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Senate Panel Approves Cybersecurity Bill
GovTechGuy writes "A Senate Committee approved a bill that would give the president an emergency 'kill switch' over the Internet, but added some restrictions to the bill. The president may no longer simply assert that the threat remains indefinitely, he must now seek Congressional approval after 120 days. Still, privacy advocates are concerned about the government's ability to shut down private networks. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) 'said she was disappointed to read reports that the bill gives the White House a "kill switch" for the Internet, an authority she says the president already has under a little-known clause in the Communications Act passed one month after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. ... Collins [argued] the new bill actually circumscribes the president's existing authority and puts controls on its use.'"
Damn you Americans and your self-important exceptionalism.
Wait a minute, is this the USA or North Korea I'm living in?
And that's saying something. It won't even kill the internet anyway, just a large chunk of it (ie some backbone stuff, not all). It will be an inconveniance, but life will go on. God damn it, fucking america.
Could someone please explain how this would actually work in practice? There isn't a single point that all internet traffic goes through, so how exactly would they achieve this? What about dial up and such?
Joe Lieberman is a republican mole in the Democratic party. This much should be obvious from everything that he has done so far, his stance on the health insurance is a good example.
Remember, he is the guy who wants to spend about 187 million to upgrade the Secret Service systems/hardware (pork belly spending obviously), and now he is the guy who came up with this 'Cybersecurity Bill'.
Obviously this has nothing to do with any cybersecurity, the politicians will approve it, whether republicans or democrats, so that they have a way to kill dissenting opinions and news that the Internet allows to spread around. One of the arguments Lieberman gave for this is that China can do it so USA should also be able to. Does USA want to follow China in terms of treating the dissent, the freedom of press, the freedom in general? I guess now, that everything else is made in China this is just the next logical step - import their governing principles as well (at this point it doesn't seem that much needs to be imported anyway).
You can't handle the truth.
Say what? I think you are mistaken. Certainly, nothing in the Constitution seems to give the President that power.
Although, of course, the government simply ignores the Constitution all the time.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
For most people, it's the possibility part that bothers them.
Removing knee-jerk reactions and looking at this objectively, I can understand why the government would need the power to do this...but with all the public attention they've been giving to "cybersecurity" lately, I can completely understand why this makes people very nervous.
Of course, the most common argument (one which I agree with) is why are mission critical systems accessable from the "normal" Internet in the first place? Why aren't they built on an entirely seperate network that sees zero interaction with the "public" Internet, like something akin to a CCTV system?
Living With a Nerd
Who decides how dire is dire enough?
...as if the U.S. Government actually follows the Constitution anyway. (I'm lookin' at you, 10th Amendment) I have little faith that anything can really hold the U.S. federal government back from doing whatever the heck it wants to do.
I hope to god they install another big button in his desks - right next to the nuke button and the strippers button.
The president does not have the power to suspend the constitution , the president does have the power to suspend habeus corpus during rebellion or invasion where public safety may require it. In ex parte milligan supreme court said
that civilians could not be tried by military courts when civilian courts were functioning
I have the Internet on my computer, have had since 1995.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
The President also has the power to suspend the Constitution, something that has never happened though several wars. Things would have to get very dire before either of these events would be triggered.
So it's OK then?
The president may no longer simply assert that the threat remains indefinitely, he must now seek Congressional approval after 120 days
President to Congress: "Look I sent you guys an email asking to extend the Internet being turned off, and nobody responded!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Joe Lieberman is a republican mole in the Democratic party.
Progressive blogs and forums have a word for him: DINOSAUR. It stands for "Democrat in name only, sorry-ass undercover Republican".
I'm probably crusin' for a brusin' by saying this, but there probably should be some form of last defense for computer systems throughout the nation. In the event of a highly-destructive fast-spreading virus, being able to shut off all connection at the ISP level would buy enough time for security researchers to find a way to negate the threat.
That said, I have qualms about the implementation. Some proposals:
1) The killswitch needs to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Either all ISPs are mandated to shut down or none. The economic magnitude of such a decision would force any internet shutdown to be only used in the face of an even worse threat.
2) The requirements for activating the shutdown need to be more specific than "an emergency." Japan was able to spend itself into debt by repeated use of "emergency" spending. The requirements for a shutdown of the internet should be a clear and widespread danger to computer systems.
3) 120 days is far too long of a time to have before the decision should come up for review. Four months without computer-to-computer communication that has become integral to the economy is far to long to be granted without oversight.
I have not yet had a chance to read the PROPOSED bill. Note that this story is about the bill making it out of committee, not becoming law. Does anyone have a link to the text of the proposed bill?
Yeap, this means it's time to get a hard copy of the entire internet so we can just keep surfing in offline mode.
-=JML=-
Obviously the simplest way to implement such a 'feature' is to go after the ISPs, set some sort of a coordination framework among the ISPs, mandate that those ISPs set up a bunch of new hardware/software/whatever it takes to cut out subnets/IP addresses/entire cables from the rest of the Internet. This is not going to improve the democracy of the country of-course, but that's the point, remove the dissenting voices, and of-course the motives are as always 'pure' - there is a cyberwar going, didn't you know? USA was always in this cyberwar. Just like it was always in the drug war and what seems like a never ending war in Afghanistan.
As always a bunch of people stand to make a bunch of money from such endeavors, and in this case there is also the nice side-effect of making it easier for politicians to lie and to get away with the lies, why with all the power over the networks it would be very easy to declare a state of emergency.
