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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.
and where do I go to kick them in the balls? 61% my ass.
RTS
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
61% of the time, 100% of the time.
Really? Hunh. They never even asked me.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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.
As Internet becomes more liberated and experimental, seems like users using it are becoming more conservative. I find that very interesting.
"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.
Sure...give the government an internet kill switch. What could possibly go wrong?
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.
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.
This would never be abused, would it?
Most people have no idea of what it is, nor have the vast majority of the American public even heard about it let alone taken the time to become educated about it.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
to the one who mod me as troll, you would gain a better understanding of society if you read Chomsky manufacturing consent and if you do not want to read you can watch : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5631882395226827730#
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
"A killswitch means we no longer get instantaneous information, either, should we have to use it."
Amateur Radio, the original geek hobby, still exists. Packet radio for teh (slow baud rate) win!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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.
I think the key here is that it says "portions of the internet." That even makes me want to say yes. Had they of asked if they thought "should the president be allowed to shut off americas ability to communicate with each other over the internet" which is what would actually pass, I'm sure the results of the poll would have dramatically changed.
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.
I am all for it as long as they do not touch my Facebook.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
... that the design principle at the foundation of the Internet should be re-engineered. The Internet was meant to be a means of communication that couldn't be severed easily.
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?
USA don't own internet. Is a global thing.
If USA want to disable free information disemination in a disaster, can plug the cable on his "house", but sould not touch other countries free roam of information. Is not USA what have to decide that.
-Woof woof woof!
Yes, but how many of those people actually understood the question?
Seriously, why does the US even need a kill switch? In fact, why are those machines accessible from outside in the first place? Even more so, why aren't the actual control devices airgapped from the rest of the network? What happened to security in the architecture?
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
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.
JonySuede, thank you for the link. Always interesting to hear what Chomsky has to say, even though I don't agree with all of it. In this case I think he is 100% correct. Both posts deserve mod-ups.
Sooo.... We want to stop a malicious DOS attack on the Internet by... DOSing the Internet?
Brilliant!
I don't think I like this idea. What am I going to do if I'm in the middle of posting a comment on /. when all of a sudden my Inter
Let's put aside the ramifications of giving the President this power and just consider the hypothetical situation. A server is being bombarded by requests, or there's a malicious attack, or whatever. Wouldn't the administrators be smart enough to just pull the server off the network for a while until they get the system under control? You know, remove connections to the outside Internet, physical or otherwise. It's just a cable or configuration setting away.
It seems to me something you'd notice and get done before the bureaucracy even got their foot out the door.
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).
61% of American's can't locate Iraq on a map. (Actually its probably higher, but I had to make something up ;)
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? :)
Depends on which way the "switch" works. I'm for cutting off botnet mules and insecure users like those lazy/stupids you're referring to! So, we DO need a kill switch, just one in the direction of the spam, botnets, malware, and Windows users. Just kidding on the last one. You can take my word for it, I almost named my daughter Princess Leia. So, you KNOW I'm a bro!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
... without mentioning the possible benefit of stopping Skynet when it attempts to take over?
Heck of a lot closer to 0.5%, but the real answer is what percentage of the population has a friend / relative / coworker / neighbor ham radio guy... Probably 10%?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
strategically placed internet refugee camps.
If the nukes the "terrists" have planted on U.S. soil can't ping one another through the net... they go off.
Who was the fucktard who came up with this piece of brilliance?
In Liberty, Rene
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.
I don't have a theoretical objection to a "kill switch" that'd take the nation offline (to the extent that that's even feasable), but I'm not sure such a thing would be useful - the harm in taking our networks down would probably outweigh almost anything but complete loss of network functionality - the internet is almost as fundamental as roads for our society and economy.
I'm curious how community peer networking would change were the internet down for awhile.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
"You've got to remember, that these are just simple farmers, these are people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know . . . morons."
Lots of companies ( including banks) have you account data god knows where. Are we moving the call centers back to the USA?? Whoopee yes lets have a kill switch.
the only reason a person would be 'for' something like that is complete lack of understanding. Unless they support a fascist state of course.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
As always when they mention this kind of statistics....
