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

Published on February 1, 2011 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

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

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

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

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

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

Comments (Page 14)

196

DrJBHL

on Feb 26, 2011

Scoutdog

reply 195

I would just ignore the birther.

But I agree that putting this kind of power in the hands of the President (any President) while the American political system continues to elect the people it does would be a bad idea. The only thing worse would be ceding the off switch directly to the Pentagon.

That's another reason I support individual agency isolation switches- to really "shut down" the internet, a LOT of people have to collude, but in the event of an attack on just one agency or corporation, they can protect themselves without waiting for some distant authority to push the button.

The 'agencies' aren't under attack (altho that has happened in Canada and they were penetrated). The method attacks the entire net itself.

There has to be a way to protect it. Maybe a 'shadow' net is the only way, but I'd hope there would be a way short of that (HUGE bucks).

197

Scoutdog

on Feb 26, 2011

The 'agencies' aren't under attack (altho that has happened in Canada and they were penetrated). The method attacks the entire net itself.

That makes sense. But either way, you lose internet communications ability, whether you kill the thing yourself or let the hackers do it for you. So ultimately, the off-switch is kind of useless. I suppose that it might be advisable to bring the net down under controlled circumstances so that it's easier to bring back up again, but I think the telecoms themselves would be better equipped to decide when and how to do that than the Executive/Military branches.

(I know that the military is nominally part of the executive branch. Don't bother me about that.)

198

Dr Guy

on Mar 01, 2011

Hankers

reply 111

What the media fails to tell you is WHY western journalists keep getting attacked
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to attack any media person whether they are from the Eastern - Middle Eastern - or Western.

Agreed - Ignore them? Mock them? Belittle them? Sure! Many are too stupid to believe in any event. But if stupidity was a capital crime, there would not be many people left on the planet.

199

Dr Guy

on Mar 01, 2011

DrJBHL

reply 154

Back to topic.

The "Kill Bill" (sorry, but I couldn't resist that one ) has been revamped.

A detailed article about that here: http://tinyurl.com/4zao5ta

Sorry, still a no go for me. The object is to not give power to politicians. It will always be abused.

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