And so what that the bill will limit the amount of time that the President would be able to shut portions of the Internet down? Once this bill passes, it would be easy to amend it or simply to use Presidential order/signature/whatever it takes to continue the portions of the Internet from ever being activated back again.
The cyberwar is like the war on drugs, like the war with terrorism, war on obesity, whatever never-ending war that the government likes to be in. It will never end and you cannot see it and cannot even prove that there is or there isn't a war and if you say anything otherwise you are a terrorist.
Just you wait until they combine the cybersecurity bill with some patriot act/anti-terrorism bill. Ever wondered how do politicians tolerate all of those dissenting opinions, all of those facts to come out through the Internet? Well, they've been thinking and it's a multi-step approach and it's being implemented right now. Soon enough anybody could go to Gitmo on some terrorism charge related to the cybersecurity charge and multiply that by the patriot act and add rendition to it and soon enough you'll be wondering, where is that guy, named Cenk Uygur, where did Rachel Maddow go and what the heck happened to that dude from comedy central, what was his name, Jon Stewart was it?
Maybe it's still a bit far-fetched, but they are moving in this direction.
I guess the actual way to fight it could be learned from those Russian operated bot-nets, once the information is outlawed, only the outlaws will have the information? That's what it's coming to and at the hands of people like Joe Lieberman, don't forget it, but just wait and see who ends up voting for it and how the White House stands on the issue.
You can't handle the truth.
When I hear people spout claptrap like this, I weep for our public education system. Did you go to public school? Your civics teacher let you down very badly.
I encourage you to read the Constitution. It's not a complete picture of American jurisprudence, but it's a great start. It's also not terribly long, or terribly difficult, and you can easily find read-along guides that will tell you a little bit about what it means.
Good luck.
is neccessary it will never happen if this passses fuck this country im leaving first my health care then thi eventually they everyone will hit a breaking poin this is mine internet is the only honest no agenda press it instantnews and is the last thing keeping the government in any kind of check. if they can turn off there enemy it becomes 1984....where they control all outlets and just feed you lies call me paranoid but the reason orwell commentated on it is because its what governments do so ya fail us govt healthcare passes maybe the democrts will do this as they go down in flames.
Removing knee-jerk reactions and looking at it objectively when it comes to pulling the plug would be nice, but someone will without thought.
Sic Semper MicroSoft
I thought that the whole point of the internet was that it would continue after a significant part was switched off or bombed away. So this will not stop any foreign groups from communicating and the USA is effectively plugging its fingers in its ears when this law is used.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
It seems to me that 120 days before needing approval from Congress is about 113 days too long. Maybe 118 days too long. Assuming the President had a valid reason to use this power, it's reasonable to think that Congress would approve similarly. The internet is pretty fricking important, and it's hard to imagine it going away for four months.
Also, of course, shutting down the major pipes won't make the internet disappear, it will just send it back to the Dark Ages of the early 1990s, when people manually connected their computers together and the routing software took care of the rest. Maybe IRC would see a comeback.
A new Disney flick leaked - if not stopped immediately that could cause irreparable hard to the entertainment economy.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Your sort has always been just about to leave, and you always will be.
Out of interest, where do you imagine would have you?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is the change Obama promised us ? As usual, the American government does what it can do to preserve the status quo at the expense of the population at large. "You suckers get out of line and we'll stop (or spy on) your communications". I hope this works as well as it did in Iran when they tried to shut them down during a near revolution.
The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.3480 -- really though, there should be a law, or at least a "best practice" requiring that bill numbers be reported in print and links to Thomas be report in on-line journalism. They stupid article linked in the /. summary didn't even give the name of the bill. I had to find it searching for the 3 co-sponsors, plus the Senate committee name. And then, it was one of 11 results. This is why people are uninformed, even when they're not lazy.
Michelle: Are you coming to bed?
Barrak: I can't. This is important.
Michelle: What?
Barrak: Someone is wrong on the Internet.
Michelle: Oh, for the love of-- {pushes button}
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I'll be putting a satellite dish (hidden) in my garden, where Google maps can't see it, and subscribe to my Indian, Chinese, or Iranian internet provider.
Well, no, actually. If you'd RTFA -- or even the summary -- you'd see that this bill reduces a power that the POTUS has had since the early 1940s.
So it was a long time ago this, then recently health care.
So calm down and take your meds; they may improve your ability to put together something resembling coherent written English.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Skynet's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness.
It's called the patriot act....
They do, for the most part, and for most of the agencies (DOD, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc...). They have redundant network capabilities served both by wired and wireless means (micro-wave and satellite transmission capabilities). The "business" apps at those agencies do not necessarily have a private network. The terminals that serve you the internet at a great many of these agencies also have access to these other applications that interact with the "shadow" networks. Also, the same network providers that provide you and me with our "pipe" (AT&T, Verizon, Quest, etc...) also provide the "pipes" to the other, "shadow" networks. Should the systems at those installations become targets for malicious assault, then it could shut down entire sectors of the economy. The NASDAQ is one such "highly available" system that could be harmed, even though they have their own network. The financial networks that carry SWIFT, Cirrus, Visa, and ATM transactions would be susceptible even though they are on private networks. I'm not sure how turning "off" the internet will help. Wouldn't removing access to the internet have the same effect as a DDOS attack? The outcomes are the same aren't they (i.e. loss of connectivity)? The real goal of cyber attack is either one or both of the following:
Gain Access
Deny Access
If I were a cyber-assassin bent on disabling large networks for the purpose of disrupting an economy, I now would have two tactics available to me. I could launch my DDOS against a financial network or sufficiently large commercial target and hope to disrupt their capabilities. The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
They always say they love freedom and liberties. "Freedom is what makes America great so we try to liberate countries under tyranny" hahahaha yeah sure, stop killing our freedoms then!. America is starting to look more and more like nazi Germany. History repeats itself.