Yes Minister: Surveys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMcZic1d4U
If you don't like my sig then don't read it.
...does theTimes Square car bombing have to do with cybersecurity?
perhaps, this is what the terrorists want.
Scene 1 : Execute a scenario which forces the president to kill the internet. ... a whole bunch i don't know.
Scene 2: Senate is gloating, we killed the internet, long live America.
Scene 3: Little do they know, this was part of the plan.
Scene 4: Alot of services which depend on internet are no longer available. Communications, Applications, Health
By creating a vaccum of information, rumours fly around, people panic, and we have the case of nervous people who don't know what to do (cause internet always worked - they have never imagined internet did not work).
Chaos .. perhaps ensues.
maybe i am just bieng paranoid.
Jack Bauer should be able to handle things and 24 hours later, it will be a distant nightmare.
"More than 1,000 people" isn't enough people to be able to extrapolate this kind of issue out. Of course, people in Washington are gonna push this article to try and get the stupid thing made, because if you don't read the article it seems to back them up. No one should have the power to shut the internet off, because we all know that there'd be a high level of invasiveness for the government to do this. However, the most likely option Washington would take if this unpossibility happened would probably be they went to ISPs and had killswitches installed there. Regardless, I'm not so paranoid or short sighted to be afraid of the Chinese taking over my home PC to launch a missile, because that's an idiotic line of thinking. Why on earth do we need this thing, anyways? Say the worst case scenario happens and the Chinese decide to launch a cyber attack on us, and everyone's computers go down. Then what? Seriously, besides a day of no productivity (like Christmas! yay!) what's the issue once we get everything running again? Are we worried that the Chinese will find out the specific website of browser porn that some average guy looks at? The kill switch is another distractionary measure, because it's idiotic. We don't need it, as it does nothing. We don't need to talk about making one, because people aren't actually always that stupid. This again, comes down to people educating themselves on the issue.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. --H. L. Mencken
But at least that shows that 49% of Americans are not only non-idiots, and they're probably good at math, too.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Ok, So now it gets confusing.
How long before the Pres. presses the wrong button?
Because, unlike the WTC, if al Qaida hits your system, mine is still just fine.
Worse yet, hitting the 'kill switch' could be as damaging to our infrastructure as whatever 'they' could do to us. There will always be some putz with an unpatched system that will be taken down. And they will cry, "Why didn't my country save me?" Tough shit. If you are stupid enough to run unsecure SCADA systems for your electrical utility, how is that worse than not trimming trees around your transmission lines? If the gov't can identify critical infrastructure that warrants increased security, they should impose minimum standards on those operators. Let all the gaming sites go down.
This isn't to say there might not be a place where critical system operators can subscribe that will broadcast warnings in the event a cyber attack is detected. So they can pull up their draw bridges, so to speak. These undoubtedly already exist. But we don't need to know about them (we'd be better off not knowing, along with our enemies). So just do it and shut the hell up.
Have gnu, will travel.
Didn't they just do this with Limewire?
I agree and to add to this, I think that those polled don't really know what they're asking for. How much of our communications infrastructure is now tied to the Internet? A lot of major companies and even government agencies are now using Voice Over IP, for instance, for telephone access. Wireless phone companies are increasingly routing cell phone calls over the Internet to save costs (Doubt this? Think about it: when you make a phone call, you're connecting to a tower. How do you _know_ where your call goes from there? Hint: You don't.)
Retailers use VPNs to connect stores to the home office. Some ATM machines use a VPN connection to conduct their transactions rather than a modem. Corporate WANs are frequently using VPNs to connect campuses in an effort to lower costs. Banking transactions are being conducted over VPNs and SSL Internet connections. Hell, even some traffic lights are now programmed over the Internet.
Forget about it. You couldn't shut down the whole Net. It would bring our entire country grinding to a halt.
My blog
>>>Amateur Radio, the original geek hobby, still exists.
The FCC's Broadband Plan will reassign that chunk of the EM Spectrum to cellular phones (or internet). So no, it wouldn't still exist.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither."
Until you stop doing this stupid shit!
