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No Internet “kill Switch” For Australia
An anonymous reader writes "Well, it looks as though at least some Governments have a backbone. Egypt switched off its internet to stop protests over the past few days, and the US Government is considering legislation that will give the President 'kill switch' powers over the internet as well. But in Australia, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy — best known for his attempt to filter the country's internet for child pornography and the country's flagship national fibre broadband rollout, says such a scenario couldn't occur."
Seriously, this guy does nothing but cause issues for us Aussies!
With the weather they have I don't think they need one.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The current Government barely made it back in to office at the last election. They need every cheap shot they can think of to boost their popularity ratings. I assume the algorithm in use here is that Conroy scans the Daily(tm) on his iPad(tm) at the start of the week, picks a bit of news relevant to his constituency which looks bad, and composes a speech saying he won't do that. Repeat next week and so on.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So if the USA government is planning to implement an internet kill switch in the future
Then I need to be planning a way to get around it when it gets shut down
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
OK, I'll stick my head above the parapet, because I'm interested in getting opinions.
Let's assume for a second that the kill-switch proponents are acting from the best of motives. They are worried about the potential for a huge, effective, external Internet attack on critical infrastructure, that could do the worst things - cut power, stop water , turn all the traffic lights red - you've seen the movies.
They are concerned that it such an attack occurs the population will be screaming "Why didn't you plan, why don't you stop it, how come you can't turn external connections off, you bozos?".
So they are planning and worrying - as they should.
What is wrong, in principle with a killswitch, if the correct checks and balances are in place? What is a better solution?
If any government is facing a threat it will do anything it needs to protect itself, regardless of laws. Having or not having a law will not make the slightest difference in the face of a real emergency.
Until such time as they see fit to pass 'emergency' legislation to grant executive powers to do so. As John Gilmore identified though "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."... the data will flow... somehow.
It's just a feel good thing to say that you would never do that.
They are legislating for the power to control the internet with the filter...?
The claim that it is for Child Pornography is just a very family friendly reason as study's have shown that real offenders would easily get around the filter.
Wouldn't this violate the first amendment?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
I mean the internet is one of the main outlets for the freedom of speech wouldn't it be the same as the government shutting down all newspapers if they were speaking out against the government in protests?
NBN rolled out with almost all traffic traveling over a backbone controlled by ine entity is a kill switch.
A single point of failure with one control system and a major control interface?
Who needs legislation when you control the router tables?
All the other isps will interconnect. That just leaves the very few submarine cables and satellites to manage.
A big Hi to the people at DSD.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
Do NOT trust Stephen Conroy. This is code for "we are studying it, probably have it, and legislation is due to be tabled within weeks"
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
I understand that the internet was invented/evolved as a robust distributed system that allowed communication specifically even when subject to attack or damage. Having a 'kill switch' is completely against the core purpose. as mentioned earlier, you just introduce an attack vector that was engineered not to exist. just get enought leverage against the killswitch operator and you can cause major damage.
I speculate that this is a major reason behind tiered internet. the kill switch can shutdown only the 'low tier' users of the internet, (punters, small businesses, the small fish, whatever). But, the top tier (military, corporation, gov, banking,power generation, big fish, ) can keep running unaltered (maybe even faster, and with more hardening). In this situation, the killswitch looks a lot more useful, or at least useable.
Waiting for the other shoe to...
A kill switch lets people know that it has been flipped. Things stop functioning entirely, and the net "routes around it".
Why not instead use a "congestion switch" to slow down traffic to a point where government created misinformation can be spread in real time to achieve whatever goals the government wants?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
You think that by now some wifi router setups would be able to great local micro-inter nets with some data caching so local communities could hope over the local wifi grid.
Handy for publishing local papers on what colour pants your neighbour has and how often they do or don't wash them.
Could possibly do similar with parked or moving vehicles (though Doppler may be an issue, should be overcome-able).
big gaps could be crossed with two men and some flash lights stood on top of hills, or the phone network etc...