How much of the voice network goes across the internet now?
How many companies most if not all their business on the internet?
How much do the airlines depend on the internet? The ticketing counters have terminals that access some database housed in some data center. If you are traveling you could be stuck where ever you are at. Hell, how is all the flight information shared between the airports? I doubt that the FAA has a separate isolated network.
How much of the trading on the stock markets are done on the internet?
Go to the store and try to buy something with a credit or debit card. Your cards are verified across the internet.
Go to the bank and try to get your money out. Does the local branch of your bank have your account information? Or is that information stored in some data center that is accessed via the internet?
I could go on and on with examples. It is amazing how within the past 10 years the internet has become such an integral part of our daily lives. Just the other day, I tried to explain to my daughter that when I was growing up, most people had not even heard of the internet and you were lucking if your school had a computer. She just could not understand how we did things with out computers and access to the internet.
I would be interested in hearing from an economist on what the economic impact(both US & Global) would be if the internet was shut down for a day, a week, a month, etc.
Woah. Take a breath. The Shift key is to the left and there's another one to the right. Punctuation improves communication.
Otherwise, I agree with the title. I can find no situation where shutting down interns is acceptable.
I nominate Courage Wolf
which is totally what she said
What about news from non-American sites? Are they going to implement the Great Firewall of the USA too?
which is totally what she said
Who decides how dire is dire enough?
Mark Knopfler, obviously.
Let's say this was used, wouldn't it cause such an economic loss that pretty much every country would consider the US a terrorist state and guarantee a war against the US? Unless of course it simply isolates the US and leaves everyone else all happy...
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
The passing of this bill will be the end of the internet and the end of all free speech on the internet. The US government will be able to determine what is or isn't dangerous enough to shut off the internet. In my honest opinion it's just ridiculous to give something as important as the internet BACK to the government. They had the internet and gave it to corporations and this is what lead to the internet as we know it, and now they want to go back to how it was?
No virus, no worm, is so much of a threat that we'd have to shut off the internet. And to shut off the internet is probably even worse than any of the danger any worm could cause. I suppose they want to rush this bill through because of the wikileaks situation because I don't understand why it's being rushed without any debate or obvious need for it. What is the reason for this?
When you talk about destructive viruses this could be a way to stop destructive memes (mind viruses) from spreading. This seems to be about information control and I'm definitely against that and all forms of censorship. If something is so dangerous and so much of a secret that we'd have to shut down the entire internet to keep it from spreading, or if an idea really is so destructive that its better to shut the internet off, the kill switch in all likelyhood is going to cause more harm than any possible website, worm, virus or whatever the excuse is.
If they want to shut off the internet they should shut off THEIR internet, not OUR internet. This is like shutting off our lights, or shutting off the TV and radio, or shutting off all communications in the country to prevent a terrorist attack. If the government is going to jam civilian communications it's essentially terrorizing the country to protect the country from terrorism.
So no it's a horrible idea. Whether you are a nazi or not, banning their websites is wrong. Banning books is wrong. Are we going to go back to the dark ages?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Since you understand why the government would need the power to do this can you explain it to me? If a company is compromised, either the company or the the upstream provider could yank it offline. In most cases the upstream also has an upstream, all the way to the backbone connections.
Wouldn't it be better for the administration to simply communicate with the backbone providers? If the backbone is compromised, they should have their own kill switches - or else the governmnet can't order them to do anything anyway. I don't see what this adds, the ability is already in here.
If the administration calls up a backbone and says there is a cyberattack going on and you need to shut things down, let's think about what this means. The administrative arm of the governmnet knows something is happening and the backbone has NO IDEA? That's not possible. The backbone would learn via SANS or CERT or whatever else just like the backbone would, and if the gov knows before the backbone there is serious mismanagement going on.
Shutting it down would become a goal for the terrorists. Let's MAKE THEM TURN OFF THEIR OWN INTERNET. It worked with the WTC attacks, they hate our freedoms so we took them away ourselves. This will be no different. To turn it up to 11, anyone who is for this law is helping terrorists and qualifies for treason.
Absolutely false. Please point to the provision that allows the suspension of the Constitution.
Unless of course you're being facetious and suggesting that the Patriot Act is an unconstitutional act, which I can't really argue.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Why would they only shut down the internet? They aren't talking about shutting off radio, telephone, or TV. It's only the internet because the internet is the last free speech zone left in this world. To shut down the internet for any reason is to kill free speech, I cannot think of any logical reason where shutting down the internet makes sense.
A civil war situation? even if there were a civil war we'd need open communication just to know whats going on and whos winning. Who exactly benefits if theres no communication? The citizens certainly wont. And I'm talking the ordinary citizens here not the slashdot types who are sophisticated enough to figure out how to communicate by radio or other devices. Shutting down the internet hurts individuals who get all their news, all their information and do all their communications on the internet.
