Should government have control over internet in an emergency ?

[Jack Flash]

Originally posted by: JS80
Absofuckinglutely not. When the revolution comes the internet will play a critical role in organizing against the government.

Of course we won't need a revolution as soon as your candidate of choice, whoever that may be, is elected. :roll:

 

[GenHoth]

No way

 

[JFoobar]

Originally posted by: AreaCode707
That is true. However, the responsibility lies with businesses and individuals. If your data is critical, have it backed up and safely away from the net. The government bears no responsibility, and therefore should bear no rights, on non-government-owned data.

Having someone held responsibile later will be fairly small comfort to people who lose power for weeks on end, or suffer a massive reduction in available medical services. Its not just "businesses" and its not just businesses whose networks are not absolutely critical to our social structure, economy, etc.

Of course, that's the problem. The powers under discussion are about risk mitigation. They should be focusing at least as much energy on vulnerability reduction.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Atheus
It's impossible to control the internet. Or at least completely infeasable.

This.

 

[daishi5]

What in the world would the do?

You can't just "take control" of the internet, you need to do planning, coding, it all depends on what they want. They could only throw pre-planned things into place, they can't react with any meaningful speed. Horrible idea.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: daishi5
What in the world would the do?

You can't just "take control" of the internet, you need to do planning, coding, it all depends on what they want. They could only throw pre-planned things into place, they can't react with any meaningful speed. Horrible idea.

Actually the could if they truly wanted to.It would take a lot of cooperation with ISP but it can be done. Just transferring all DNS control would have a major impact. Most people don't know ip numbers for sites.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: daishi5
What in the world would the do?

You can't just "take control" of the internet, you need to do planning, coding, it all depends on what they want. They could only throw pre-planned things into place, they can't react with any meaningful speed. Horrible idea.

Actually the could if they truly wanted to.It would take a lot of cooperation with ISP but it can be done. Just transferring all DNS control would have a major impact. Most people don't know ip numbers for sites.

And how would they control proxies and VPN?

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: daishi5
What in the world would the do?

You can't just "take control" of the internet, you need to do planning, coding, it all depends on what they want. They could only throw pre-planned things into place, they can't react with any meaningful speed. Horrible idea.

Actually the could if they truly wanted to.It would take a lot of cooperation with ISP but it can be done. Just transferring all DNS control would have a major impact. Most people don't know ip numbers for sites.

And how would they control proxies and VPN?

It wouldn't unless you didn't have the ip of the address you were connecting to, then you would need DNS. But the amount of people using VPN is tiny compared to the masses.

I think DNS would be the easiest target. You could re-direct anyone to any site you wanted.

 

[AreaCode707]

Originally posted by: JFoobar

Originally posted by: AreaCode707
That is true. However, the responsibility lies with businesses and individuals. If your data is critical, have it backed up and safely away from the net. The government bears no responsibility, and therefore should bear no rights, on non-government-owned data.

Having someone held responsibile later will be fairly small comfort to people who lose power for weeks on end, or suffer a massive reduction in available medical services. Its not just "businesses" and its not just businesses whose networks are not absolutely critical to our social structure, economy, etc.

Of course, that's the problem. The powers under discussion are about risk mitigation. They should be focusing at least as much energy on vulnerability reduction.

So you add regulation about data handling and backups for critical companies and perform audits. Solves the problem without handing the government power over the information that exists online, thereby avoiding issues around privacy and restricting the free flow of information.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Atheus
It's impossible to control the internet. Or at least completely infeasable.

Wrong. The internet is provided to the user through service providers. Government just has to own the service provider and control the hardware that they connect to our computers through their end of our data line.

AT&T already splits all traffic on their network over to government computers for processing.

 

[babylon5]

Even Russia/China goes "Come Onnnnn!!"

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: Atheus
It's impossible to control the internet. Or at least completely infeasable.

Wrong. The internet is provided to the user through service providers. Government just has to own the service provider and control the hardware that they connect to our computers through their end of our data line.

AT&T already splits all traffic on their network over to government computers for processing.

No, they dont.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: I Saw OJ
Hell fucking no.

What are these Senators smoking?

Power.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash

Originally posted by: Genx87
The one medium that may be able to debate and spread the word about a govt crackdown taken over by the govt that may be doing the crack down?

