and Verizon... they'll take good care of your rights!
Re:How about this... (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need is a definition of the internet to include all of the internet to start out. Secondly we need to stop handouts to private companies all of them to prevent this from happening in the future. Eventually, our current infrastructure will be obsolete and Comcast/Time Warner/Verizon will be as laughable of companies as Atari and AOL is today. But in the meantime, simply allow for more competition in the ISP market, allow for true free market systems where if one corporation can use public land to lay cable though any ISP who wants to should be able to within a certain window. When we solve the inequalities there, it fixes itself. If an ISP blocks YouTube and there is a choice, everyone will switch. The problem is our government has limited the choices.
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Why, oh why, isn't there a "+/-1 Libertarian" modifier? (The +/- would be viewer selectable, of course.)
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What you should be asking yourself is why the government handed over money to private interests. Why could get not define the internet as a part of vital infrastructure like highways or radio waves? Imagine if that money was not given to a for-profit interest, but one with the goal of actually enhancing society. Oh, but that's socialism!
You totally ignore m
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Without those tax dollars, do you think they would have run internet to unprofitable locations? Uhh, I guess those small towns don't need internet!
Yes because its an untapped market, and technology can make it easy. The same thing could be said about anything, do you think without tax dollars they would put a Wal-Mart in almost every town? A McDonalds? A Pizza Hut? Etc. Of course we have a fast-food restaurant in almost every town, we have a Wal-Mart in almost every town, or if not then one within a few minutes drive.
If a few people want to start a small-town ISP they simply get some capital and lay some cable. If they won't then use WWAN to ser
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"Yeah, because that works so well for power/water companies. No. You get crap service, prices equivalent to gouging and generally a wo
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If it's true that the government can only do bad, why then do you think my suggestion would be a negative? I only said create a public ISP, not nationalize the whole thing (though I'd not object to that). If the private ISPs are so much better (they're not), you can use them. Choice is good, right? Or are you afraid of competition that isn't driven by profit?
Because in general, a public anything ends up bullying the private sector by effectively forcing them to conform to their methods or by requiring the public to pay a tax even if they don't use it they still pay for it.
The problem is, there is no major public thing that I know of that does not either bully the private sector or require payment by those who don't use it and funding it purely with a use tax.
Have you ever sent a letter via UPS? Go try. Tell me how that goes. I won't deny that USPS is not as good when it comes to package delivery, but it's not that horrible, either. What I wonder is how bad the market on mail/shipping would be if USPS didn't exist to compete with FedEx and UPS.
Yeah thats because the government gave the USPS a legal monopoly on first class letters. So USPS
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Define "bullying the private sector" - because from your incredibly vague claims there, I'd say it's a good thing.
"The problem is, there is no major public thing that I know of that does not either bully the private sector or require payment by those who don't use it and funding it pur
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Define "bullying the private sector" - because from your incredibly vague claims there, I'd say it's a good thing.
As in saying "because we can give you 2.5 MB/sec, you have to also in order to run an ISP", or price controls and the like.
Roads. Mail (see below). Internet. Yes, internet. Municipal internet has on many occasions proven cheaper and more reliable than private. See here or here for a list. I personally know people who use these services and will tell you how superior they are to the private internet in the same towns. Oh, did I mention how private interests like to sue cities for providing these? Yes, we can hand over out infrastructure to privates...
Yes, but how were these funded? And I glanced through the documents and really saw no mention of hard facts like internet speed, latency, etc.
You just made my point, sir. A public organization has control of a market and has service and price that is as good as or better than the majority of the world's. NOT some kind of hell on earth, totally inefficient, money-bleeding, Soviet-like organization that libertarians go about claiming will result from nationalizing businesses. It proves that nationalized infrastructure works. So why don't we try with internet?
Ok, so apparently having no competition and there declaring that it is the clear winner proves your point? All it seems to prove that in a race even if you were the slowest one competing, you can still win first prize. And yes, USPS is a big
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That is bad... how? You don't like competition from the government, because they actually compete rather than collude?
"Yes, but how were these funded?"
Probably not much differently than the private ISPs, given we gave them boatloads of money for nothing!
"And I glanced through the documents and really saw no mention of hard facts like internet speed, latency, etc."
Since
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That is bad... how? You don't like competition from the government, because they actually compete rather than collude?
But that isn't competition. Competition is "we do what we want, you do what you want, we let the consumer decide" rather than we, your competition, dictate what your ISP can do.
Probably not much differently than the private ISPs, given we gave them boatloads of money for nothing!