Honestly most of us would rather take a virus than shut down our computer.
This is like the talk of martial law and plans to build camps. Shutting down the internet will trigger so much chaos that there would be riots in the streets. To shut off the internet for MONTHS would create more chaos than 911, more chaos than Katrina, it would be like a blackout that lasts for a month where the majority of young people wont know how to communicate with their friends and family. They wont know how to get their news. They'll be confused and will accept news from random sources.
Also theres no talk about shutting off the TV, or the phone or government censored access points for information. This idea seems political and I doubt Google, Microsoft or any internet company thinks this is a good idea. This is going to lead to something bad.
You're forgetting another quite important reason for cyber attack:
...
Data Theft or Data Compromise
Shutting down access to NASDAQ for a few hours would be pretty catastrophic, no doubt. Imagine for a moment, however, if an attack were able to manipulate the data, corrupt it, trace sources for transactions, gain access to corporate bank accounts, file transactions through NASDAQ credentials
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
If you care about information continuing to flow if/when the TCP/IP networks are shut down, maybe you should look into setting yourself up as a UUCP node and making peering arrangements? Remember how UUCP mail and news worked? It was a bit like telephone-based bit torrent. It was completely decentralized. As long as you could set up a phone connection with your nearest peers, the data would flow.
I've been on the internet for a long time and I've seen all sorts of hackers. I've never met any of these E-Terrorists. Everybody who is anybody knows how to function in the real world. Cyberspace is only used as a communication tool and if the USA were to shut down the internet the criminals and terrorists, along with the majority of hackers and smart people would just go to another network and on top of that it would be something decentralized and it would be something spontaneous.
Shutting down the internet would trigger immediate chaos for everyone else. If you don't know what packet radio, or about communication technology in general, and if you think that facebook and twitter is how to get your news, when the internet is shut off you'll have no way to communicate for months at a time. You wont be able to talk to your friends, you won't be able to talk to some of your family members, you wont be able to access the news, you won't be able to do any of that for an entire month.
Individuals who know how to use radio will set up an antenna in their backyard or buy a shortwave radio and will be fine, but you'll be confused as hell. And sure the government can jam the radio and everything else along with shutting off the internet and smart people will use pigeons, lasers, and other more unorthodox methods to communicate. This sort of situation would really separate the men from the boys on a technical level but it would put the majority in chaos because the majority has no technical understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and no understanding of how the internet works.
Terrible idea. I'm not surprised Lieberman thought it up.
You are saying they could pass a law to close off the electromagnetic spectrum and shut down all communication in this country? That would put us back into the dark ages, and I can't see how anything the terrorists could do could be worse than that.
Mark Knopfler, obviously.
I don't know, I heard that the DoHC has him on a watch list. Rumor has it something about Arab ties.
Give a situation where shutting off the internet would improve national security? I cannot think of any situation where it would influence national security. All the essential functions should be kept off the internet. All the functions on the internet shouldn't be essential for national security. As far as I know mission critical networks are not accessible from the normal internet. Anybody telling you it is, is using that as an excuse to pass ridiculous laws.
It's not in the public interest to shut off the internet just like it's not in the public interest to ban books. It promotes ignorance. When people are ignorant they cannot make wise decisions and don't know how to act. If they get their news and form their opinions on the internet, shutting off the internet is one of the worst things you can do.
Imagine if you had a month where you cannot access the internet. How would you get your news? How would you contact your friends? How would you do your research and form your opinions?
If they want to put a "kill switch" on the main connections; then I :-) Like the
thinks it's time that all these home wireless ROUTERS were reprogrammed
to interconnect and route around the "killed" connections.
old quote "Censorship is just another routing problem".
They do, for the most part, and for most of the agencies (DOD, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc...). They have redundant network capabilities served both by wired and wireless means (micro-wave and satellite transmission capabilities). The "business" apps at those agencies do not necessarily have a private network. The terminals that serve you the internet at a great many of these agencies also have access to these other applications that interact with the "shadow" networks. Also, the same network providers that provide you and me with our "pipe" (AT&T, Verizon, Quest, etc...) also provide the "pipes" to the other, "shadow" networks. Should the systems at those installations become targets for malicious assault, then it could shut down entire sectors of the economy. The NASDAQ is one such "highly available" system that could be harmed, even though they have their own network. The financial networks that carry SWIFT, Cirrus, Visa, and ATM transactions would be susceptible even though they are on private networks. I'm not sure how turning "off" the internet will help. Wouldn't removing access to the internet have the same effect as a DDOS attack? The outcomes are the same aren't they (i.e. loss of connectivity)? The real goal of cyber attack is either one or both of the following:
Gain Access
Deny Access
If I were a cyber-assassin bent on disabling large networks for the purpose of disrupting an economy, I now would have two tactics available to me. I could launch my DDOS against a financial network or sufficiently large commercial target and hope to disrupt their capabilities. The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
There is a higher probability of terrorists robbing Fort Knox than the probability of terrorists hacking the shadow networks and NASDAQ. The amount of security is so ridiculous that most terrorists would be killed or arrested before they can even attempt it. The idea of terrorists targeting NASDAQ is completely ridiculous but even if somehow they managed to gain physical access to these computers they'd still have a very difficult time. It's not going to be as simple as writing a script, or worm, it's going to have to be a hell of a lot more sophisticated than that.
Sure it could be done, but theres no organizations or individuals around today who can do it. Maybe if NASDAQ where hacked a few times then we could talk about the need for this.
