Court: Homeland Security Must Disclose 'Internet Kill Switch'

An anonymous reader writes "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must disclose its plans for a so-called Internet 'kill switch,' a federal court ruled on Tuesday. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the agency's arguments that its protocols surrounding an Internet kill switch were exempt from public disclosure and ordered the agency to release the records in 30 days. However, the court left the door open for the agency to appeal the ruling."

Comments

First po

[Anonymous Coward]

First po

Re:First po

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why this is -1, I thought it was clever.

Re:First po

[Anonymous Coward]

it was almost clever but the title should have been complete

Re:First po

[Anonymous Coward]

...because the "first-to-mod" enthusiasts are in such a rush to downmod any ac, they end up demonstrating their own incompetence....

Re:First po

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It requires thought to put it in the context of this thread, which does not fit in with the Chinese Room response of most Slashdotters, who just regurgitate memetic responses based on symbol pushing, text and moderation being two separate output vectors.

Re:First po

[Qzukk]

Go back to your arithmetic tables, you thinking machine.

Re: First po

[is not primary]

Must resist modding down this insightful post. Must resist modding down this insightful post must resist

Re:First po

[msauve]

ITYM "Mechanical Turk."

Re:First po

[Anonymous Coward]

Because slashdot mods are all inbred retards.

Re:First po

[tqk]

... most Slashdotters, who just regurgitate memetic responses ...

Oh, is that what it is? I thought "those guys" were just the same shallow, self-absorbed jerks who appear to stink up the place everywhere these days, and as long as "we" ignore their existence "we" can all just get along. Turn up the volume on your earbuds, and even trains bearing down on you tend to disappear into the background.

Re:First po

[Anonymous Coward]

And to complete the meme, he needed the:

%!$*%& [NO CARRIER]

Re:First po

[OurDailyFred]

There may be a typo here, you probably meant "Dork" not "Turk"

I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

This is ridiculous - a bunch of hype. There's no such thing as an Internet kill sw

Re:I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

This is ridiculous - a bunch of hype. There's no such thing as an Internet kill sw

Ok course there is. Maybe not in a literal sense of pushing a button, but you can certainly kill all incoming and outgoing traffic from the US to other countries/continents. And guess what, a governemt has the authority to make it so.
He who controls (directly or through the force of law) the routers and backbones controls the internet.

Re:I doubt it

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Should sat phone owners expect a SWAT raid?

Re:I doubt it

[edibobb]

Maybe not physically, but legally?

If there was a serious anti-DHS or anti-government movement forming over the internet, could DHS shut it down long enough to block the instigators and remove the offending information? Some people in the DHS would like control over everything that could threaten DHS.

Re:I doubt it

[Phreakiture]

Who owns the satellites? Where are they (the owners, not the satellites) located? Can the US Government successfully pressure the owners to cause the satellites to be shut down? If so, then no, no raids will be necessary.

Re:I doubt it

[DocSavage64109]

Who's to say they will only cut border links? Maybe they've cut off some town in Alabama right now while they kill the population and we'll never even know about it.

Re:I doubt it

[Runaway1956]

" a governemt has the authority to make it so."

Perhaps you are confusing power with authority. My government has the power to prevent me having any contact with the outside world. My government has no such authority.

Re:I doubt it

[kilodelta]

Agreed - and there are only a handful or peering sites in the U.S. so it'd be pretty easy to shut traffic internally down too.

Re:I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

who cares, its only alabama

Re:I doubt it

[DexterIsADog]

Sure, they can get away with it in Alabama, but they don't dare try that in a region with some teeth... so to speak.

Re:I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

That could only happen if Obama were willing to kill US citizens without a trial.

Re:I doubt it

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I'm not sure how they'd do it physically. If we look at the internet for what it actually is by definition - a network is a bunch of computers connected to other computes, the internet is a bunch of networks connected to other networks - the internet is actually privately owned, even at the peering level of tier 1 ISP's.

I suppose you could bring it down by having the national guard (or whoever) commandeer a major NOC (network operations center) of a tier 1 ISP and then fudge the BGP tables of all of their major peering points worldwide (or nationwide if you prefer,) but the links wouldn't be physically broken. Other ISP's could compensate by just ignoring those peers. The customers of that ISP and its client ISPs would be down for sure, but not everybody.

I'm still trying to figure out why we even have a need for a kill switch. A terror attack on SCADA systems? Just require SCADA systems have a communications kill switch, then you don't need an internet kill switch.

Re:I doubt it

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Good thing that we still have the Moon!

Re:I doubt it

[akgooseman]

I'm still trying to figure out why we even have a need for a kill switch.

The answer to that seems fairly apparent: To prevent or stifle a popular uprising against those in charge. Our government no longer works for us. In many ways, it works against us.

Re:I doubt it

[Danathar]

If you detonate enough nukes in the stratosphere, that would create a big enough EMP to accomplish those ends.

Re:I doubt it

[fscking_coward_2001]

Sure, they can get away with it in Alabama, but they don't dare try that in a region with some teeth... so to speak.

I don't care who you are, that's funny.

Re:I doubt it

[FlyHelicopters]

For all the talk of geeks about how they have encryption and the Internet has a million nodes and information wants to be free, most would crumble pretty fast with a gun to their head. There is a term for it called "rubber hose cryptography". Someone thinks they are secure behind their keyboard, but if you find them, you simply need to use force to change their minds. If they are stubborn, force against their family works.

but...

I personally might resist if they threaten me, after all, if they shoot me, I can't tell them anything. If they put a gun to my child's head, I'll do whatever they tell me to.

The thing is, a phone call to the Tier 1 backbone providers would shut the Internet down in a hurry.

If they actually refused and it was deemed an emergency, it wouldn't take much to change their minds.

While a few small regional ISPs would be harder to effect, the remaining traffic would probably overwhelm the Tier 2 and 3 providers and of course millions of people who actually use providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. would find their Internet didn't work anyway.

Re:I doubt it

[JWSmythe]

Yup, it's always been there.

Plenty of people know where all the international fiber endpoints are. I can think of a dozen buildings that if they were isolated, it would cripple Internet service in the US. They don't even have to shut down entire datacenters, only the power in the meet-me rooms. I think DHS can find 2 dozen agents in the US who would go to those buildings, shut down the rooms, and the Internet is gone.

As we've seen before, a problem with just one tier 1 provider can make Internet service crawl. Dropping a few major peering points would effectively shut the whole thing down. It's not even hard to find them, if you've been doing business with them. I've been to a few.