For those who prefer youtube (because it's downloadable):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FKdU_xL4O8
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>you're connecting to a cell tower. How do you _know_ where your call goes from there?
I always figured it goes through the existing POTS lines. Although internet would provide a greater bandwidth per tower.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Frequently updating your password is more a security hazard than just using a single secure one.
Depends on which way the "switch" works
Therein lies the problem. This isn't going to be a literal switch sitting on someone's desk that has an "ON" and "OFF" setting. Having a "kill switch" scenario means handing control of the core routers over to a government agency (or giving them administrative access to them, which amounts to the same thing). A "kill switch" implies a "nuclear option" - you either have the Internet in the US or you don't. This is something that would be very visible and make anyone who made that decision deeply accountable for that decision. So a lot of people could actually buy in to this, as long as it's a non-discriminating across-the-board shutdown.
Once that happens, however, it's a much smaller step to justifying more refined control, in the name of limiting the potential impact.
"Well, we could stop short of killing the ENTIRE US-facing Internet if we had the authority to just shut down portions of it, so we need the authority to shut down regions, or domains, or individual computers who are doing naughty things." What looks to the public like a reduction in authority, so everyone applauds it, but it also means that the government now has the authority to do less noticeable changes, like shutting off dissidents and people who disagree.
"Well, we could stop interfering with computers so heavyhandedly if we could just see what they were all doing all the time, so we could identify the ones that are engaging in wrongdoing." Again, something that sounds really logical on the surface, but means that the government can now "warrantless wiretap" anything anyone is doing on the Internet in the name of "only inconveniencing the guilty".
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
It's *what* you're killing that troubles me. Can the President shut down all the IRS routers or can he shut down my network because there's "reasonable belief" that turrists are routing Google queries through my anoymous search proxy?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
>>>Amateur Radio, the original geek hobby, still exists.
The FCC's Broadband Plan will reassign that chunk of the EM Spectrum to cellular phones (or internet). So no, it wouldn't still exist.
Citation please? Are you seriously trying to suggest that all amateur radio bands will be reassigned to cellular phones & internet? Are you high? As far as I can tell, cellular phones & internet work best on UHF.. I want to see the 20m broadband plan. :D
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
I'm sure that all Presidents would use such provisions wisely.
Most interneters support an American kill switch
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Can we try an Internet Spank Switch for a while, first?
Packet radio for teh (slow baud rate) win!
The FCC allows up to 9600 baud on the 70cm band, you insensitive clod! That's plenty fast. Range isn't too great, though.. I'm not sure about getting world news via UHF, lol. I think that after the apocalypse, I'll get my news via CW on 20m.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
That stuff is pointless and useless. By the time "serious virus trouble" happens it is TOO LATE to cut it off with these half-assed measure.
None of what you are talking about will prevent infected machines from communicating with each other.
No, you forget a lot of people do not vote, either due to apathy or age. Most Americans that vote, voted in W, only the second time. The first time he was appointed when the SCOTUS used an election kill switch to end the election.
In other news, 61% of Americans have no idea how the internet works.
Well sorry, that's also not technically true. More people voted for Gore in the 2000 election. Let me repeat that: Al "Inventor of the Internet" Gore won the popular vote. More people voted for him then Bush. Too bad that it doesn't mean jack shit because Bush won the electoral collage. Wheee, politics...
Even winning the popular vote, Gore only got 48.5% of those who voted, and the turnout wasn't anywhere near 100%. So no matter how you count, you can't say that most of America voted for Gore or Bush.
What do you expect from a company that bought Convergent Technologies?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Although... many American are idiots.
Supporting material: Popularity of Fox News, Glenn Beck, The Jonas Brothers, Rick Sanchez, etc...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You'd be surprised how many people are "closet hams"--I just got my license this summer and when I mention it in conversation I am frequently surprised when my acquaintance fires back with their own call sign. You probably know a few people who have licenses or were licensed in the past, even if they never talk about it. Granted, only a fraction of licensees maintain functional HF stations, but they all know the technology exists and where to find it.