FEMA can, and many parts of it can be (illegally, IMHO) by executive order.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
If they have basic knowledge of information security it wouldn't be possible to do all that. Sure they might get physical access to the machine, but to actually manipulate data on it, corrupt it, trace sources and gain access to bank accounts? Now you are getting ridiculous, as ridiculous as expecting hackers to steal the nuclear codes and launch nukes.
FEMA can, and many parts of it can be (illegally, IMHO) by executive order.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Have any of you actually done your research to find out what the laws are if theres no Constitution? Or is it the law of the gun?
You have alternatives to the internet which involve the use of radio. You can communicate very well over the radio. You can send email, you can browse websites, you can do all of that. It's not necessarily going to be as fast but it depends on the power of your antennas.
You can communicate via laser, via microwave, and theres probably other ways I don't know about.
If the internet goes down a spontaneous network will replace it probably overnight.
If a patient is undergoing telesurgery, that "kill switch" could turn out to be aptly named.
I'm tired of, "Well, it could be worse," being the norm for the US government.
From the summary "he must now seek Congressional approval after 120 days" So it's ok! It'll be just like the War Powers Resolution of 1973, where the President has to notify congress of any military action within 48 hours and can't leave troops in theater for more than 90 days(60 days up front, 30 to withdraw) without Congressional Authorization(a declaration of war). That's worked out pretty well so far...
Unliterate? I did not know Jesse Jackson said that. I need to compile a list of intellect-jabs that reverse on the attacker like that. Love em. This one ranks up there with those who type "your stupid"
Those have nothing to do with the Patriot Act. But you're right, they are pretty scary.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
it seems like voice communications would be shut down for a number of people as well. My home phone is VOIP through my ISP...
US public school civics class!?
Didn't they stop teaching civics in the US public schools starting in the 1960's?
The last time I checked a few years ago they were only teaching a dumbed down version of a US Constitution class in 8th grade. 8th graders are expected to memorise the answers to a US Constitution test in order to pass on to high school.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
No, I am not saying that Congress has the authority to close off the electromagnetic spectrum. Even if Congress has that authority, it would not have the capacity. The laws of physics don't subscribe to the Congressional Record.
So imagine what would happen to the debate when the internet is shut off? We'll have to go back to church to get our discussion on.
If you give me physical access to a machine, there is absolutely nothing that's going to prevent me from having absolute control of all data on the machine if I want it. Period. All I need is about 15 minutes and that time is only based on needing to get through the padlock on the case/rack. I'm guessing you didn't intend to suggest actually gaining physical access though.
Securing a system properly just means you've used security best practices, and you've defended against all known forms of attack. That doesn't mean attackers stop developing new intrusions. If an attacker is able to breach the system and gain root, then they have full access. If you've done things right they still don't have access to the network, and are limited to just that one machine. But there are no gaurantees. That's why there are thousands upon thousands of people whose whole job is watching monitoring tools to detect intrusion attempts.
That being said, consider this: Lets pretend that 100% security at NASDAQ is possible. Now consider the millions of computers all around the globe that are connecting to NASDAQ all day every day from podunk little investment offices in places like Sterling Nebraska. Places that have uneducated or lazy IT staff, or the IT staff is also the accountants and financial advisors. It's not a stretch to build a botnet from those poorly secured machines and coordinate a massive influx of bad transactions all at once. Billions of dollars could change hands in micro-seconds and it wouldn't have a damn thing to do with NASDAQ's security. You'd also have any banking/transaction information from that branch at your disposal.
The nuke codes argument is a straw man. Nukes and the computers with the codes are not connected to open networks. There arent any data paths to them from the outside specifically for the suggested reason. NASDAQ, conversely, inherently requires access to brokerage firms and banks globally at all times.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
The USA turning off all their access points seems to fall under "significant part switched off," and the rest of the world still being able to use the Internet would be proof that even such an event doesn't 'kill' the entire Internet.
Individuals always got information from each other. They would go to church and discuss the current events at church each week. They would do it through music. They would write papers and mail it to peoples doorsteps by mailing list. There were radio stations and all sorts of other systems.
So it was NEVER easily controlled or managed. That world never existed. It might have existed under Stalin and Hitler but it never existed before in the USA.
Republicans have circle jerks at the thought of extending presidential power and the Democrats are currently in power so at least some of them will be short-sighted enough to vote for this shit.
Are you kidding? Democrats want to extend presidential power just as much as or more than Republicans. The debate nowadays has shifted from "small government" vs "big government" to "big government with Democrats in control" vs "big government with Republicans in control". Democrats will vote for this because it gives them more power and Republicans will vote against it because it gives more power to the Democrats, but Republicans will abuse it too when they get power again.
Hydraulic pizza oven!! Guided missile! Herring sandwich! Styrofoam! Jayne Mansfield! Aluminum siding! Borax!
guerrilla.net was active some years ago, then after a sellout to l0pht, it went dark. It really is time to resurrect the idea of an "underground Internet," consisting of radio links and mesh networks. If you don't believe it's possible that the gov't will ever invoke the "kill switch," think again: Right after 9/11, the gov't did something that was considered both improbable and impossible: It effectively banned all air traffic across the nation. And it did so without asking the public for its input. Does anyone think the gov't will ask the public for its input when (and if) it decides to kill the Internet to ensure "national security"?