They could probably have it ready to shut down simultaneously with a 30 minute lead time to give enough time for the agents to drive to them. Internet and phones would be dead everywhere in the US, and severely interrupt international use. Any remaining links and private peerings would be saturated beyond use.

There are maps and lists readily available.

http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_exchange_points#North_America
http://www.bgp4.as/internet-exchanges
http://www.datacentermap.com/ixps.html

Re:I doubt it

[JWSmythe]

Why would you think it would take the national guard, or any sort of serious force, or messing with routing tables?

All it would take two agents and a national security letter.

Most datacenters don't have that many people working in them at any given time. Well, there might be people, but staff is usually a half dozen or less security, 2 or 3 NOC techs, and some sales people if they even bothered to work from the office that day. Two agents say "cut power to all the gear in the meet-me room", and confirm everything went dark. Done. People argue less when confronted by people with guns, and put up less resistance when handcuffed and locked in a room. If they're feeling particularly ambitious (and horribly annoying IMHO), they could hit the main breakers on the equipment side of the battery room. No power to the routers, no data going over them.

Do a few major peerings, and the Internet is dead. A perfectly capable kill switch.

Something like this wouldn't be used for a SCADA problem. It's more of to isolate Internet resources.

In a war scenario, one of the first things an attacker would do is neutralize infrastructure. Power, communications, water, etc. Power is done at power plants. Only isolated pieces remain, like places with their own generators.

Communications is the point we're talking about here. Internet, land lines, cell phones, and sat phones down with the "kill switch". You'll still have some working, like PBXs within an organization, and some (but not all) sat phones. At very best, you'll have some sat phones talking to each other, but they aren't calling land lines or now disconnected cell phones.

Water is mostly killed with the power, or can be addressed later.

The only communications you'll end up with are HAM radios, and those with illegal transmitters switching to commercial AM/FM frequencies. Of those, it will only be the ones who have their own generators. They'll be a lot easier to triangulate without all the normal RF noise present.

Then you isolate consumable transportation. Civilians will starve without food supplies being brought in. Major roads, railroads, and sea ports with be blocked or severed.

The sad thing is, everything I described is in all of the war plans. It can also be accomplished by a small group of civilians with a good plan. It's simply proof that there has been no real threat to the United States. .. and to whoever may be reading this that says "Oh shit, he's a bad guy", I'm not. But if your bosses insist you interview me, feel free to stop by and say "hi". Bring soda and smokes, and we'll have a nice long chat. Don't mess up the front door, we'll open it for you.

Re:I doubt it

[Dan541]

Maybe they've cut off some town in Alabama right now while they kill the population and we'll never even know about it.

and nothing of value was lost.

Re:I doubt it

[TapeCutter]

My government has no legitimate authority to make me buy healthcare

Who appointed you as the ultimate authority on constitutional law?

Re:I doubt it

[Drakonblayde]

Most providers will simply capitulate to a request and turn down the links and/or bgp sessions instead of actually having their gear powered off. Cutting power to a datacenter, or even a floor of a datacenter, can have a major impact in the ability to recover. If the government is going to shut me down anyway, I'd rather kill the peering sessions myself rather than risk additional loss of revenue due to equipment becoming unrecoverable.

Re:I doubt it

[KingMotley]

That's no moon!

Re:I doubt it

[Nov8tr]

Are you kidding me? Do not ever doubt the governments ability to break something. They are the kings of breaking things. They might not be able to fix it, but they sure could break it.

Re:I doubt it

[WillAffleckUW]

Who owns the satellites? Where are they (the owners, not the satellites) located? Can the US Government successfully pressure the owners to cause the satellites to be shut down? If so, then no, no raids will be necessary.

Who? Mostly Canada and Russia.

The Canadian ones already comply, but the Russian ones have their own off switches.

Re:I doubt it

[WillAffleckUW]

It's not like it would affect either Internet 2 or the secret backbone used by NSA and other mil intel.

You have to remember the commercial internet was originally the same kind of system, we only made it public later.

Re:I doubt it

[JWSmythe]

That's why they'd prefer to kill the meet-me room. Bring down all the links without yanking cords out, or dropping power to the rest of the DC floor.

Most facilities I've been in pass all traffic through the meet-me room. Sometimes the "room" is just a few racks with all the outside providers networking gear. Usually it's a separate room that requires special access. Like, I've never had access to go wandering around a providers meet-me room by myself. I'd usually get supervised tours. When I've needed to help providers work through their problems, I've been escorted by authorized personnel. That's always been "point, don't touch" access. We all acknowledge that all it would take to kill all peering in that room is to flip the main breaker(s) for that room. There's usually at least two panels from two different sources (i.e, two DC rooms either physically or logically divided.)

Re:I doubt it

[merrisr]

Does anyone ever RTFA any more? Despite the racy title (the fault of the paper, not the poster) this is about blocking wireless, not "Killing the Internet".

Why always a back door

[Bucc5062]

"However, the court left the door open for the agency to appeal the ruling.""

I never understand this thinking. I am under the impression that when a judgement goes against you, you can appeal the decision. The court is set up already for that thinking so what or how does this court do something different. When I read that I get the feeling that the "Court" felt ugly for their ruling and really really hopes that aggrieved party will appeal.

I do hope they don't or if they do, they fail for I would love to know about a switch that can "kill" the internet. A system designed to route around such devices.

 

Re:Why always a back door

[imnes]

I believe when a judgement is rendered "without prejudice" the door is open for appeal. If a judgement is rendered "with prejudice" then it cannot be appealed.

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

Journalists love that sentence for some reason.

Fact is, unless the decision is coming from the US Supreme Court, in a civil suit either party may appeal the ruling. (In a criminal case only the defendant may appeal).

Now, the court may well refuse to hear the appeal and it goes nowhere, and in fact that happens the majority of the time, but you can always give it a shot.

Re:Why always a back door

[bob_super]

It depends whether you just kill DNS and wait for most users to give up, or want to kill everything at once and have to reach into the many central nodes that would bring the internet to its knees if they were off.

You don't need to take down that many major nodes for everybody else to become suddenly over-congested and fundamentally useless.

Re:Why always a back door

[Tango42]

I think prejudice refers to whether or not you can make the claims again. If a claim is dismissed because it is without merit, it will usually be with prejudice, meaning any future claim on that point will be consisted pre-judged and dismissed. If a claim is dismissed due to some procedural issue, it may be without prejudice so you can try again later.

