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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."
. . . are idiots.
Hey, I was only kidding. You don't have to MOD me "Troll" . . . again . . . .
61% of Americans need to be cockpunched. Thoroughly.
should be more careful what they wish for
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I'm glad that the US isn't a direct democracy.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
A killswitch means we no longer get instantaneous information, either, should we have to use it. Cell phones don't necessarily reach all parts of the world. I'm not so sure I'm willing to give up being able to get news right as it happens just because of threat of cyberwar. People can unhook their own machines from the net -- that's fine. That's the last line of defense that anyone can implement for themselves. Just don't cut me off because you feel it protects you better.
...to protect us from democracy.
"A majority of the American population is willing to grant the President the authority to cut short their Internet access to protect both U.S. assets and citizens, suggesting that the public is taking cyber warfare very seriously," said Patricia Titus, VP and CISO, Unisys. "Our survey shows that the American public recognizes the danger of a cyber attack and wants the federal government to take an active role in extending the nation's cyber defense. It will be up to officials in all branches of the federal government to respond to this call to action in a way that is measured and well planned."
I suspect selective polling, ambiguous questions, and/or selective interpretation of the results. I really wish they'd post the surveys' actual results, scope of participants, etc. for these kinds of things.
If someone is wrong, don't insult; Educate.
What's really sad is that the survey is probably at least close to accurate. There are so many people out there today who think they can get some "real justice" if they give up their rights to "fight terrorism" that I am having a hard time tearing apart the article.
from the please-take-my-freedoms-I-don't-deserve-them dept.
Not much more to say.
This would never be abused, would it?
And 39% think that during an "attack" the President should NOT be able to shut down the route used by the attackers.
I'm thinking that that 39% include the people who understand that "cyber attack" is a meaningless term and that no authority should be granted on the basis of a meaningless term.
Here, try this instead:
If it makes as much sense as the original then there is a problem.
the Internet was liberated and experimental from scratch, you must not be on the same Internet as I am because as time goes I only see more restriction and more commercialization ...
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
More liberated and experimental? Friend, that's what it was. The internet is becoming more staid, regulated, etc. It's becoming more conservative as it becomes more mainstream. People who wouldn't have touched it a decade ago now use it every day, and that's changing the culture of the internet and the way all of society perceives it. However to boomers and older it's something that "we" can obviously do without, because they didn't need it when they were growing up, so who cares? It's just a toy to them. They may casually participate in it, but they cannot (broadly and generally) understand its real importance to contemporary and future society.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Hasn't that always been the case??
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Arguably, we should have some emergency controls for the Internet. I'd suggest that the following emergency systems be implemented:
This would be enough to deal with serious overloads, outages, or viruses, but doesn't have censorship implications.
IMHO,
61% << "Most"...
61% ~= "Not quite two-thirds"
When are reporters going to learn that they need to include the actual wording of the question posed in the poll for people to actually understand what was asked? From what little information is in the article, there is a wide gamut of ways the question might have been posed that would affect the outcome. Why, oh why, can't they learn to include the actual question in addition to their canned analysis of the results? 100% of Americans think that the linked article is useless (plus or minus 99.99997%).
Should I be surprised that Unisys, a corporation which describes itself as selling IT solutions to "governments around the world", comes up with a survey result that shows a "majority" of Americans support a possible government program that would likely see the government purchasing a large amount of product from Unisys?
should not go up for a vote by "most americans." I've worked helpdesk and computer systems engineering my entire career, and can assure you the very same person who uses his cdrom as a cupholder and assumes clickjacking to be some sort of fetish, cant possibly imagine what a cyber attack is outside of what the last die hard movie and 4 iterations of the terminator movie franchise have taught him. In addition, many americans dont understand the internet was designed during the cold war...by its very definition and design, killing it with a single point of activation should not be possible. Lastly, America has been handling cyber-attacks the same way it has since the inception of the internet, with skilled engineers and administrators operating re actively and proactively to situations as they arise and can be anticipated.
I cant in good conscience subscribe to the hullabaloo that is the "cyber attack" and i dont encourage slashdotters to either. Its present definition is as laughable as the options for defense and solution to its ire. I may be speaking controversially, however i also feel this is just one more scientific field in which americans are poorly equipped to think critically of and seem to be told to just appreciate that fact. In relation, if a majority of americans refute or deny such scientific concepts such as climate change and evolution, what makes them the least bit qualified to comment on more modern technology?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Sooo.... We want to stop a malicious DOS attack on the Internet by... DOSing the Internet?
Brilliant!
Since the internet, by design, is built to route around damage (and taking "portions" offline would count), wouldn't the only real way to prevent an attack be to remove either the source or destination computers from the network?
And removing the destination system would by far be the simplest and least disruptive way to do it. (At least until you track down the source computer).
What?
39% of Americans say they regularly get news from a cable channel.
Only 40% of Republicans regularly watch Fox News.
I'm sure you were just trying to make a point... but when your point hinges on more than 50% of Americans getting their news from FN and thus are stupid, and it's not even close to 50% ... the point seems to kinda fall apart? :)
But it is easy to kill now. Once the core routers and DNS servers are down. Game over for most users. The critical infrastruct on how computers "know" which IP address to get and how to get there has been gradually centralised over the last couple of decades in the name of efficiency and easy of management. Yeah! sure there will be cached infromation and backup servers, but the Internet has long ago morphed from being a Web to a Tree like structure. Killing the root, kills the tree.
THIS. the very concept of an "Internet killswitch" is nonsense on the face of it. Think about it: what, exactly, will the President shut off? MAE-EAST? Google datacenters? Sprint core routers? Facebook webservers? All of Comcast's residential netblocks? Undersea fiber between San Francisco and Australia? The most fundamental aspect of the Internet is its decentralization, designed specifically to PREVENT any single entity from shutting down the network. The entire discussion consists of uninformed blathering from morons and those who hope to make a truckload of money selling them nonsense solutions.
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
In other news, 61% of Americans have no idea how the internet works.
This is total nonsense written on some corporate blog I've never heard of before.
I remember a survey which said that only around 30% of Americans even trusted the sitting president, so how does this nonsense survey stack up against that?
It's all garbage.
They're going to kill the web when it matters, and this is just sales spin to stop Americans from doing what the French are currently doing; forcing their government to do what the hell they tell it to rather than whatever evil, selfish shit it wants to do.
What a concept! A government held accountable by the people! Horrors!
No wonder Bush hated the French. They're not brain-dazed lightweights who let their government rob them blind without lifting a finger.
-FL