So, we should continue a mistake?
So USPS is a pile of shit because of a anecdote on your part? Show me a country with substantially better mail service from a private organization or organizations.
We already have better systems for sending packages in the US, right now, called UPS and FedEx, however we have a monopoly forbidding the free market from doing things better than USPS because they are unable to send first class mail. Chances are, if that was removed, we'd see improvements in fi
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The experience in Australia with privitisation of public utilities has been in EVERY case lower quality of sevice and higher costs.
It has got to the point where only the most rabid believe having such services run by the govt is a disadvantage.
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How about this? A 20 year moratorium on introducing any new rules/regulations on the internet.
My problem with this is government has already proven it doesn't know much about advanced technology. If you take it away from them for 20 years, they're going to know even less, because you just know that they won't bother learning about it in the mean time, and if some wacky shit crops up that makes that 20 years unfeasible, it'd be nice if they had some kind of clue about what was going on, not to mention if laws about "real" cybercrime (hacking for identity theft, data theft, etc) become stale and inapp
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Its a rarity if government regulation actually helps
Bullshit. I'm sure you're too young to remember, but before the EPA, the US's air and water were filthy, particularly near factories. Since the Clean Air Act you can actually drive past a Monsanto with the windows down and not burn your lungs, and eat fish from formerly poisoned lakes.
Before OSHA my grandfather fell four stories down an elevator shaft because Purina was too cheap to install doors on the elevator. There are now regulations against this sort
Weird title (Score:2, Funny)
Anyone else read that as "Sen. Bond Disses Internet 'Kill Bill' Switch"?
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Yes, and I wondered what spies had to do with Kill Bill to boot.
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Bond is licensed to kill. Did you expect Bond to talk? No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.
Princes of Darkness (Score:5, Informative)
No good news here. Bond's concerns about a cyber security bill can only mean he feels it isn't harsh enough. If he's in league with copyright's Prince of Darkness Orrin Hatch, who not too long ago wanted to scan all PCs warrantlessly and without judicial oversight automatically destroy those found with "unauthorized content" (read: entertainment), it shouldn't take too much in the way of imagination to predict his response to information he defines as threats to security.
- js.
Re:Princes of Darkness (Score:5, Insightful)
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Greed may be evil, but it isn't stupid. Which is what this bill is.
it swings both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
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Bill Gates: He said they go both ways.
Ted Turner: Like a bisexual!
Michael Eisner: Thank you, Ted, that was the joke.
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Personally, I wish a hands off approach to the internet under purely 1st amendment grounds. "Congress shall make no law..." what part of that do those pinheads not understand
Well the majority of liberals believe that the constitution is a living, breathing document, as such open to all sorts of wild interpretation. The majority of conservatives believe that the intent of the document is as it's stated. Now if you get into the politics, you'll find that most incumbents are just screwed up and can't think of it in either way; rather the only way they can maintain their job.
I blame people who don't have a clue about politics, and aren't interested.
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Well the majority of liberals believe that the constitution is a living, breathing document, as such open to all sorts of wild interpretation. The majority of conservatives believe that the intent of the document is as it's stated.
Well the majority of liberals and conservatives believe that the constitution is a living, breathing document, as such open to all sorts of wild interpretation. The majority of libertarians and other third parties believe that the intent of the document is as it's stated.
FTFY
Bill O'Reilly: I don't care about the Constitution
Re:it swings both ways (Score:4, Informative)
If "conservatives" believe the intent of the Constitution is as it's stated, then why did the five-member conservative majority in SCOTUS just give corporations free speech rights superior to those of actual human beings? Ever since Justice Alito changed the court to a five to four conservative majority, the Supreme Court has become increasingly activist, striking down key laws that limit the power of corporations, government executives, and well-heeled criminals (the less well-off criminals still get the shaft, though).
One of the reasons we've got to be really careful about any sort of "internet kill switch" bill is, even if the legislature makes it voluntary, the newly activist conservatives in the Supreme Court are sure to take the "voluntary" part out, if they can.
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An activist judicial system is a far and be it topic at hand, you should know that. Really what it boils down to is, that the various branches of the US system are broken, and have been for awhile.
Trucks and tubes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire thing stinks to high heaven. These guys still think of the Internet as of tubes and trucks and who the hell knows what else, but it doesn't matter. The important thing is that this series of tubes and trucks is bothering them something awful.
They can't control dissemination of information on it like they do on TV. Anybody can just start a blog or a forum and discuss policy and worse, they can share actual information, the kind that government prefers you not to pay attention to... here is something shiny for you.