Whether or not you have leave to appeal is separate.

Re:Why always a back door

[sl4shd0rk]

I never understand this thinking.

In the US, it seems to usually work like this:

politician: "I just got a shit ton of cash from KKK and Bros. to push for a new law so they can add raw sewage to their energy drink as a filler"
Judge:"Wtf? The FDA would never approve that!"
(Enter Bob. Head of FDA. Previous Monsanto lobbyist)
politician:"Hey bob, I'll vote for that new GMO corn thing to ride on the coattails of HSF.32 if you approve this thing for KKK Bros."
Bob:"It's a deal!"
Judge:"I'll never allow this. It's inhumane!"
Politician:"Fine, we'll go get a judge who will"
(Enter Bill, new judge. Previously a lawyer for large soft drink company)
Politician:"Here, sign this. The FDA approved it. We also worked out a deal to get more corn syrup in cola drinks"
Bill: *scribble scribble* -- "There you go."

Re:Why always a back door

[gstoddart]

I never understand this thinking. I am under the impression that when a judgement goes against you, you can appeal the decision.

My exceedingly limited understanding (IANAL) is it leaves them open to appeal based on specific points of law not initially addressed in the ruling.

So if someone said "we object to X", and they rule on that, that's what the ruling is about. I think this leaves them room to come back and say "but we can do X because of Y and you're wrong", and then the court can rule if the argument makes sense.

I think very often courts are ruling on a specific point of law, and the ruling only applies to that narrow scope. The broader issue may still be litigated.

Or something like that.

Re:Why always a back door

[Captain_Chaos]

The court is set up already for that thinking so what or how does this court do something different.

What they mean is that the court stayed their decision (postponed the time at which it would come into force) to give the DHS time to appeal.

When I read that I get the feeling that the "Court" felt ugly for their ruling and really really hopes that aggrieved party will appeal.

No, it's pretty standard in cases where a) the court thinks the party who lost might appeal, b) there is at least an outside chance such an appeal might succeed and c) if they didn't stay their decision the appeal would become moot since in the mean time the losing party would have to (in this case) hand over the information and there would be no point in appealing. It's to protect the integrity of the judiciary system. Otherwise, what would be the point of having appeals?

Re:Why always a back door

[DexterIsADog]

In your scenario, a politician is arguing with a judge about a law the politician is supposedly *going to* introduce as a bill, and the judge is objecting that he, personally, will never allow that? Then the politician finds a judge to sign off on this bill approved by the head of the FDA (not even submitted to the legislature at that point), and boom, it's a law?

You've made a total hash of how the U.S. political and legal system work, and your scenario makes no sense at all. How in the world did this get modded insightful?

Just to clarify;
Politician writes bill.
Politician may look for co-sponsors to strengthen the bill's chances.
Politician proposes bill, or attaches it as an amendment to some other bill.
Legislature debates bill and passes it or not.
Bill becomes law.
FDA, private citizens, or other interested parties may choose to sue to overturn the law.
THEN the judiciary gets involved.

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

And you've made a total hash of how it's supposed to work vice how it really works.

Re:Why always a back door

[orgelspieler]

First step is wrong. Everybody knows it's ALEC who writes all the bills.

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit man, where's this judge you mention that wouldn't just be paid off?

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

But Noble Laureate Barack "I am good at killing" is President, Judge, Jury, and Executioner. What a competent guy.

Re:Why always a back door

[gl4ss]

why? because that's how the system really works and the politicians haven't bothered changing the laws fully to comply with policies in a long time, since you would need more people to agree, or possibly break the commitments of the nation(and get even more people to agree) - why bother when you can find a judge who will agree that metadata isn't data or that since you're renting a piece of land from cuba the usual rules don't apply or that you can force your citizens to not computer gamble abroad or that amendments don't apply because of 'turists or that you have war powers without there being an actual war..

Re:Why always a back door

[TangoMargarine]

So he was oversimplifying it a bit. Big freakin' deal; that's still the spirit of the process.

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfff. Deeply naive.

Corp wants law changed to make them profit
Corp calls up fore-hire lobby or think tank, gives them money
Lobby calls up politicians they've bribed letting them know they're going to introduce a new law
Lobby writes law
Lobby uses revolving door ex govt staff/politicians to gather more support
Lobby uses paid shills, media manipulation to fabricate consensus
Politician introduces law

etc etc.

Re:Why always a back door

[fscking_coward_2001]

His way is much more efficient.

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the opposite. I think "with/without prejudice" is related to the "double jeopardy" concept. If the ruling is "with prejudice" that means the ruling takes place before the full court procedure has been performed (probably to save time). A person is entitled to exactly one full court procedure on a specific issue, thus an early ruling ("with prejudice") would not stop a person from trying again. It doesn't make sense for a quick decision to remove the possibility of making a more informed decision later. ...unless you are TRYING to subvert justice.

Re:Why always a back door

[FlyHelicopters]

Fact is, unless the decision is coming from the US Supreme Court, in a civil suit either party may appeal the ruling. (In a criminal case only the defendant may appeal).

Yes, and there is a good reason for that...

Lets say you are accused of killing someone, turns out the Judge in your one horse town is related to the person who is dead.

You are convicted and sentenced to die.

A reasonable appeals court would hear your argument of, "the Judge who oversaw my trial was related to the dead and I could not get a fair trial".

That is the sort of thing (abit extreme) that we have appeals courts for. To be able to go to a higher authority and say, "hey wait a minute, something went wrong here!".

Re:Why always a back door

[BringsApples]

How in the world did this get modded insightful?

For the same reason that it sucks to live in America. Here's a start.

Re:Why always a back door

[DexterIsADog]

He didn't oversimplify it. He got it completely wrong.

Were you sleeping in high school civics class too?

Re:Why always a back door

[DexterIsADog]

The point was, the system doesn't work remotely like he described it.

Re:Why always a back door

[TangoMargarine]

You're a towel

Re:Why always a back door

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise, what would be the point of having appeals?

Moar billable hours!!!1!

Re:Why always a back door

[DexterIsADog]

You didn't engage your brain while reading... or before posting.

Who woulda thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just keep voting for the one-party-scam, suckers. You deserve whatever you get at this point.

Re:Who woulda thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what planet do you live on where any one of 3 political parties can form a governments by itself?

Re: Who woulda thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada

Re: Who woulda thunk it?