There are 694,429 licensed hams in the U.S., 2.26% of the population of 307 million, and that percentage has been steady over the last decade of population growth. Worldwide, there are 2.77 million licensees, or 0.04% of the world population of 6.7 billion, but ham radio is getting very popular in developing nations like China and Indonesia and not every operator has a license.
shows that we're are also too lazy to shut down our computesr in the event of a botnet attack.
I have nothing clever to put here...
If the question asked were "Should the President have an 'Internet Kill Switch' available to stop the spread of information?" I am guessing people would have answered differently.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Addendum: It looks like the broadband plan calls for 500mhz of spectrum to be allocated between 225mhz & 3.7ghz. This _might_ impact amateur radio frequencies, but those frequencies would all be UHF or higher that are impacted.. Big whoop. As far as I can tell, hams are delighted by the fact that this plan will not be using BPL, which causes QRM to HF bands. http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-releases-em-national-broadband-plan-em
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
Of course, many people may have thought that the "kill switch" would take down the internet in specific evil places outside the US,
We already have several of these. They are called 'MIRVing ICBMs', but they functionally do the same thing.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The Amateur Radio Relay League has a legal team whose sole purpose is to represent amateur radio operators in policy and legal issues. Their newsletter details a few of the ongoing regulatory situations, including recently suggested encroachments on the 2.3Ghz and 430Mhz amateur frequencies, which can be used for both short- and long-distance communication. The traditional HF frequencies (160m through 10m) are generally left untouched by the FCC, and sometimes expanded. http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Spectrum%20Defense%20Matters%20Newsletter/Spectrum%20Defense%20Newsletter%20Number%20TWO%20for%20the%20WEB_indd.pdf
If 2.26% of the population is licensed, and those people are randomly distributed across the US population, and you know 200 people, then the probability that you know a licensed ham is 1 - (1 - 0.0226)^200 = 99%.
assign traffic from evildomain.net to a dead port. if you have fast enough routers, you can even do it based on the target addresses, not the source.
FUD factor RED, fold your aluminum caps now.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Most Americans - or to generalize, most people - are stupid, and have no idea what the Internet actually is, how it works, or what a malicious cyber attack is.
When I first heard of this Internet Kill Switch idea, I remembered Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Past Tense" (3.11 and 3.12). Mostly set in San Francisco 2024, one of the methods the government used to suppress dissidents from airing their grievances was cutting off their access to the net. And that aired in 1995.
[last lines]
Doctor Bashir: You know, Commander... having seen a little of the 21st century, there is one thing I don't understand: how could they have let things get so bad?
Commander Sisko: That's a good question. I wish I had an answer.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Prevent news of atrocities committed against civilian populations from being reported!
I bet the Iranian government wished they'd had that capability.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
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
310,570,000 - US population - Wikipedia
As of June 30, 2010, there are 694,346 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US - http://www.arrl.org/news/first-half-of-2010-sees-upswing-in-new-amateur-radio-licenses
That is 0.2%, much closer to the original REALLY small number. To reach the 10% number, each person must be in range of at least 500 people which isn't that difficult.
Ok, first off any percentage given is inherently wrong by process. Only a minuscule cross section of citizens are asked anything about any given subject and the numbers are then inflated to compensate for those not asked. Secondly, about 70% of adults on this planet struggle with basic computer care more or less have the ability to decide the future of the internet. And lastly, the "president" is just a human as well, he screws up as do we all. So to trust any human with that form of control is ludicrous and you should be ashamed for being such a coward.
PS) I am making a knowing glance toward muslims, which I believe are at the heart of intolerance on Earth in present times.
Attitudes like that were pretty prevalent a hundred years ago, but with a different Abrahamic religion. Any idea what was able to occur with widespread prejudice against 1 group that could be stirred up by those seeking absolute control?
Car analogies break down.
"How would you react if the President of the United States ordered that you cannot communicate using an electrical device, or purchase goods, or allow your children to learn?"
America != Internet
... how would you ever get the darn thing turned back on again?