No thanks!

You think that if that were ever to come to pass the Internet wouldn't already be down?

If it were already down then why would the govt need to take control of it?

 

[Cogman]

This is probably the worst idea I've ever heard, it just reeks of power abuse. What next, should we give the president the right to shut down all libraries in the nation and to halt all book reading, just in case there is an information crisis? This is a horrible law, There is no way just shutting down the internet is going to somehow save the US. This isn't hollywood, people don't take 20 mins to upload a virus into our missile silos that we could somehow prevent in a death defying leap to save the world.

Even if there where some sort of real danger, by the time the president hears about it, it would be too late to act. Computers are freaking fast, our reaction time is nothing compared to a modern processor. (even a 10 year old processor)

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
AT&T already splits all traffic on their network over to government computers for processing.

No, they dont.

AT&T gave feds access to all Web, phone traffic. Perhaps you have an issue with the semantics of my statement, in which case I'll refer to you the link instead.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
No thanks, this sounds like a horrible idea. Maybe if they could provide us with a couple legitimate reasons for this authority (something less vague than "cyber-Katrina," what the fuck is that?), but I doubt there's any reason convincing enough for me to change my mind.

Massive Virus/Worm/etc Attack. Could happen and it could be more than just some pimply faced Teen. I don't think this should be rejected so easily. It's best to at least have some kind of Process in place, just in case.

I just don't understand the point of some of the other powers outlined in the bill, for example the ability to monitor networks. Why is this necessary? Just sounds like a power grab to me.

And I think companies are perfectly capable of managing their own networks in the event of a catastrophe. If there was a bad enough attack that threatened the health of the internet, ISPs would obviously do what is necessary to ensure the service continues to function, the government doesn't need to get involved.

 

[eilute]

Government is not fit to control the Internet, cyber-Katrina or no cyber-Katrina. I'd rather see private industry and the open source community tackle the so-called threat.

 

[Moonbeam]

Not control! Anything but CONTROL. I was murdered by my parents when they had total control. Please oh please, anything but control. I can never trust anybody again. The more control I feel in my life, the more I start to remember. I can't allow that. Revolution and Apocalypse before control. Chaos and disaster.......

 

[AreaCode707]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Not control! Anything but CONTROL. I was murdered by my parents when they had total control. Please oh please, anything but control. I can never trust anybody again. The more control I feel in my life, the more I start to remember. I can't allow that. Revolution and Apocalypse before control. Chaos and disaster.......

Parents: human beings who are (usually) biologically and socially driven to provide the very best for their offspring, with whom they have formed deep personal bonds and whose life and circumstances they observe daily.
Government: dysfunctional body of mostly white, older men who have their own best interest at heart and make all sweeping decisions with limited visibility and understanding and have their decisions applied impersonally with little or no consideration for circumstance

I see a bit of a difference.

 

[3chordcharlie]

This would be ridiculous.

If the government feels they need to 'cut the hard lines' for emergency reasons - such as an advanced cybernetic war machine hacking sector-7 files which are classified above top secret, during a lightning quick raid of a military base in Iraq - they are free to unplug the ol' Linksys, and take the afternoon off.

 

[seemingly random]

Some of the posts here infer that there is no monitoring as we 'speak'. This is a fallacy.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: seemingly random
Some of the posts here infer that there is no monitoring as we 'speak'. This is a fallacy.

Fair enough, but it's not like we need to legitimize the current monitoring by passing more laws that allows it. That's what I call a step backward.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: seemingly random
Some of the posts here infer that there is no monitoring as we 'speak'. This is a fallacy.

Fair enough, but it's not like we need to legitimize the current monitoring by passing more laws that allows it. That's what I call a step backward.

Yes. I've been wondering about this for a few hours now. On the surface, all of these things can be done under existing emergency or war-powers rules. So I have to wonder what's under the surface.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: Atheus
It's impossible to control the internet. Or at least completely infeasable.

Wrong. The internet is provided to the user through service providers. Government just has to own the service provider and control the hardware that they connect to our computers through their end of our data line.

AT&T already splits all traffic on their network over to government computers for processing.

you have no clue.......why you spreading out and ot lies??