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."

Comments

Re:KIll switch alternatives

[MichaelSmith]

Egypt shows that the killswitch can't be used for more than a week or so because business and Government both complain that they need it to do their work and keep things running. If it lasted a week in Egypt I reckon it would last a day in the US. At the same time people are good networkers and they know how to get the word out. An intranet can be a wifi card and a copy of mediawiki, though I am sure the solutions used in Egypt were pretty low tech. In short the kill switch does more damage than good. It can't be used for any length of time and it is pretty easy to work around. You may as well switch off the water and see how far you get.