Email...immediately down
Web...down
VPN access...down
Phone systems...most are highly disrupted, if not completely down
Remote access to critical infrastructure servers...down
Remote access to critical embedded systems...partly
Electric power...highly disrupted (grid monitoring systems rumored to use commodity data transport)
Emergency services...minimal
Water and sewer...no better than power
Hospitals and medical services...minimal (no access to patient records, no resupply)
E-commerce...down
Financial trading...down
Online banking...down
Cable TV...down
Broadcast TV...possibly available for those who have power and an HDTV
ATMs and CC payment terminals...down
Airlines...down
Non-farm industries...down
80-90% of the US economy...down
Data transit for non-US customers...mostly down, many will never exchange packets through the US again
Security updates to computer systems...down
Food distribution...highly disrupted
Gas pumps...highly disrupted
On the first day of the outage, everyone leaves work early. It's the commute from hell as traffic lights, when they work, are not well synchronized. Even minor power flickers cause stores to sell out of candles, flashlight batteries, and water.
On the second day of the outage, most people visit their bank in person and demand cash. Long lines form at the gas pumps. Stores sell out of most non-perishable food.
After three days, all large US cities are simultaneously on the brink of post-Katrina anarchy (except those parts of DC and state capitals which are partially supplied by FEMA and the military). As fuel supplies dwindle, the sheer number of stalled-out vehicles in dense urban areas make roads largely impassable. Helpful locals push some cars out of the way to create narrow one-lane passages (at the end of which entrepreneurs will roll aside the final car for a high fee).
Unfortunately, it seems that the key personnel needed to reestablish the US backbones and reconnect to the global internet are at home boarding up windows. Even when they can be contacted, personnel would have to travel to the datacenters physically (obviously they can't remote access in). Few are willing to travel that far from home on their last half-tank of gas, which is now infinitely more valuable than theoretical employment in an economy that that no longer exists.
After 10 days, large population migrations begin on foot (carrying their possessions in makeshift wagons) to rural areas in search of food. Obviously they didn't make hotel reservations in advance.
So what problem was this supposed to solve again?
...there'll be nothing left but cockroaches and porn.
One point: Your country is about as homogenous as a country can be. Try applying direct democracy to a country that is more heterogenous, and I think you will find it falls apart.
Also consider that Switzerland has about 10% less people than New York City.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I think 100% of the survey non IT people. Also that anyone of that 61% needs to have a bowling ball shoved up where the sun don't shine. Sure this news feed isn't just troll bait? Everyday I am just astounded how stupid people are...
So... Around half of all Americans are of below average intelligence?
*holds up a marshmallow on a stick*
Supplemental question: If there were clear evidence of a malicious cyber-security attack by a foreign government against our military, civilian government, electrical grid, financial systems, or other critical infrastructure, should the President have the authority to take control of or effectively shut down portions of the Internet to mitigate a crisis?
The results:
A clear majority of Americans (61%) say that the President should have the authority to take control of the Internet in the event of a malicious cyber-security attack.
Presidential authority to take control of Internet in a crisis:
Household income: Affluent consumers ($75K+) LEAST supportive of Presidential Internet takeover in event of crisis (56%)
Race: Blacks are much MORE supportive of Presidential Internet takeover (86%) than Whites (59%)
Gender: Women are more likely (67%) to support a Presidential Internet takeover than are men (55%).
Aloha Oe,
Aloha Oe,
E ke onaona noho ika lipo
A fond embrace,
a hoi ae au,
Until we meet again.
Just let the warm beaches and waves wash over your body as your freedoms slowly drift out to sea...
Will we ever be able to get past the bullsh*t and take back our freedoms? Writ of Habeas Corpus ring any bells? No? It's been missing since the Bush Jr. occupancy...
I draw your attention to the old science-fiction film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
There, a representative of an alien civilization caused all nonessential services on Earth to stop, as a demonstration of their political will to bring an end to the nuclear arms race. This was Step One. If we didn't agree to comply within a certain time limit, the aliens would proceed to the more pyrotechnic and messier Step Two.
An "internet kill switch" is not as final as Step Two. It's more like Step One with the bit about "nonessential" removed.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
I don't think anyone surveyed that said yes understood what they were talking about.
That means you'd also be turning off phone and TV service to many people.
For instance, I couldn't get cell service where I live, but VoIP works just fine as does my mini cell-site, which both require the internet to work.