They need a kill switch, and when they say that, they likely mean a kill, as in Minigun type of kill switch.
Take this new cybersecurity bill, add the Trusted Security in Cyberspace proposal [slashdot.org], involve the DHS, factor in Gitmo and rendition, multiply by Secret Service getting an 'upgrade' (from the same Lieberman ideas by the way), you are going to have a very neat 'kill switch'.
This 'cybersecurity' nonsense is supposed to be able to expire 120 days after execution, well, just make the emergency last longer, have the president sign an order or whatever it takes. Actually 120 days is enough to push through any kind of agenda if there are no opposing voices at all, and TV opposes nothing (except for clowns, but who listens to clowns, right?
They just want to stop you from being able to get and discuss any information that may end up hurting their agenda, and they have plenty of agenda.
"The Internet is under attack! What do we do?" (Score:5, Interesting)
"Kill it!"
Um, what?
How about instead funding some free-to-all open source antivirus, anti-spyware, etc. programs to hinder the spread of malware and botnets? And kill spammers while you're at it. Yes, those you can kill.
Jealous of his own game? (Score:3, Insightful)
puts too much on the plate of the already overburdened Department of Homeland Security
Uh-huh. Like we already knew; say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.
Mr. Bond? (Score:2)
I'd prefer how I read it... (Score:2)
I read the headline as being about an Internet "Kill Bill" switch, which sounds like a lot more fun of a way to fight cyberterrorism.
Mmmm... Uma.
This is still a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us not be confused by suggestions that just because Sen. Kit Bond criticised the previous proposal, his proposal is any good.
IMO there is absolutely no reason to put a cyber security czar in the pentagon.
In America, as in any free country the military should do nothing but armed conflict with other nations, and civilian agencies should provide internal security.
But hopefully the existence of multitude of bills will result in no bill being passed, which would probably be the best outcome.
Oh, Kill Switch Bill (Score:2)
I thought it said Kill Bill Switch that would make the whole internet like a Tarantino film.
IOW, lots of cleverly written- but still long winded- blogs and tons of foot fetishism.
Wait... holy crap, they've already thrown the switch!!!
Is anyone really saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
... that government shouldn't have emergency powers over Internet, or power grid or industries or transportation? If so, I think we need a new government, not a total repudiation of the concept of a government. Yes, enforcement should be practical, keep up to date with technology, not go overboard and be safeguarded against broad witch hunts for real or imaginary non-emergency wrong doing. But if we are under a massive cyberattack by a foreign government or terrorist organization, we do want the government to be able to shut down all channels for malicious traffic to affect critical utility/information/medical/commercial infrastructure - or try to as much as technologically possible to implement without serious hardship to legitimate users.
Look... (Score:2)
This would seem pretty simple but the internet is just a collection of big nets. Everyone remember back when BBSses were the rage and being online meant threaded forums?
Well if someone throws a kill switch on the internet that is what we are going back too. Granted with a lot higher tech and it will be interesting to see how that plays out. I can design a low cost Wifi network that would likely cover my whole city right now.
Or even if we have to go to wired or sneakernet. The tech these days can facilit
Best plan so far (Score:2)
This sounds like the best security bill yet.
It doesn't mandate government takeover of anything. Institutions can work with the government if they want. And the government sets up a office to assist the requestion institutions with issues and provide information to them. It helps to centralize the protection of computer networks into one office, but is much less draconian in it's view of the internet and doesn't force the internet to bend to the governments will.
It is a million times better than the Leibe
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
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Because then he can't cry about "Them damn nanny-state Democrats."
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Except for Orrin, of course, who is a well-known pain in the ass, I get the impression Democrats are _more_ in line with Hollywood if that is possible. I wrote loaves-and-fish, wine-into-water dear Sainted Democrat Paul Wellstone that I thought it was a definition of insanity that it was 5 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine for watching a legally purchased DVD on a linux machine because it used the illegal-to-KNOW libdvdcss MATH. I got a reply back that he approved of the DMCA and would vote for it ag
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How, exactly, would you run a power grid if not using networked computers? I guess you have the option of building your own internet, but why not just secure the one that is already there.
The simple fact of the matter is that until we have crackability performance tests for national security essential services, some big business is just going to wait for the disaster to happen and then take care of it. They would have to be performed by somebody with actual cracking ability, and have fines to back them up.
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"How, exactly, would you run a power grid if not using networked computers?'
The same way it was done in the years before the 60's? We had power grids long before networked computers.
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If you already have multiple parties who know one another, and wish to ex