US Has Secret Tools To Force Internet On Dictatorships

4phun found a Wired story that talks about the military options when a dictatorship decides to cut off internet access to its population. "The American military does have a second set of options if it ever wants to force connectivity on a country against its ruler’s wishes. There’s just one wrinkle. 'It could be considered an act of war.'" Hopefully the same options will be available for us when our government gets around to implementing our own kill switch.

Comments

Simpler, low-tech internet

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

People who want internet access write down the URL on a piece of paper, smuggle the piece of paper to a CIA operative, and the response is broadcast in the form of printouts of the requested web page dumped out of a Hercules C130.

Re:internet access an inviolable human right?

[commodore6502]

I think he meant "internet is a right" in the same way that "freedom of the press" is a right. It doesn't mean the government has to give you a printing press.

Re:Imagine that...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"may still has"

Ugh. Engrish fail. Need more caffeine.

English is a fault tolerant language, so don't sweat it. You can make all kinds of errors in English, and everyone will still understand what you meant to say, nonetheless. At a lab from my employer, in Austin, Texas, a guy from Taiwan was speaking English with a guy from India. Their English would have made my 7th grade English teacher commit Seppuku (aka, Harakiri), but they were able to communicate with it.

In my opinion this is why English is so dominant on the Internet: you don't need to know much to communicate. Unless some sesquipedalian like me starts using terms like obsequious and innocuous.

This is why dictators are scared of the Internet: Folks can get across what is going on in their country to a wide audience.

Re:Hashtags don't overthrow dictators.

[copponex]

That country has been a jack-booted dictatorship for 5,000+ years now. If you think it was the fault of the U.S. that they aren't a democracy, you don't know anything about history.

Nice strawman herring.

Would you have considered it "meddling" when the United States forced France and Britain to give the Suez Canal back to the Egyptians after Nassar nationalized it back in 1956?

The operation, aimed at taking control of the Suez Canal, Gaza, and parts of Sinai, was highly successful for the invaders from a military point of view, but was a disaster from a political point of view, resulting in international criticism and diplomatic pressure. Along with the Suez crisis, the United States was also dealing with the near-simultaneous Hungarian revolution; as events unfolded, the U.S. decided it could not criticise outside Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt and simultaneously avoid opposing outside aggression by its two principal European allies and Israel. Despite having no commercial or military interest in the area, many countries were concerned with what was a growing rift between Western allied nations.

Oh, back in the day when the United States wasn't an entirely hypocritical pile of shit. It's cool though. We have been holding it down for US business interests since we bribed Sadat with enough cash in the 70s to keep the Suez in operation, while aiding Israel with destroying Palestinian nationalism. Brilliant geopolitics with zero moral value, as usual.