[molesdad]

We have more than one political elite?

Re: Who woulda thunk it?

[realityimpaired]

And pretty much everywhere in the world other than the US.... Almost everywhere in the world with a democratic system has a multi-party system, and a minority government tends to be the most beneficial for the people (assuming you don't end up with a lame duck situation like the US has right now, though we have non-confidence votes to force an election at that point).

Re: Who woulda thunk it?

[Altrag]

That's something that amused me when we had a minority govt up here in Canada.. you were starting to hear people complaining about how "slow" government was with a minority. Which to my ears basically sounded like "WTF they're actually spending time debating the bills? Outrageous!" Couldn't believe my ears when I heard that complaint the first time.

Re: Who woulda thunk it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And pretty much everywhere in the world other than the US.... Almost everywhere in the world with a democratic system has a multi-party system

Ehh. It's debatable whether or not parliamentary system is better or worse than the US system. Parliamentary systems have always seemed to me like a game of musical chairs for a relatively static group of political elites. In the US, it is possible to have an outsider who swoops in to really shake things up. Sometimes that's a good thing (Reagan) and sometimes it's a disaster (Obama).

and a minority government tends to be the most beneficial

Since the smallest minority is a single individual, does that mean you like dictatorships? :-)

(assuming you don't end up with a lame duck situation like the US has right now

The US is not in the midst of a lame duck situation. It is experiencing an ideological gridlock which has been about 100 years in the making. America's founding fathers created a system based on restricting the FedGov to a small number of enumerated powers. New waves of immigration brought to the US contrary notions about the role of govt which are centered around the idea that the FedGov should be very powerful and directly involve itself in nearly aspect of a citizen's life. Supporters of that idea believe that the FedGov will be benevolent if given that power; opponents of that idea believe that the FedGov will be abusive and tyrannical if given that power. ATM it still seems that a strong majority of American citizens think the FedGov is too powerful, but that majority is woefully underrepresented in the FedGov political class which seems determined to expand its own power without limit. If you want to know which citizens are on which side, contact the NSA, they'll be able to get you a list of who's who. Just ask for a comprehensive list of the enemies of the state.

though we have non-confidence votes to force an election at that point

That's a terrific feature of the parliamentary system when things are working right. It's not so great in a place like Italy which seems to have a lot of problems making up its mind about govt.

Gutless decision...

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, the court left the door open for the agency to appeal the ruling.".

Cowardly court, kicking the can down the road to some other judge while refusing the take responsibility. Shameful.

Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

The Elders of the Internet would never approve of such a thing.

Re:Good luck with that

[g0bshiTe]

Let's just hope Jen doesn't drop the internet box.

Re:Good luck with that

[DarthVain]

Exactly what I was thinking... Some snickering NSA nerds handing over the "kill switch" to the judge... "Here you go... Careful!"

Let's talk about the more interesting thing here

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were the US Government, how would you go about completely (or functionally completely) shutting off the Internet? Could it be done?

internet detonated bombs? please...

[Anonymous Coward]

they want to be able to shut off the internet in case some huge mob of pissed off unemployed people tries to flashmob capitol.

Re:internet detonated bombs? please...

[Anonymous Coward]

they want to be able to shut off the internet in case some huge mob of pissed off unemployed people tries to flashmob capitol.

And suddenly shutting off the internet would do what to this mob?

Re:internet detonated bombs? please...

[Anonymous Coward]

Surveillance detects and tracks interest in the activity, identifying potential organizers and participants. If it goes any further than just talk then they get cut off.

Mesh Networks

[RandomUsername99]

Not ever really having considered this scenario before, I may be missing some pitfalls that are obvious to other people, but it seems like a consumer-level mesh network might be a good solution to a scenario where they are actually able to develop an internet kill switch, especially in cities, where the space between nodes would (hopefully) be small. I know, at least at the beginning, the OLPC project was using something. Would that be viable? What other technologies are worth pursuing in this vein, that are available right now?

Re:Mesh Networks

[g0bshiTe]

How does your proposed solution account for phone calls to ISP's ordering them to shut down.

Re:Mesh Networks

[Narcocide]

I on the other hand have contemplated this inevitable scenario extensively. My question is: What will they actually do in response if a completely consumer-driven, decentralized, mesh network gains actual popularity as an alternative to the then sadly effectively obsolete network they're trying to scuttle? Will they come for your wifi hotspots before or after they come for your guns?

Re:Mesh Networks

[rourin_bushi]

Does it matter which they come for first? Each will be defended with both.

Re:Mesh Networks

[Runaway1956]

They'll make one sweep to get both, then they'll loiter in suspicious areas with wardriving equipment and armored personnel carriers filled with swat teams. Fire up either your guns or your wifi, they'll be on you like stink on shite.

Re:Mesh Networks

[RandomUsername99]

Note that I asked a question regarding a class of solutions, and did not propose a solution.
Mesh networks are peer-to-peer wireless networks that don't have ISPs, or any other centralized network. They are only good for communication within the network, and anywhere where there might be a gateway to, theoretically.

Re:Mesh Networks

[RandomUsername99]

I think that this 'kill-switch' is more likely to be used in individual cases of social unrest rather than for long-term disabling of the internet where a 'rounding up of equipment' scenario would be played out. I'm thinking more about large-scale, short-term social unrest rather than long-term censorship.

For the kill-switch scenario, I imagine that jamming, much like with any other wireless signal, would be the best way to kill a mesh network.

Re:Mesh Networks

[BlueStrat]

They'll make one sweep to get both, then they'll loiter in suspicious areas with wardriving equipment and armored personnel carriers filled with swat teams. Fire up either your guns or your wifi, they'll be on you like stink on shite.

That's why you set up wifi routers, etc, as bait with IEDs waiting for the entry team and other IEDs placed along the route where SWAT/police/military vehicles would have to travel/stop, and position sniper teams to take out survivors. Bonus points for employing a brute-force radio jammer so they can't call for backup or communicate with each other tactically besides screaming.

An MRAP may protect it's occupants from direct explosion effects, but it won't raise the front end of the vehicle out of a 15'-20' deep hole in the road where the road has deliberately been weakened from underneath via excavation from within the sewer system. How long would the occupants survive when the MRAP is sitting nose-down, ass-up in a hole filled with burning gasoline and snipers to take out anyone sticking their heads out of a hatch?

The other problem they'd face is force security. How do the police/military protect themselves and their families from retribution when they must live among the same population they're attacking?