But as we all know, people want a country run for them and stuff on the super market shelves, not freedom.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Power companies lower their prices by instantly selling excess, and instantly buying extra power rather than fire up backup natural gas generators that are less efficient (in the US). The communications links used for this would be too expensive to build as new stand alone links. They really should be through VPNs or better yet, hardware AES links or something.
Water has few if any excuses that I know of.
Traffic lights have the best ones. To manage city-wide traffic there has to be communication between proximate intersections. And putting crytpo in the lights at an intersection isn't an easy fix. Putting different keys in each light would be a nightmare, and if you don't, physical access to one light compromises the whole system. If you have central control, that center can have each light's public key, thats not so bad, but a central control point might not be the most robust system in the first place.
These systems need to communicate, dedicated communication lines are too expensive, crypto is hard to do right and hence, also expensive. Crypto is the answer we need to move towards I think, its ultimately more secure than dedicated lines, and might even cost less.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
This is the same government that wants to be able to blacklist any URL secretly.
The EFA AU said it best: http://www.efa.org.au/2011/02/03/conroy-not-fooling-anyone/
The thing i don't get is a lot of this stuff is actually 'easier' to secure if you remove them from the Internet all together ( they are talking about power water etc right ), Therefore no kill switch required.i mean your already employing someone to look after it, how about instead of being lazy and wanting to do their job from home while surfing for porn, they actually turn up to work. There is no need for a lot of these critical systems to be on-line at all. except maybe a Administration comps, for which doesn't need to be connected to to the rest of the critical systems. This (how i see it as) 'Cost Cutting' is causing problems for the whole country now.
As crappy as their internet is, exactly who would notice if Australia suddenly fell off the net? While we're at it, Canada can shut off their internet after the first week of every month when everyone but grandparents hit their monthly quota.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Switching off the NBN will switch off the Internet.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Stephen Conroy is best know for his support of NO R18+ video games and his almost stopping of alien vs predator in Australia.
Rocket Surgeon.
"Let's assume for a second that the kill-switch proponents are acting from the best of motives."
No. I am beyond the point where I could assume that ANY expansion of government power or revenue is being done for my benefit. Governments of "first world" countries are richer and more powerful today than ever. They do NOT need more power. They do NOT need more revenue. What they need is a re-allocation and downsizing of the vast mountains of power and revenue they already have.
At this point, the only changes government could make for my benefit involve *reducing* their levels of power and revenue. And as we all know, that ain't going to happen. There's a reason why every year government costs more, seizes more power over the people, and assumes control over an ever-expanding jurisdiction -- and it's not because making government bigger is unprofitable for the elite who run the business of government.
I was wondering why one of my friends just up and left everything here to move there....now i get it....they are just better people down there...although I never hear anything else about things such as racism, sexism, etc...etc... would be nice to hear what people have to say about australia's other fronts.
Meatloaf can help.
"I would do anything for gain, but I won't do that".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Get rid of him - by all means. You'll just get another tool, who slips Aussie passports to Israeli money-launderers and "intelligence" agents. Australia is severely compromised by supra-national, deep-state actors.
Backbone? These are cthonic molluscs.
Besides, MPLS is a backbone replacement technology. ;-)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOab8lYI2H8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obmP9UuOn-4
No. In point of the fact, the proposal in question would limit a power that the President has had for decades. Under a 1934 law, the President can (under certain circumstances) basically shut off any or all wireless or wired communications.
Please stop the FUD about this. One might argue that the bill should go further in restricting this power, or that the power should never have been granted in the first place, but calling it a new power is either ignorant or a lie.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I'm concerned that they developed a switch that could be flicked killing all Internet users. Damn those scientist and their H-bombs and kill switches. Damn them to hell.
....if you are unable to speak?
Or put another way: what use is internet access if the site you want to visit is on the secret blacklist?
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.