I keep seeing this tidbit tossed out there, but I haven't seen a link to the text of the Acts to support it. Has anyone dug through it to find this alleged clause?
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
Your sort has always been just about to leave, and you always will be.
Then when 'his sort' do actually leave the left start whining about how evil they are to leave and stop paying the taxes to fund welfare programs and how they must have new laws to prevent 'his sort' from taking their money with them when they go.
Britain, for example, has been having a mass exodus of 'his sort' over the last decade; America just hasn't degraded quite so far yet.
The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
Hasn't that been central to the plot of several movies to come out of Hollywood? Criminals that know what the textbook response will be, and plan accordingly. The original "Die Hard" comes to mind.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There is no "The Internet". And the government will pry my routers from my cold, dead hands.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
They want to claim they shut it off when the solar storm hits, rather than letting us all know it was the solar storms.
And second they want to shut it off when alien communications to the public begin to happen.... go figure why.
Just because the power to suspend the constitution isn't written in the constitution doesn't mean that the president doesn't have that power. He may not have legitimate authority to do so, but he definitely has the power.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
S3538 appears to be the bill in question. It would be nice if we could read it, but the text currently isn't public.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:1:./temp/~bdgRx1:@@@L&summ2
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s3538/show
Bad grammar and English use are pretty low on the stupidity scale. There is a vast number of things stupider than not using proper English. The use of proper grammar is connected more to your social group and educational background than to any internal measure of intelligence.
A case could be made that bad grammar is more linked to laziness than anything else. This might be dubious as well, though.
I really doubt that grammar nazis are the smartest among us. It really isn't a very intellectual simulation pass time, and definitely isn't a very useful one. Actually I would say judging the entire intellect of a person on the basis of a dropped apostrophe is rather stupid in-itself.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
If you give me physical access to a machine, there is absolutely nothing that's going to prevent me from having absolute control of all data on the machine if I want it.
So you have physical access to the machine. You want to execute a command but the machine does not give you the authority to execute that command without proof of identity. So you bypass the retina scan, fingerprint, or other biological verification mechanism and you still can't execute the command without bypassing a bunch of other security features which might require a hardware based security token or ID card. It's not impossible but just getting physical access to the machine doesn't guarantee that you'll have the privileges to do anything.
Period. All I need is about 15 minutes and that time is only based on needing to get through the padlock on the case/rack. I'm guessing you didn't intend to suggest actually gaining physical access though.
And when you open the case it self destructs or shuts off. Now you can't execute any command. Physical access does not mean physical control. You can have physical access to a device and still not be able to control the device due to how the device is constructed. A device can be constructed in such a way that the device itself knows when it's being tampered with.
Securing a system properly just means you've used security best practices, and you've defended against all known forms of attack. That doesn't mean attackers stop developing new intrusions. If an attacker is able to breach the system and gain root, then they have full access.
So you make it physically or technically impossible to gain root without biological verification. You have a password which changes every 60 seconds so it's uncrackable, and you put the timing device in the ID card. The ID card along with biological identity verification is extremely difficult to crack. It's not impossible but you won't be able to do it with any kind of ease.
If you've done things right they still don't have access to the network, and are limited to just that one machine. But there are no gaurantees. That's why there are thousands upon thousands of people whose whole job is watching monitoring tools to detect intrusion attempts.
If you've done things right the commands they can execute on that machine will be limited and password protected. You want to write to the machine? Now you have to enter in your key and identity and if someone writes under your name, you'll be the one going to jail.
That being said, consider this: Lets pretend that 100% security at NASDAQ is possible. Now consider the millions of computers all around the globe that are connecting to NASDAQ all day every day from podunk little investment offices in places like Sterling Nebraska. Places that have uneducated or lazy IT staff, or the IT staff is also the accountants and financial advisors.
It's not a stretch to build a botnet from those poorly secured machines and coordinate a massive influx of bad transactions all at once. Billions of dollars could change hands in micro-seconds and it wouldn't have a damn thing to do with NASDAQ's security. You'd also have any banking/transaction information from that branch at your disposal.
Possible but unlikely. It's possible to hack anything if you have military level precision in your operation. But if you need the precision of a military operation to achieve the hack then it limits the kind of adversaries. Al Qaeda would not have that level of precision but a foreign government like China might. Once again if something like this were to happen it would require first that the random number generator or password generator which syncs all the security tokens be hacked. You hack that and you might be able to figure out what the randomly generated string of numbers will be on each token every 60 seconds. But this is mission impossible type of operation and most
Senator Lieberman again, find out which lobbyist he is working for now and expose this guy for the corrupt shill he is.
The scary thing about Lieberman is that I don't think he's a shill, or corrupt. He is one of the last True Believers. He's honest and creepy. He combines the "for your own good" thinking of a neo-con, with traditional ol' Republican hawkishness, with a very small smattering of tradition old archaic Democratic philosophy, with a bit of extreme Zionism thrown in for extra flavor. And he holds all of these ideologies simultaneousness, and faithfully. To his credit, he is one of the few honest politicians. Though I think even Dick Cheney is a couple of shades less evil than him.
Amazingly, his ideology comes out to be completely antithetical to both liberals and conservatives, and especially antithetical to the "pure" fringes of both parties (the Libertarians and Socialists/Capital-L-Liberals). He would have done very well for himself 50 years ago.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
...He who can destroy a thing, controls that thing.
Coldmoon over Dark water...