95% of my bills are paid online (only one local bill is left, and I'm actually part of the project rolling out e-billing by the end of this year), and soon to be 100%. Once that last one goes online, I'll be 100% paperless. All I get in the mail now, except that one bill, is junk mail. I literally check my mail once a month.
The majority of the power companies buy and sell power online and have co-located services with companies to broker this. None of that will work without the Internet.
A large portion of the power companies use the internet to read meters (via different cell technologies connected to specialized APs).
Not to mention this isn't China. There is no "kill switch" and I think private businesses would fight tooth and nail against such a thing being installed. Short of declaring Martial Law, I'd think this would be way out of line.
The best way to deal with any sort of problem is the way it is always done: let the Internet Engineers do their thing and solve it.
The only thing the government can do is help make ICANN enforce the requirement that legitimate contact info be listed, and take away domains where they don't do this. If ICANN won't do this, take away their authority and give it to someone else who will.
Make it so we can track down the legal entity who is in charge of trouble, even if the ISP/Registrar doesn't want to reveal it.
Internet Kill-switch: Computer security experts against, politicians in favor.
Percentage of americans in favor: 61% (Yesterday, Unisys)
Percentage of americans who don't believe in evolution or have no opinion: 61% (Gallup, Feb. 2009)
Coincidence?
Hell, we can't even get 61% to vote for president. Extrapolated polls FTL.
Thanks to people like Hillary Clinton, I'm convinced that there are at least several percent of the women in the U.S. with cocks to punch.
(btw... I actually like her)
I don't believe that most Americans truly understand the technology and even less about what it would mean to hand the President that power. Personally, I don't believe it is a good idea to have a "kill switch". There's no reason to have a "kill switch" that takes down the internet. If the government and military wants to have a way to immediately disconnect from the internet, then by all means, go for it. But to disconnect everyone is asnine. Each critical business and organization should have compenetent enough IT staff along with sufficient defenses to take care of themselves. That includes the main communications companies. If a massive attack is detected, they certainly should take steps to block or disconnect traffic from the source. I just can't see how bringing down the entire internet would ever be a good idea, especially since it's become so vital to every day life.
Yeah, more meant, more Americans watch Fox news than any other news station. Doesn't Fox outrate CNN and MSNBC?
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Its a slippery slope they travel down. First a kill switch for the internetz, then a kill switch for citizens, you know, just in case we turn into a terrorist...
All Hail Baron Vladimir Harkonnen!
Now that I think about it... Climate change may produce more deserts... The Spice Must Flow!
I just have one question, can we validate who did the polls, and how much of this is propaganda to help the US make their people feel comfortable with this kill switch ( of which would only affect the US within north america, as all other servers on the web elsewhere will still be operational.....if they follow international laws and guidelines)
[T]he attempted Times Square car bombing may have heightened the American public's awareness of and concern over global and domestic cybersecurity threats.
Sooo... without the Internet it isn't possible to stick a bomb in a car and drive it through Times Square?
Um... just what did the attempted Times Square bombing have to do with cybersecurity? Was he parked outside an ISP?
Is the American public at-large really that clueless? Or was that just a badly structured sentence?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Perhaps a better metric, though, would be ... how many right-biased news channels are there, how many left, and how many center (if any!). Add up the left, add up the right, and then you'll get a better picture. Simply comparing Fox vs. CNN isn't an accurate picture of the cable news landscape if there are multiple left-leaning (or, say, Democrat-leaning) channels and only one right-leaning/Republican-leaning.
> Sixty-one % of Americans don't know what an integral is. > Sixty-one % of Americans don't know the difference between a router and a switch. > Sixty-one % of Americans think "Internet Explorer" is the internet. Average Americans are too stupid to decide whether or not the "President" should have the right to have such a "kill switch"
Most people are totally clueless and technologically illiterate.
And this is one more reason why you certainly don't want to hand politicians any more power over regulating the internet.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
- kill the internet of anyone who thinks the President should be able to kill the internet.
But only those people. :)
Switzerland is not a direct democracy in the full sense of the word.
And considering how the swiss seem to feel about muslims, I don't think they're all that well educated.