New Bill Gives Obama ‘Kill Switch’ To Shut Down The Internet

[KDOG]

Meh. This is why you don't live your life on the interweb folks...

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

This was already posted in OT. I'd like to point out that this is bullshit.

Similar legislation aimed at imposing Chinese-style censorship of the Internet and giving the state the power to shut down networks has already been passed globally, including in the UK, New Zealand and Australia.

 

[AreaCode707]

They've been reporting about this on NPR in the last week. The bill is a real thing. I don't know much more about it than that though. IIRC what it basically amounts to is the president being able to tell some of the bigger ISPs etc to shut down for the moment.

 

[werepossum]

Meh. I can't get too worked up about this "threat" to the Internet. If the government shut down the Internet for any length of time, people who couldn't even tell you who is president would be marching on Washington. (Granted, some of them would probably be marching on the WRONG Washington, but still.)

 

[sportage]

Internet shutdown?
**** SHIT ****
If that happens I might actually have to TALK to people (again)... WTF is up with that!

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Internet shutdown?
**** SHIT ****
If that happens I might actually have to TALK to people (again)... WTF is up with that!

What is it with this attitude that the internet is not useful for anything but pseudo socialization? An internet shut down would affect virtually everything in a modern day life. It would be hell.

 

[Elias824]

I think this was supposed to be in case of some type of cyber warfare like the Chinese have pretty much already been going at us with. Better to shut down the interwebz then and maybe prevent some damage.

 

[Patranus]

I think this might be a triple post.

 

[spidey07]

What is it with this attitude that the internet is not useful for anything but pseudo socialization? An internet shut down would affect virtually everything in a modern day life. It would be hell.

Not really. This has been discussed at my network security response and disaster recovery briefings and training.

"What would we do if the intarweb is gone?"

We have countermeasures if such happens and I design networks to take this into consideration. You forget that a whole shitload of communication happens over "private" networks.

Basically don't be too concerned if the intarweb stops talking, my job is to make sure that doesn't affect your core mission.

 

[halik]

How can one "shut down" the internet? AFAIK, we do not have a "National Firewall" to allow such and most (if not all) of the backbones / ISPs here are in private hands.

This, aren't only 2 of the root dns servers in the US?

 

[Rebel44]

This, aren't only 2 of the root dns servers in the US?

Correct.

USA can only shut down internet in USA.

 

[blackangst1]

Root servers are kind of irrelevant. ISP's cache DNS, sooooo. Also, there are several root DNS servers in the USA: http://www.root-servers.org/

Spidey eluded to it earlier, but basically the stop public internet BGP would need to be null routed at core providers (14 I believe now in the US). Private routing and VPN would not be affected.

 

[Rainsford]

This article is moronic. Giving the President authority to require ISPs to take specific actions is NOT the same as giving him a "kill switch" that will just shut down the entire Internet. There is very little reason to have that ability, and it's not what the bill says.

 

[Rainsford]

There are many ways to do it. The easiest would be to stop BGP (does all the routing) neighbors/sessions, this capability could easily be added to router software.

And I'm pretty sure this idea has been floated before for national security response. Imagine if a huge cyber attack was being launched against us and the best response would be to shut down the internet?

I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where that's the "best response". Unless a "huge cyber attack" targeted the entire US Internet (which would be almost impossible, and fairly silly, IMHO), it seems like at most the government might want to disconnect the target of the attack. And there are probably a lot of things they'd want to try before going to that extreme.

 

[blackangst1]

I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where that's the "best response". Unless a "huge cyber attack" targeted the entire US Internet (which would be almost impossible, and fairly silly, IMHO), it seems like at most the government might want to disconnect the target of the attack. And there are probably a lot of things they'd want to try before going to that extreme.

What if the target were DNS servers, or BGP peer routers? Then what? Its not THAT unplausable to make them targets.

edit: for some interesting reading, google the recent analysis of the Cyber ShockWave excercise. Cliffs? The USA is woefully unprepared for a large scale cyber attack. You can start here: http://www.darkreading.com/security/cybercrime/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222900775

 

[spidey07]

I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where that's the "best response". Unless a "huge cyber attack" targeted the entire US Internet (which would be almost impossible, and fairly silly, IMHO), it seems like at most the government might want to disconnect the target of the attack. And there are probably a lot of things they'd want to try before going to that extreme.

You cam indeed attack the entire Internet. Dns and bgp being the weakness along with other control protocols. It's a very valid concern.