Hell NO I don't favor an internet "off switch". If the government wants to keep it's networks safe from cyber attacks then let the Government Networks have THEIR OWN "off switch" to cut themselves off from the rest of the internet. If you ask me the only reason the government would want to have an internet off switch would be to keep the people of any given country from reporting what's really going on in that country to the rest of the world. If you control the flow of information/news then you control a lot of power, as we all know information is power.

For instance, if the government of Egypt decided it wanted to start murdering it's people en-mass or murder a certain ethnic group without the world finding out, here's what they would do...

1. Close the Borders. No-one in, no-one out. This would especially include people from foreign news agencies.

2. Control the Local Media. The news agencies in their own country will broadcast what-ever the government tells them to. Either they say what they're told or they lose their jobs...and possibly lives.

3. Shut Down All Communications. This includes jamming short-wave radio signals such as CB's and local broadcast towers. Shutting down or cutting off satellite and cell phone communications. This also includes The Internet.

Now they can freely mass murder who-ever they want, get any type of situation under control, and then when the dust settles they turn everything back on and feed the world what-ever bull sh!t story they cook up to explain what happened. Like maybe a new bio-terrorist attack with a new genetically designed plague that only targeted people with certain genes, such as those specific to a certain ethnic group.

I know the part there about the "genetic plague" sounds a little unrealistic and they'd probably think up a more logical excuse, but, from the advances in genetic manipulation we're making which is growing in leaps and bounds, viruses that could target only curtain races aren't necessarily that far off. There are already certain diseases that are race specific in the world. The only one I can really think of off the top of my head would be sickle cell anemia which to my knowledge only affects people with African heritage. Imagine though if something like that was manipulated until it turned into the next bubonic plague.

Analysts have already been talking about and planning for the first major "Bio-Terrorism Attack" for a while now with things like Anthrax and such. Honestly though, if some kind of "genetically advanced diseases" or "super-virus" were to hit us the first people I'd be looking at to blame would be our own government. To my knowledge the only two countries who's scientists are close to actually being able to do something like that are us and Japan and I don't see why the Japanese would want to hit us.

Aside from all that, there's plenty of other ways for the government to protect themselves from a cyber attack than by taking my internet away during an emergency. They can take their own networks and cut them off from the internet, as can important companies with sensitive information in their systems like military contractors. Not to mention that during such an attack, there could be plenty of people in the US who would be fighting back from their own home systems trying to attack the attackers. I know I for one have curtain...software...that if I detect an intrusion into my network I can trace it back and seriously mess up the person who's hacking my system...if I wanted to. Why would the government take people off-line who could be virtual cyber soldiers for them? There are plenty of great American hackers here who would gladly help serve their country in a situation like that, but without the internet they can't be of any help. It would be like taking a soldier's gun during a fight. I'd say that's a bad idea.

I have read many many posts from Doc and I am sure he would not link to anything malicious but old habits die hard or never die at all. My point was people trust Doc and some n00b is going to think any tinyurl is safe which they should be warned again and again how easy it is to click on a malicious site.

Fortunately, my Cyberdyne Systems Positronic Neural Net is unhackable by current human technology.

Skynet has no off switch.

 <---  This is doc. He is not "watching" nor "staring". He is "observing" (as in "diagnosing").

But when you can't use the internet because it has been attacked successfully, it'll be: "Why didn't the Government protect me like they're supposed to? Fire them all!".

Really?  <--- Starting "Observation" mode.

That is true. When you start attributing a hidden, conspirational motive as your first line of thinking is when doc starts being concerned.

Assuming a conspiracy first is as dangerous as assuming one doesn't exist. Conspirators win on both counts.

*becoming more and more concerned.

There's nothing to worry about. *Do you know a lie when you hear it?*  Actually, a more appropriate sentence is "There's nothing to worry about, but there is a lot to be concerned about."  Worrying is not usually productive, but being concerned is not a 24/7 job.  You might consider "being concerned about something" to be "targeted, productive, time-limited worrying".

Best regards,
Steven.

*becoming more and more concerned about Elementals and SoSE Forums.

Hmm? Wait a minute now, Doc. I didn't say the word "conspiracy" in my post once, not once.... *eyes Doc strangely*. Are you feeling a little paranoid, Doc? I think you're seeing conspiracies where you want to see conspiracies.

Also, I for one wouldn't be expecting them to have protected me from a cyber attack. If anything, I'd just be expecting them to attack the attacker and get me back my internet as fast as possible or better yet not to have taken it off to begin with. I can't fight the cyber terrorists and their conspiracies without the internet you know .

See, Doc. AlLanMandragoran here has the right idea.

Never trust the Government....NEVER.

You're projecting.

Confirmed.

Thanks for the human-readable link to the interesting article.

When I taught civics, one of the things I tried to get students to pay attention to was the names of bills. Adding "Internet Freedom" to the title is a classic bit of congressional spin control. Another good civics tip is to raise your level of concern when 'opposing' interest groups agree about a bill having problems. This one is riling up the ACLU, the EFF, and the Cato Institute; hardly bosom buddies, those crews...

So to re-answer the question in the thread title, I still think very poorly of those new 'emergency powers' being suggested. The bulk of the bill seems to make sense--we do need to invest more in infrastructure protection, including hiring more people to do the ongoing work of identifying and eliminating new hacking problems. What we don't need is yet another layer of executive branch authority that's largely insulated from judicial review.

Whenever you see Congress trying to grant new powers to the presidency, you need to think about the institution more than the current office holder--always consider how you'd think about those powers if the White House was held by someone you believe is likely to abuse them. I voted for Mr. Obama, but his kow-towing to the national security crowd has undermined my regard for him substantially. If I don't want him to have those 'targeted off switch' powers, I certainly don't want them in the hands of a true fan of the imperial presidency.

What's going to happen is a fragmented internet.  Nations and partners will have their own and chose when and how long to shut off access to others.  China and some European countries have already considered this and I am sure the Middle East bigwigs are looking at the option now.

No nation will let their internet access ability be terminated by another nation...when that happens it will crack.

But there is a flip side to this as related to the US the event of a massive cyber attack targeting industrial and military infrastructure, there might be a good practical reason to have an off switch.  I can see why it's being considered.

When your power grid, government networks, mass transit and satellite communications are targeted for destruction or sabotage through a malicious software attack, shutting it down with a kill switch is a practical choice.

I can certainly agree with that, especially if we had another Cheney around. However, the need for defense of the net (hard structures and software) is clearly needed.

What would you propose?

Well, from my comfy spot in the peanut gallery, I'd say that a gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure.

Invest in hardening defenses and putting more qualified cops on the net beat. Choose a federal department to lead coordination efforts within the executive branch, among the states, with primary infrastructure orgs like utilities and hospitals, and with crucial private sector entities like the backbone providers.

I'm not handy with sports metaphors, but it seems almost like an analog to a 'best defense is a strong offense' situation. Or maybe I'm just struggling to avoid an over-used buzzword and what I'm really thinking of is a 'proactive defense' strategy. If a situation gets bad enough for executive fiat to shut down large sections of the net, it's already a failure?