Most of the journalism that I've seen surrounding this kill-switch issue mentions the name "Obama".
Has anyone here seen any reference supporting a claim that Obama has sought such a measure? I ask because from my distant (non-US) viewpoint, this seems out of character for the man.
Just asking...
So you have physical access to the machine. You want to execute a command but the machine does not give you the authority to execute that command without proof of identity. So you bypass the retina scan, fingerprint, or other biological verification mechanism and you still can't execute the command without bypassing a bunch of other security features which might require a hardware based security token or ID card. It's not impossible but just getting physical access to the machine doesn't guarantee that you'll have the privileges to do anything.
Physical access to the machine means the ability to use machine level communication, circumventing OS security measures.
And when you open the case it self destructs or shuts off. Now you can't execute any command. Physical access does not mean physical control. You can have physical access to a device and still not be able to control the device due to how the device is constructed. A device can be constructed in such a way that the device itself knows when it's being tampered with.
Ok, it shuts down. I'm standing there staring at the power, which means I can power it on and force it into a machine setup to change boot orders, etc. If it self-destructs the data, that sucks if I wanted to steal the data. But it doesn't help much if my intent was to destroy it...
So you make it physically or technically impossible to gain root without biological verification. You have a password which changes every 60 seconds so it's uncrackable, and you put the timing device in the ID card. The ID card along with biological identity verification is extremely difficult to crack. It's not impossible but you won't be able to do it with any kind of ease.
Absolutely correct. You can lock it down with biometrics. Which is great... unless of course you hired me to monitor and maintain your environment and gave me those accesses... Realistically I'm not going to be walking into the NASDAQ datacenter on a whim. If I'm there, it's because you opened the door and/or handed me the keys. Which is why I suggested you probably didnt intend to bring up physical access.
If you've done things right the commands they can execute on that machine will be limited and password protected. You want to write to the machine? Now you have to enter in your key and identity and if someone writes under your name, you'll be the one going to jail.
If it's password protected, it's possible to obtain the passwords. Social engineering, phishing, etc. I can probably walk around at lunch today and obtain 20 passwords from sticky notes on people's desks or in drawers. And I pretty much promise you that better than 20% of the passwords people use at work are the same ones they use for systems like gmail, their bank accounts, their storage unit... People recycle because they don't want to remember multiple passwords. I don't have to crack your work computer. I just have to crack the account system at your gym and there's a notable possibility I'll be able to use it for everything you access. Computers can be secured well. People are still stupid and lazy.
Possible but unlikely. It's possible to hack anything if you have military level precision in your operation.
It's possible to hack anything... That's all I was saying. I never suggested it was a no brainer, or even that there are more than maybe 5 people in the world that could pull it off. But the point is that it's possible, particularly with funding and cover. You can't secure all the people that access NASDAQ either. That kind of attack is wholly outside your control. You could mitigate it by having an automatic scram code built into financial markets, but that would be an artificial mechanism that would interfere in an organic and legit mass correction of the markets too.
You can never say you are 100% secure, and if you do you're ignorant or flat out lying. Even al
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
I don't live in the US so I don't think it would be a relevant test.
which is totally what she said
Fair enough. We interpret the phrase "has the power" differently. To me, that means that the law gives the President the power. To you it means -- uh, what does it mean? That the President could, technically, do anything? And thus has unlimited power? I suppose the President "has the power" to walk into Congress and cap all the Senators in the face by that definition. If the OP meant what you imply, then I concede the point due to misunderstanding (but I doubt that's the case).
Bitch, "his sort" never leave. They're only happy when they're bitching about "one more thing". Timid, frightened, angry people don't have the guts to put their zip code where their mouth is.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
He only has the power if We, The People allow it.
The only way the power of the Presidency is abused is if we tell ourselves "Well this President wont abuse it.", and "Well, its just for a little while.", and "It's for their own good.". As soon as we recognize it's never OK for any President, or any Congress to overstep its authority for any reason, then we retain the power the Founders intended us to have.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Who decides how dire is dire enough?
Mark Knopfler, obviously.
Humor for nothing. Slashdot is free.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
You seem to take for granted that all language is used formally, and that our usage of it is completely devoid of context. I can think of many situations where "your stupid" is fine in context (albeit not formally correct), and doesn't reflect anything about the user. I'm sure we all have mangled an apostrophe or used a bad homonym at some point in our lives as well.
When I'm at the pub with friends, or throwing off a quick text message, I'm sure an outside observer with a grammar nazi's strict rules would decide I'm a gibbering moron. But when I write a formal paper, or partake in discussions where linguistic unambiguity matter I quickly phase switch and use as proper of grammar and language as I am able. This is normal, pretty much all of humanity does it.
In many cases the use, or lack of use, of proper grammar is a reflection of the relative importance of the discussion. For example, I never use the "preview" function on Slashdot, it isn't worth my time to strive for the extra correctness for a frivolous and amusing waste of time. For things where there are consequences, I obviously use multiple drafts, and spend extra time making sure the paths of communication are very clear.
This doesn't reflect on my intelligence one bit. As a matter of fact "phase switching" could probably be correlated with intelligence, since it shows mental flexibility.
If a person is completely incapable of using proper language when the case requires it, then we might be able to use that to reflect (if only slightly) on their intellect. But using a single case, in a single circumstance, is fallacious.