Strat

DHS Kill Switch?

[krept]

Can someone explain to me the benefit of an internet kill switch? And how DHS is the appropriate department for its implementation?

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[gstoddart]

Can someone explain to me the benefit of an internet kill switch? And how DHS is the appropriate department for its implementation?

They could tell you, but they'd have to kill you.

I'm sure the official explanation would be that in the event of a widespread terrorist event (or some unspecified threat), they would need to shut down the internet to maintain public order.

Me, I'm sure it's mostly so they can maintain absolute control over everything just in case. It's all part of the plan to actually make 1984 and Brave New World come true.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[SuricouRaven]

Real reason: So they can shut down the internet in the vicinity of major protests, and thus keep people from tweeting and streaming video when the police start firing tear gas into the crowd and breaking a few bones.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[CanHasDIY]

Real reason: So they can shut down the internet in the vicinity of major protests, and thus keep people from tweeting and streaming video when the police start firing chemical weapons into the crowd and breaking a few bones.

FTFY.

Getting tired of society trying to wrap a nice, pretty bow on that particularly ugly duck.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[g0bshiTe]

"Can someone explain to me the benefit of an internet kill switch?"

Media blackout. A populace ignorant of goings on is easier to control.

"And how DHS is the appropriate department for its implementation?"

Fact is there should be zero reason for an internet kill switch in the first place. There should be zero critical systems internet facing, which makes the argument to protect against terrorist attack to our infrastructure and critical systems moot. Which leads me to believe the only reason for one is to control the population, or rather control the data the population has access to, read media black out.

DHS nor any department should have need for it's implementation, nor should any department control it should one actually exist.

This right here is the best reason I can come up with to remove US control over any portion of the net, this includes hosting and services located in the US.

And yes I am an ashamed American, ashamed of what my country has become.

DHS SUCK IT BITCHES!

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[MRe_nl]

The agency argues that SOP 303's disclosure could reasonably be expected to endanger the physical safety of individuals near unexploded bombs. Mot. at 13. DHS's thinking goes like this: 1) SOP 303 "describes a procedure for shutting down wireless networks to prevent bombings": 2) releasing information regarding this protocol would enable "bad actors" to blunt its usefulness": and 3) this "could reasonably be expected to endanger the physical safety of those near a bomb by increasing the chances that the process will fail and the bomb will explode".

http://epic.org/foia/EPICvDHS-SOP303-Opinion.pdf

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me, if there was a legitimate chance of a third party coming into government, the kill switch would be employed on election day.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[MysteriousPreacher]

Fortunately CS gas, among other chemical weapons, was banned from use in war. There's plenty left for civilian pacification!

http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/articles/article-ii-definitions-and-criteria/

It's great! Spray this stuff on an enemy army and you end up in the Hague. Lob it at your citizens and everything is just fine.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Media blackout. A populace ignorant of goings on is easier to control.

Alternate media black-out. I can guarantee you CNN will be on the air saying what they're told[paid] to say.

And yes I am an ashamed American, ashamed of what my country has become.

You should be a proud American, but realize that the US Government has become an enemy of the idea the is America. There's a reason why the Founders spoke of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic".

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're scared of things like that "help i'm being arrested" app that OWS made. Sure, if you murder someone or get caught with a couple pounds of meth they'll give you a phone call relatively quickly but recent experience (last ten years or so) shows that if you get arrested for political reasons (i.e. protesting) they generally just hold you incommunicado until the protests are put down and then throw out when the threat is passed and hope you don't sue. (see: Republican national convention NYC).

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yes I am an ashamed American, ashamed of what my country has become.

You're ashamed, but the rest of the world is getting scared.

Once the US has said that nobody else in the world has rights, and that their national security interests trump everything else ... America is now a very scary entity who has decided it's their right to do any damned thing they want, and the rest of the world can fuck off.

Which, could have the very unfortunate effect of increasing hostility to the US and making them more likely to be targeted. Certainly the average citizen of most countries is now very aware of the fact that the US feels entitled to do whatever they like.

Your government is becoming increasingly dismissive, belligerent, and self-entitled. One just has to mostly hope the US isn't in the process of becoming a mad dog.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[gstoddart]

It's great! Spray this stuff on an enemy army and you end up in the Hague. Lob it at your citizens and everything is just fine.

Except, the US is explicitly NOT a signatory to anything which would make them subject to the International Criminal Court.

In other words, short of military action against the US to bring someone to justice ... nothing can happen. The US has specifically set themselves up to not be under the jurisdiction of anything like this.

So, if they decide to actually do gas their people, stern letters and hand wringing is pretty much all that will happen.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chemical weapons? Nah, they're going to use the billions of rounds of ammo that the DHS and IRS bought in the last year. because, you know at some point protestors will be so disrespected (almost duly so, pussies staying behind the line and all) that they can just be disregarded as terrorists, and shot and killed in the streets. And I guess that's better (for the protestors of today) to be "martyred" than to go to jail and over-crowd the system in order to gain respect.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because the govt cant sign anything that makes americans subject to the ICC. The constitution states that the Supreme Court is the highest court and final authority for americans, so anything putting the ICC above the SC in precedence would of course be unconstitutional.

This is a Good Thing.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[MysteriousPreacher]

Heh, true. The UN could pass a non binding resolution of "steady on there, lads!"

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

And all right-thinking dictators agree with you.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Burz]

Media blackout. A populace ignorant of goings on is easier to control.

Alternate media black-out. I can guarantee you CNN will be on the air saying what they're told[paid] to say.

And yes I am an ashamed American, ashamed of what my country has become.

You should be a proud American, but realize that the US Government has become an enemy of the idea the is America. There's a reason why the Founders spoke of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic".

Funny thing: '...and domestic' is the same emphasis the DHS boosters use, too. Bit of a philosophical quandary there.

Creating a police state involves building up walls of privilege, and its these privileged enemies we have to pay close attention to.

Now, owing to the fact that terrorists may be using electricity for their misdeeds, I fully expect someone on-high will call for a centrally-controlled electrical grid kill switch.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[cffrost]

"He has gassed his own people." —Bush II, on Saddam Hussein

"He has gassed his own people." —Myself, on Obama, Bush II, Clinton, and others, for which I cannot remember specific incidences.

I've been considering this hypocrisy ever since al-Qaeda spilled — and/or Syrian government forces dispersed — sarin in Damascus.

