Slashdot Mirror
Most Americans Support an Internet Kill Switch
Orome1 writes "Sixty-one percent of Americans said the President should have the ability to shut down portions of the Internet in the event of a coordinated malicious cyber attack, according to research by Unisys. The survey found that while Americans are taking proactive steps to protect themselves against cybercrime and identity theft, only slightly more than a third of Internet users in the US regularly use and update passwords on their mobile devices – creating a potentially huge security hole for organizations as more consumer devices invade the workplace. The findings illustrate that recent events such as the Stuxnet computer worm attack and the attempted Times Square car bombing may have heightened the American public's awareness of and concern over global and domestic cybersecurity threats."
I suppose a lot of this comes from the fact that not EVERYONE is aware of what a killswitch would even mean. If you think about how much people overall understand the internet, the majority of people out there probably just assumed it would be nice to have. It is very unfortunate that we live in such an age where ignorance is more dangerous than anything else.
How in the world is this troll? We are not a direct democracy PRECISELY type for this reason. Someone needs to brush up on their Civics class...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If you google 'Unisys', the first result is an article saying that Profit Tanks at Unisys Corporation
Apparently their year-over-year profits are down 54%, to $21 million from over $50 million a year ago, and their Technology sector revenue declined 31%. Apparently this is driven by a lack of demand for their ClearPath server line.
So by pumping this 'intenet kill switch' idea, it may be that they expect to be first in line to implement it, and get some handsome profits from the taxpayer pie in the bargain.
This is about as believable as Bill Gates and other tech leaders trumpeting that there were not enough skilled US IT workers a few years back. Sure there were, just not at the immigrant prices that Gates and others wanted to pay. Here's a video from a recruiter seminar instructing recruiters on how not to find qualified American applicants for jobs while putting in the legally required advertisements. Look for the speaker stating at about 1:44 into the video that "our goal here is clearly not to find a qualified and interested US worker".
Of course corporations are going to release self-serving announcements like this -- it's just fulfilling their legal mandate to act in the best interests of their shareholders. In other news, the sky is blue.
Where's the idiocracy tag when you need it?
About nine keystrokes away.
Beware the idea of keeping the people out the real decisions because they are too dumb or inexperienced: getting people dumbed down and their lowest instincts tickled so that an elite can rule over them with the praetext of protecting society from itself becomes feasible.
One word: California. The place where they vote ballot measures to jack up spending (usually on "get tough on crime" crusades), and suppress taxes at the same time. Then they wonder why they spend so much of their income servicing debt. They have voted on measures that make it impossible for legislators to pass a budget. And who do they blame for the gridlock in the state Capitol? The legislators!
Direct democracy is the greatest threat to civilisation. Californian voters need a good slap upside the head, told to eat what's put in front of them, and stop acting like the childish entitlement merchants they are. California doesn't need more direct democracy, it needs a king. The state is an example of democracy run amok.
I dunno how it would end up for national security.
But for money policies we left the matter to central banks so we could have stability and dunno what else, and debt became widespread, money rules de facto over law, insolvent banks compete with their fractional reserve in the same league of your hard earned money. Not the best deal.
Central banks are accountable to their respective legislators. In Britain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the finance minister) used to have direct control of interest rates. It was a disaster because the government kept fiddling interest rates for party political reasons, usually around election time. It doesn't take a genius to guess what that led to. Stability was greatly improved when that was delegated to the Bank of England.
Drill baby drill - on Mars