Slashdot Mirror
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..."
In event of contagious diseases, we will quarantine everyone to their houses. Then we will shut off all your ability to play online games.
God spoke to me.
Can't we get rid of the DHS yet? I don't think there's one government organization I like less.
Isn't traffic usually higher during business days than during the weekends? If so, during a pandemic I'd expect lower traffic, not higher. Especially since people, you know, being sick don't really feel like browsing...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Really, I do. Between flash games, surfing blogs, spamming "random page" on Wikipedia, and actual honest-to-goodness work, I use far more bandwidth at work than I do at home, where I mostly just play WoW and read a few blogs.
Unless the wife isn't home. Then I burn a hole in my wall downloading porn.
I can see the fnords!
Raise your hand if this sounds like something you WANT the department of homeland security to be worrying about.
[crickets]
That's what I thought.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
In other news, Comcast has effectively convinced the GAO that traffic shaping is now a good thing.
The actual report from the GAO is available here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d108.pdf
So H1N1 is really a genetically-engineered virus made by Lucent Technologies at the behest of the big telecom/cable cabal to be not quite deadly, but bad enough to send everyone at home for a couple weeks. When everyone fires up their connections for torrents, MMOs, and "internet research" (porn), it gives the bought-and-paid-for congress the perfect excuse to shoot down FCC network neutrality rules and allow telcom/cable to throttle connections and shape traffic, thus ensuring people can order their fleshlights and Sex and the City box sets at the expense of WOW players and pirates looking for movies to watch while they're laying in bed for days at a time. It's so simple it's brilliant!
The people trying to push anti-net-neutrality agendas will use whatever scare tactic is currently in the media. In 2001 it would have been "we need to prioritize traffic to aid rescue workers," during Katrina it would have been "We don't have bandwidth to reliably allow everyone free access while still being able to coordinate aid in Lousiana," now it's this, and tomorrow it will be "we can't reliably fight aliens/robot armies unless people are taxed for visiting sites that we don't approve of."
or else!
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..."