The whole grammar nazi thing is generally nothing but some silly nerdy version of the internal attribution error.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Let me revise my previous post. Dropping apostrophes is not necessarily a sign of stupidity, but completely dropping capital letters most assuredly is.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
To you it means -- uh, what does it mean? That the President could, technically, do anything? And thus has unlimited power? I suppose the President "has the power" to walk into Congress and cap all the Senators in the face by that definition.
If the president walked into congress and started shooting people, I have no doubt he would be impeached and tried. Yet the president regularly oversteps his constitutional authority with no consequences. That's the difference here.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The President also has the power to suspend the Constitution, something that has never happened though several wars.
The President does NOT have the power to suspend the Constitution. The Constitution is the license to operate a government. If the President (or Congress, the Courts, or the Military) claims to suspend it, all they have suspended is their own claim to legitimacy. They are then no longer the government - just another pack of crooks with armed thugs on their payroll.
The President DOES have certain exceptional powers that are only available in wartime or certain emergency situations. Presidents have often (especially in wartime or during crises) claimed and used unauthorized powers - generally with those claims eventually struck down by courts (though this might take decades). Example: The internment of US citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII.
Note that when a law or other claim to power is struck it is NOT like a repeal, with the law or doctrine active up to the decision to strike it. It is declared to NEVER HAVE been active. All actions taken only under its claimed authority are, and always were, void.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually the government and its corporate directors already have all the power. The power they have is not merely their limited 'constitutional' power, but mostly their control of the economy and the media. We The People don't have shit for power. We The People are collectively a bunch of illiterate dipshits with a few scattered, ineffective dissidents. No bill gets passed unless it further advances or entrenches corporate interests. Any remedy for our national problems that depends on We The People doing anything besides sit on our fat asses is a non-starter. So if the best we can do is place our welfare in the hands of We The People then we're fucked.
Okay, I think that's a reasonable definition of "power": whatever you can get away with. I still don't think that's what the OP meant, but I think that is a reasonable way to define the "powers" of a President. Well put.
And it couldn't realistically exist today. When a person can hop into a car and travel 200 miles in a couple of hours to deliver literature or mail or whatever, there's really no method to prevent the passage of information without clamping down with totalitarian controls.
Especially when you consider that most developed areas are no longer self-sufficient. Food and water have to be shipped or transported over great distances, and at the very least the people transporting will talk.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
When would I possibly want to use a kill switch?
Today, if I wanted to shut down the internet, I would phone up all the ISPs and ask them to turn off all the routers because of a clear danger to the nation. A kill switch would only be useful in the case that the ISPs refuse to turn off the routers. Why would they refuse? Their refusal is probably a good indication that the danger isn't as bad as I think. But maybe it really is, so I chould explain it to them. Since it is a real danger, they will obviously agree to turn off the routers. But, they still refuse to turn off the routers, so maybe the danger isn't that clear. But it is, so let me explain it to them again. After all, I'm right and hundreds of experts are wrong. I feel like I'm running in circles. Aw fuck it, let's just hit the kill switch. Much easier than actually understanding the situation and trying to figure out why hundreds of experts don't agree with me.
tldr; the only use case for a kill switch is to force people to do your bidding. That's not smart when the people you are overriding are the knowledge domain experts.
Four months without computer-to-computer communication that has become integral to the economy is far to long to be granted without oversight.
Forget 4 months. Our economy would be toast in a day or two. Most money transactions would be impossible. (Even paper checks are now processed electronically.) All those supply chains that are based on just-in-time ordering would go out of commission immediately. Supply chains that still use old warehouse models would survive a little longer, but when the warehouse is empty, how to you order more stuff?
I could add more items to the list, but that's gilding the lily. Any one item on the list would screw us over more thoroughly than the worst virus possibly could. "All-or-nothing" is crap.
That isn't the use - it would be used at a strategic level.
As the OP and others have said, this is already covered under the communications Act...the president is empowered to shutdown any communications during a time of war/emergency as necessary. This is why ham radio people have stuff likes RACES - if you're part of RACES, if the president declares a communications emergency and shuts down the communication networks (more feasible in the 40's than now, I admit) than only governmental agencies, public safety groups, and affiliated groups (like RACES) can continue operation.
The idea originally was to not permit conspirators from contacting their handlers, etc, 5th column, all that deal...
This is once again the government trying to re-legislate for new technology when an existing law already applies, and it's bogus. And yes, it would be practically very hard to shutdown backbone networks either under this law or the communications act, and I see no real use for it, however I can tell you what the policymakers are probably thinking. I attended a conference about computer security, and there are some really very serious threats, primarily that our shit is already infiltrated. I think the concern here is preventing a total loss of our information networks in the case of an attack, ie: not a virus, but "OH SHIT THEY'RE ACTIVATING THE TROJANS IN THE POWER GRID, WE HAVE 5 MINUTES TO REACT". This may or may not be something you see as worth having a kill switch for, but the government does, and I can tell you, some of those DoD guys are nuts (mostly old cold-war types) and I can only thank heaven they're just trying to pass a law like this, and not something much worse.
Just my $0.02.
You're thinking of Habeas Corpus and Lincoln did suspend this right during the Civil War.
He also did not end slavery (Congress did after the war), he did however suspend slavery in the south and promised that the south would get to keep slavery if they didn't try to secede from the union. Lincoln is also on record stating that he never intended to end slavery (he even owned slaves).
I think the point he is making is that the statement should be "You're stupid" or "You are stupid"
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?