Thank you, CanHasDIY — it's reassuring to know that others recognize that US government forces routinely "[gas their] own people," too, when it disagrees with an exercise of the First Amendment, or when it's fighting its civil wars on drugs and terra', etc.

Some may say "well, sarin is more lethal than CS, so there's a big difference." Well, there are lethal and non-lethal doses for both sarin and CS, and people in the US have died from exposure to lethal doses of CS deployed by US government forces. To cite one example off the top of my head, a girl in the Branch Davidian compound died from CS exposure during the ATF/FBI attack on their compound — this cause of death can be determined by cyanide present in the body; absorbed CS is converted into cyanide by the human body.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[SonicSpike]

Egypt tried this, and it only made things worse for the government because people left their computers and actually went outside to join the protest instead of watching it on the Net.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Media blackout. A populace ignorant of goings on is easier to control.

Alternate media black-out. I can guarantee you CNN will be on the air saying what they're told[paid] to say.

And yes I am an ashamed American, ashamed of what my country has become.

You should be a proud American, but realize that the US Government has become an enemy of the idea the is America. There's a reason why the Founders spoke of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic".

Now I think you mean CNN will have their reporters standing on every corner in Washington saying, I dont know what is going on here but we have a bunch of cop cars... there is something going on I see some sort of evac helicopter, flying overhead... etc... etc...

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Careful...you're sounding an awful lot like the tea party there. This sort of thing is being noted, and stored away. You don't even bother to hide your identity - a poor choice. There will be a reckoning for people like you...coming soon.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real reason: So they can shut down the internet in the vicinity of major protests, and thus keep people from tweeting and streaming video when the police start firing tear gas into the crowd and breaking a few bones.

Cutting off the internet won't stop people from recording videos on their phones and uploading them later when they have an internet connection.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real reason: So they can shut down the internet in the vicinity of major protests, and thus keep people from tweeting and streaming video when the police start firing chemical weapons into the crowd and breaking a few bones.

FTFY.

Getting tired of society trying to wrap a nice, pretty bow on that particularly ugly duck.

Lead is a chemical. Sorry, there are a lot of ugly bows out there.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Maritz]

2) releasing information regarding this protocol would enable "bad actors" to blunt its usefulness"

Did they bother to ask Nick Cage if it's even on his radar?

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[jmcvetta]

I fully expect someone on-high will call for a centrally-controlled electrical grid kill switch.

If I understand correctly - I'm by no means an electric engineer - there are serious safety issues with suddenly disconnecting a running nuclear power station from the grid.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you get arrested for political reasons (i.e. protesting) they generally just hold you incommunicado until the protests are put down and then throw out when the threat is passed and hope you don't sue

That's pretty much how it went down when Occupy SF was suppressed.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should be a proud American, but realize that the US Government has become an enemy of the idea the is America. There's a reason why the Founders spoke of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic".

That is the single most useless thing that you could say. This is the lazy thinking that has the rest of the world sighing and shaking their heads when they think of the USA. WTF are you suggesting? Eliminate the very idea of government? The government is not "the enemy", its your stupid ass "devil take the hindmost", "I got mine jack" culture that you foster while you spit derisively on any collective action. If you don't like civilization grab your hunting knife and head into the hills and don't come back.

Why don't you try applauding ethical behavior and shunning unethical behavior at all levels of your lives, personal daily relationships and those of your public figures. You guys have the government that you deserve. You should try being worthy of better government and working for better government. Use your schools to create citizens not "workers and consumer".

FFS the USA just needs to grow the fuck up. Being in Canada in such close proximity to the USA the idea of the growing well armed anarchy down there scares the shit out of me. And nothing about it is funny.

Re:DHS Kill Switch?

[NewAmericanDeal]

You might have forgotten, but then again you might still be expecting this link. I wish Slashdot had a private message system. It even tangentially relates to this story.

http://newamericandeal.blogspot.com/

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[CanHasDIY]

If you were the US Government, how would you go about completely (or functionally completely) shutting off the Internet? Could it be done?

Considering that the US government has nigh exclusive control over the core DNS servers (not to mention countless backdoors in every ISP's terminal room), yea, it could totally be done.

Kill switch?

[Cro Magnon]

There is no kill switch! It's a !@#$ NO CARRIER

Re:Kill switch?

[ewieling]

It seems to me an easy way to kill the kill switch is for some patriot at the DHS (I'm sure there are a few) to flip the "internet kill switch" to the "on" position in the middle of a weekday. I suspect it would be dismantled shortly after that.

Re:Kill switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wouldn't you know it, ANOTHER boat happened to drop anchor directly over this pipe. And a car crashed into this utility. In several dozen places at once. It's just a coincidence, citizen, people drive drunk all the time."

Re:Kill switch?

[antdude]

Wow, even dial-up!

Odd ruling

[Tango42]

Seems like a strange ruling to me. How is something intended to prevent bombs going off not to do with saving lives? I'm all for interpreting things like this narrowly, but the fact that you don't know in advance which lives you are saving doesn't seem like a sensible argument to me...

Re:Odd ruling

[bill_mcgonigle]

Seems like a strange ruling to me. How is something intended to prevent bombs going off not to do with saving lives? I'm all for interpreting things like this narrowly, but the fact that you don't know in advance which lives you are saving doesn't seem like a sensible argument to me...

I haven't read the ruling yet, but just based on what you've got there, things like that could go either way. There's a very non-zero chance that if you take down the whole Internet, something will fail that's never been tested like that before. That something may very well have dangerous, even deadly consequences, not to mention the economic disruption.

So, you better have a damn good case for building the communications equivalent of nuking the homeland, and general vague scenarios might not fit that bill.

Oh, and let's put this on the "Espionage Act of 1917 needs to be repealed" pile - most of the country thinks the government is incompetent; giving them an Internet kill switch is as smart as passing out live grenades in the Kindergarten, and massive secrecy just lets the toddlers smuggle them in.

Re:Odd ruling

[Tango42]

Since the details of the switch haven't been published, I have no view on its merits. It sounds more like a wi-fi jammer than something that will actually kill the internet.

This court case is not about the merits of the system but about whether the details should be published. The exceptions for things related to security where lives could be at risk by publishing seem to clearly apply.

Re:Odd ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a light that flashes whenever there is no internet........
Someone else could play the deadman switch game too ...

Kill switch needed

[Vainglorious Coward]

What we really need is a kill switch on the DHS, and the other out-of-control TLAs

Re:Kill switch needed

[SteveFoerster]

Agreed. I just hope no one counters with the suggestion that the rigged-as-a-three-masted-schooner electoral system qualifies.

Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[OzPeter]

It forces you to sign up with Comcast and waits for their lawyers to attack you!

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not capitalism. You're thinking about Obamacare. It's called socialism.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[Phreakiture]

No. Obamacare is crony capitalism.

This is Socialism.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Obamacare is crony capitalism.

This is Socialism.

Actually it's fascism

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[SteveFoerster]

Obamacare is fascism, because that, cronyism, crony capitalism, oligarchism, and corporatism are more or less synonymous with the practice of mutual support between state policy makers and executives of preferred corporations. Considering that the individual mandate is a huge boon to health insurance corporations, Obamacare certainly qualifies.

But when the army nationalizes an industry, as in Phreakiture's example, that's not economic fascism, that's socialism. It's probably confusing because the right wing talk radio echo chamber has been shouting "Socialism!!!1!!1!!!" for the last five years for everything Obama does whether it's really socialism or not.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[HornWumpus]

Again: Fascism has always been a flavor of socialism. In the three most commonly used examples (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Franco's Spain) the government nationalized industries, corporations did not take over government. In fascist Italy the only corporations that were legal were government chartered non-profits akin to freddy, fanny and the federal reserve.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[cffrost]

That's not capitalism. You're thinking about Obamacare. It's called socialism.

No, socialist healthcare would be doctors, nurses, technicians, and custodians owning the hospitals; biologists, chemists, and chemical engineers owning the pharmaceutical companies; pharmacists owning the pharmacies; and so on. Socialism is workers' ownership of the means of production.

You might be thinking of "government owns and operates the healthcare system;" which is nationalized or national/public healthcare. Medicare and Medicaid are the closest things we have to national or public healthcare systems.

Corporations working together with government for mutual benefit is fascism, which is probably the most fitting label for Obamacare; otherwise crony capitalism, as others have suggested.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascism is a merger of corporate and state power. Socialism is workers' ownership of the means of production. They have nothing to do with one another, let alone one being a "flavor" of the other. Whatever information sources you're using, they're biased, utterly useless garbage. I suggest you consult a reputable, neutral encyclopedia — or hell, even a dictionary, for starters.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[AK Marc]

Socialism is where the capital of production is owned by the government. It's not. The government is forcing people to use private companies for a service. That's capitalism. The capital is in private hands. Capitalism and socialism are economic terms, not political. Communism is the political equivalent of socialism.

Obamacare is no more socialist than the military contractors. So if you think Obamacare is socialist, so are all the Republicans robbing people of taxes at gunpoint to pay to private companies for profitable government activities.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

socialist healthcare would be doctors, nurses, technicians, and custodians owning the hospitals

Nope. Socialism is a collective ownership which inevitably involves govt intervention and, thus, ultimate govt ownership since govt bureaucrats make the decisions. There are clinics and hospitals in the US owned by doctors. No one would claim that they are socialist, rather that they are private enterprises voluntarily created by the doctors and subject to competition from others who may or may not be doctors.

Socialism is workers' ownership of the means of production.

"workers' ownership" is Marxist rhetoric. You can't name any society larger than about a dozen people in which decision making about "means", i.e. property, isn't delegated to a small subset of people. No society lets or has ever let "the workers" decide how the "means of production" are used. What about the shoe manufacturer X in country Y, you say? Well, tell me, do all of the workers get together and decide when to run the factory, what products to produce, whether or not to buy raw materials from supplier Z, how, when or where to sell the products? No. Doesn't happen. A small group of managers, purchasing agents, marketers and product designers decide how the means of production are used. The names of these job functions vary, the way in which people acquire these job functions vary, but the schmucks actually making the shoes don't "own" (i.e. decide on the use of) the means of production, although they may, under some economic systems, in some sense invest in the company and share in its profits.

You might be thinking of "government owns and operates the healthcare system;" which is nationalized or national/public healthcare.

"Government owned and operated" can be achieved either through complete control through regulation or direct govt ownership.

Medicare and Medicaid are the closest things we have to national or public healthcare systems

False. VA hospitals form a true nationalized healthcare system although available only to veterans. Medicare is a wealth redistribution system used to pay for the healthcare of the elderly. The elderly generally don't see Medicare that way because in most cases they paid Medicare taxes when they were younger. Medicaid is a taxpayer financed charity program used to pay for the healthcare of those who qualify for the program. There is no relationship between the amount of M&M taxes paid by an individual and the amount of healthcare received by that individual and paid for by M or M. Importantly, M&M only uses tax dollars to pay for and, to some extent, price fix, healthcare services provided by the private sector. The govt doesn't own or operate the service providers.

Corporations working together with government for mutual benefit is fascism,

No. Fascism is govt control of nominally private companies through regulation and coercion. Your definition suggests some level of equal partnership. Under fascism, the govt is in charge. If Alfred Krupp had ever gotten uppity, Hitler could have snapped his fingers and Krupp would have had to either commit suicide or watch his entire family be killed before being executed himself. Hitler may have allowed Krupp a few perks to help ensure his loyalty, but those perks were provided at the whim of Hitler.

the most fitting label for Obamacare ... [is] ... crony capitalism

In some respects and only in the short term during which some health insurance companies will rake in some extra business. But the provisions of Obamacare guarantee that the private health insurance industry will eventually be destroyed, forcing all but the very wealthiest Americans into a govt run healthcare financing system like Medicaid. Since the govt will define which services are paid for and how much is paid, it will have indirect control over almost all of the people and institutions which provide services. In this sense, Obamacare melds some of the aspects of socialism and some of fascism. What Obamacare most surely does not involve is freedom.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[jmcvetta]

Fascism is a merger of corporate and state power

That's not historically accurate.

Re:Capitalistic Internet Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for a change to see someone bring up who owns the means of production in discussing socialism.

What's the fuss?

[arcite]

The Internet Kill switch is located on the twentieth sub-floor of the White House, in a small room right beside the cot Dick Cheney hid under in 2001 for three weeks. The switch is enclosed in a nondescript beige controller box with a large round red button that blinks with the pulse of the internet. A sign above reads, only switch off in case of emergency, or alien invasion.

Re:What's the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure that isn't the button that kills a random person and gives you a million dollars? They look so much alike.

Re:What's the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your description is a bit off... it is already known what the internet looks like... so it is logical the kill button would be on it.

The Internet

Re:What's the fuss?

