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Internet Probably Couldn't Handle a Flu Pandemic
Several readers including mikael and gclef noted a report from the General Accountability Office suggesting that it should be Homeland Security's job to make sure the nation's business can flow during a pandemic. In particular, if H1N1 sends workers and schoolchildren home in large numbers, GAO thinks it might be a good idea for ISPs to prioritize traffic (favoring commerce over games, say), to reduce network speeds, and possibly to shut down high-traffic Web sites. DHS retorts that not only isn't it their job to control the Internet in this way, but the GAO is naive to believe it's even possible: "An expectation of unlimited Internet access during a pandemic is not realistic." "[DHS] does not even have a plan to start work on the issue, the General Accountability Office said. But the Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth. Experts have for years pointed to the potential problem of Internet access during a severe pandemic, which would be a unique kind of emergency. It would be global, affecting many areas at once, and would last for weeks or months... Many companies and government offices hope to keep operations going as much as possible with teleworking using the Internet. Among the many problems posed by this idea, however, is the issue of bandwidth..."
The actual report from the GAO is available here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d108.pdf
Seriously? Not even the IRS?
This is the GAO instigating. DHS slapped them down saying that not only is it not their job, it's probably not even possible.
Hello, did you RTFS? I'm no fan of DHS, but they ARE the ones saying that the GAO is on crack for even thinking about this idea, and that they aren't planning on doing anything.
For shame.
Neglecting your relationship like that.
You should be downloading porn together!
I would best describe my first-hand experience as a "laughably mild cold, without the annoyance of a stuffy nose"
You got lucky. I had it over the summer. Even having started Tamiflu within 24 hours of the first symptoms, it was a solid week of awfulness, followed by another week and a half of suckiness. I lost 8 pounds in the first four days. Extremely unpleasant. By far, the sickest I've been since scarlet fever.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
This is propaganda, disinfo, lies and bullshit.
They will take the net down to prevent uncontrolled information sharing and disclosure. They are prepping this under the framework established in The Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced by Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), last April. This gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president, according to a Mother Jones report.
Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, dismissed the entire premise of the Cybersecurity Act when she pointed out the fact that granting centralized power to the government to control networks would in fact make the stability of the Internet less safe, because allowing one person to access all information on a network "makes it more vulnerable to intruders," she said. "You've basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down."
enator John Rockefeller betrayed the true intent behind the legislation when he stated, "Would it have been better if we'd have never invented the Internet," while fearmongering about cyber attacks on the U.S. government and how the country could be shut down.
See him rave:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8PCmLPPVnA&feature=player_embedded
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Please mod this troll down. The H1N1 (at least in the united states) has a mortality rate between 0.007% and 0.045%. This is a HUGE difference between this and 1 or 2% (a difference in the tens of thousands per million).
Compare to 0.01% for seasonal flu.
He is fear mongering.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE58E6NZ20090916
Actually, the reason people were so concerned with H1N1 initially was because highly virulent strains of flu cause higher mortality rates among otherwise healthy people since their immune systems overreact to the virus (cytokine storms are fun!). That's what made the so-called "Spanish Influenza" epidemic in 1918 so deadly. If H1N1 triggered something similar, it would be extremely dangerous.
Fortunately, it doesn't.