U.S. Government Proposes "Internet Kill Switch"
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Masterplan Part 1: US government turns off the internetKris015 said:
Masterplan Part 2: US government turns internet back on but mysteriously nobody can play any online games whatsoever without paying $20 a month to Activision and swearing an oath of alleigance to the Call of Duty franchise...
"Big Brother is Watching.", I've heard about this already, you're kinda late guys, but in my opinion this is a waste of money, unless they try to hack our nukes using the internet there is no reason for this sorta thing.
Another day, another attempt to control the internet, another laugh...
Also, I don't really care, I'm in Iceland, and EVE is hosted in London, so yay
Also, I don't really care, I'm in Iceland, and EVE is hosted in London, so yay
It wont affect the web anywhere else in the world, just in the US government controlled areas. So not to worry my non-American friends, our interwebs is safe and sound.
And plus to those who would refute this by saying "America owns the internet, anyway." I point you towards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
And plus to those who would refute this by saying "America owns the internet, anyway." I point you towards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
I bet Google has a team of operatives just waiting to off Lieberman. What are they waiting for?
In a single day there are more than 3000 attempts to hack the Pentagon. If somebody figured out how to get in over teh interwebs they might try to shut it down?TheRightToArmBears said:
The word of the day is "cyber".
Also, I really hope that Canada is immune if your stupid government actually decides to do this.
Also, I really hope that Canada is immune if your stupid government actually decides to do this.
They wouldn't dare. Not only is the Internet now a mainstay in modern life, but the effect it would have on the people would be nothing short of insane. That would be like if Congress replaced our Constitution with the Third Reich.
Alphaeus47 said:Firefly fan, by any chance?thenumberthirteen said:
OT: But yeah, you can't stop the internet functioning as a system, but you can cut the entire country's access =/
Unfortunately I can see this coming in during a "crisis", along with marshal law and heavy enforcement of the patriot act.
Goodbye independent media, au revoir freedom of speech, hello dictatorship.
Well, that's exactly what it is to be honest. In a time of war the goverment will take down the internet in order to both control information and prevent attacks on what is a highly computerized society.
As far as the scorn you treat it with, we've already seen it done during "World War II". Information was tightly controlled, propaganda went into full swing, and most civil liberties were effectively suspended. It's just that people tend to forget that this happened, and that it was nessicary. Most importantly it's noteworthy that our goverment relinquished those controls after the war. This is why you can find plenty of points about how "Human Flesh Lampshades" and "Nazi Mobile Bone Grinding Machines" are false. If you dig you can also find plenty of stuff about American atrocities and plenty of uncomfortable questions like "what happened to the Hitler Youth and Volkssturm?". A lot of information that was gathered was not allowed to be disseminated until years after the conflict had ended, but did eventually make it to the public.
I am a supporter of "The Patriot Act" (and actually think it doesn't go far enough) because it represents a middle ground between full martial law/emergency powers (which our goverment has always had) and peacetime operation. Declaring martial law over a conflict like the one with "The Middle East" would be overkill, and we wouldn't need all of those things to be done. The Patriot Act allows the goverment to use some of the things allowed during a time of crisis without having to instate a full ongoing "national emergency" (in a practical sense).
I support the existance of such a kill switch for use in times of national emergency due to things like China's "Cyberwarefare" teams. People laugh at the idea of a "cyber-911" but if a full fledged war was to break out the amount of information that could be obtained via the internet and telecommunications would be massive, not to mention the damage that could be done by manipulating public systems. People laugh when hackers hack digitial signs to warn of zombie attacks and the like, but in a time of war think about what someone could do by manipulating those systems.
Control of information is very important during war and conflict which is why minature/concealed radios and cameras and such have been a staple of spy fiction for so long as well.
At any rate, all of this discussion about "wow, I hope this won't influance Canada" or people claiming (like usual) "that's it, I'm going to Canada" is kind of silly. Chances are if things actually progressed to the point where the goverment was talking about sealing itself off "hard" from "cyberspace", the entire world would be involved in the conflict on one side or another. It would be by definition another "World War II" situation, nobody would really be neutral, and just kicking back watching the stuff go on uneffected. Even neutral countries have to tread on thin ice, and remaining neutral is not an easy thing when you border on other players who take a "your with us, or against us" attitude. Chances are nations like Canada would be wanting to shut themselves off too, and if they didn't have such a kill switch, they'd be asking their allies how to implement one ASAP.
Simply put I think most of the world will be cutting massive public communications technology. Even totally civil things like this site, or a game like "World Of Warcraft" can be used to pass information. Simply knowing what boats are in harbour can be valuable to an enemy power, and the goverment wants to make it as difficult as possible for that kind of information to be divulged. The US was massively paranoid during World War II, The Smithsonian has an entire section dedicated to propaganda and information control.
The bottom line is that I don't see this as being a big deal. It's nessicary, and not something your going to see used unless things have finally gotten ridiculously bad.
What's more I will also point out that for all criticisms claiming that the US is not the most free country in the world, we actually are. The very fact that things like this are an issue sort of makes that point. Truthfully most goverments, including the enlightened ones, wouldn't have to go through all of this to get it done. I'd actually be very surprised if many other countries don't already have such things, but their citizens don't know about them.
For example, angry Americans oftentimes go off about how great Canada is when they don't like some infringement of their freedoms. Some "studies" have even tried to say it's far more "Free" than the US. However back when I was taking Criminal Justice there were comparisons between the US and Canadian justice systems. While things might have changed in over a decade, simply put Canadians don't really have any civil liberties. In Canada law enforcement officials basically have a "blank warrent". Rather than like in the US where to get permission to search a house, or violate certain protections a cop has to go through a judge or other official, a Canadian equivilent can simply decide to give himself one. If it turns out he is wrong in pursueing whatever he's after he can get in trouble (depending on what happened) but for the most part the system is far more concerned about results than anything. Things like "reasonable cause", "fruit of the poisoned vine", chains of evidence, and search and seizure regulations are a lot looser for all intents and purposes if they really exist at all since most of them can be bypassed. Simply put it would not surprise me if Canada already has an "Internet Kill Switch" (as it's being called) and didn't bother to tell the average citizen, and if they did, I don't think there is much that could be done about it in a practical sense given fundements of Canadian law where one's rights are dependant on the will of the goverment, as opposed to being inherant to the people.
The above is a simple version (for those who have read this far) but when I was in school a lot was said comparing the US system to those of a few other countries like Britan and Canada. In the actual class things were a lot less judgemental than this sounds, because there are a lot of advantages to the way Canada does things. Their system and a lot of the ways the british do business actually represent a sort of middle ground between the US system and some kind of psycho-totalitarian hollywood nazi-type regime.
Yeah but... the rest of the world relies on that internet too...
Now, please set me straight if I am wrong, but it seems a little... unfair that America have that much power over global content...
Now, please set me straight if I am wrong, but it seems a little... unfair that America have that much power over global content...
All I can think about is the Team America theme song... Damn... America is great isn't it? We will soon control all of the internet, and our plans will be near complete.