[bob_super]

At last check, you can kill 50% of the internet by turning off Youtube and Netflix.
Your fancy kill switch is just a phone with two CEO numbers.

Re:What's the fuss?

[neilo_1701D]

Sweet! Is there a webcam trained on that thing so I can check the status of it daily?

Re:What's the fuss?

[Jason Levine]

I thought it was in an unlit basement without stairs, in a disused lavatory, in a locked filing cabinet that says "Beware of Leopard."

No, wait... That's where the Constitution is. Never mind.

Re:What's the fuss?

[NJRoadfan]

I was under the impression it was a Linksys router with a sign on it that said "do not unplug".

Re:What's the fuss?

[minstrelmike]

The Internet Kill switch is located on the twentieth sub-floor of the White House, in a small room right beside the cot Dick Cheney hid under in 2001 for three weeks. The switch is enclosed in a nondescript beige controller box with a large round red button that blinks with the pulse of the internet. A sign above reads, only switch off in case of emergency, or alien invasion.

Then where is the button they use to shut down the internet for the monthly maintenance?

Re:What's the fuss?

[clovis]

I'm pretty sure Dick Cheny's cot is under an old volcano - the one where he keeps that white cat he likes to pet.

Re:What's the fuss?

[PReDiToR]

No, it says "More Magic".

Re:What's the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong; the Internet (and its kill switch) is black, not brown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg

Could they hope to kill adhoc as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely even if they posses the ability to "switch off the Internet" the phone networks would have to come down as well to prevent hotspots? If so someone could do a lot more financial damage by declaring the wifi enabled bombs they left around Wall Street.

Re:Could they hope to kill adhoc as well?

[Runaway1956]

In today's America, the words "telecom" and "internet" aren't quite synonymous, but if you pretended that they were, you wouldn't be far wrong. All of my internet activity is carried by a telecom. The alternatives include cable, satellite, and radio - all of which are dependent on telecoms. Your satellite transceiver can talk to the satellite, but where is the signal going to go from there? AT&T is shut down. Depending on protocols aboard the satellite, you may be connected to a European, or Asian, or Australian server, but queries to CONUS will simply be ignored.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were the US Government, how would you go about completely (or functionally completely) shutting off the Internet? Could it be done?

Considering that the US government has nigh exclusive control over the core DNS servers (not to mention countless backdoors in every ISP's terminal room), yea, it could totally be done.

Of just have the FBI show up at TW, Comcast, ATT, Verizon, and the rest of the ISP, with a FISA warrant covering an executive order to shutdown all routers. No appeal, no notice, just hit the EPO button on the wall.

Bet the FBI could have the US without any internet activity in less than an hour.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

But could they shut off the rest of the world as well?

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[SecurityGuy]

If I were the US Government, I wouldn't bother about shutting off the Internet, I'd bother about getting people to stop attaching critical infrastructure to it. The internet is not and was never designed to be a secure network. It's a lot more like a common sewer.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Dunbal]

If you kill all of the people, the posting stops. Consider the fact that the only time the internet can actually harm the government rather than help it is during a revolution. Governments' war on its own people continues.

The bigger issue is the DHS itself

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this is being discussed shows that the real problem is that an agency as secretive and powerful as the DHS even exists. Remember: J. Stalin was a minor figure in the Russian revolution, but once he gained control of the consolidated bureaucracy of the early USSR, he used that bureaucracy to exile, murder, imprison or otherwise neutralize his political opposition and made himself dictator for life. It is almost impossible for a single individual to defend himself from a large bureaucracy.

Until recently, the best defense that a US citizen had against attack from govt bureaucracy was the competitive turf guarding behavior of the different agencies which limited the power of any single agency. The consolidation of bureaucratic power under the single authority of the DHS has eroded that defense. An additional danger is the, thanks to Snowden, now widely publicized adoption of big database and analytics techniques by the US govt. Mark my words, if the DHS is not disbanded, then eventually the head of the DHS will become the most powerful person in the country, able to determine who gets elected to every office or even cancel elections and with a virtually unlimited ability to coerce any US citizen to do anything.

Freedoms vanish...one switch ON/OFF

[ElitistWhiner]

At that instant, US citizen's protected rights are constitutionally violated by a deliberate government action.

Turning off the Internet kills your microphone, news print and mail in one swift blow. That silences voice.

Re:Freedoms vanish...one switch ON/OFF

[east coast]

At that instant, US citizen's protected rights are constitutionally violated again by a deliberate government action.

FTFY.

Re:Freedoms vanish...one switch ON/OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

At that instant, US citizen's protected rights are constitutionally violated by a deliberate government action.

Except, US citizens no longer have protected rights. Because the government is bypassing and ignoring the Constitution.

And huge amounts of people are essentially saying "awesome, keep us safe from the terrorists", and completely missing what's happening around them. As long as they can still go shopping and the TV shows stay on the air, they simply don't care.

9/11 was the point at which the US voluntarily ceased to stop being a free country, but most people don't understand that. What's even worse, they keep acting like they're free and defend what the government is doing.

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.

Re:Freedoms vanish...one switch ON/OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

And THEN.... It's too late to stop.

Re:Freedoms vanish...one switch ON/OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

As a alternative to internet based comm, getting a Amarture Radio license is easier than ever. There's no CW code exam anymore and it costs $15 bucks. Although they could be jammed, it is reasonable had to kill the 2m/70cm bands without effecting public service (Fire and Police in my area). Ham's are known for their ingenuity in getting communication working even in very bad conditions. If you'd like to look into getting a license and start practicing the questions see HamStudy.org or the ARRL's site.

Anyone notice the irony ??

[Salgak1]

The lawsuit is to try and release "Standard Operating Procedure 303".

Which would make the entire 'net 404. . . .

Re:Anyone notice the irony ??

[blane.bramble]

Will the response be: 505 - kill switch not found ?

Re:Anyone notice the irony ??

[jmcvetta]

451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons

Who was it that said,

[fustakrakich]

"They have made their decision, now let them enforce it"

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Runaway1956]

You obviously have an Intelligence Quotient higher than your shoe size. To bad the top echelons of "management" in this country can't say the same. Our cyber security looks like an episode of Keystone Cops, updated with technological gadgets.

great, whats next...

[nimbius]

the government starts telling me i have to disclose my internet turbo switch?

Re:great, whats next...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is your router a 386 or something?

Google Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to new here,
Everyone knows if you Google "Google" it kills the internet

Court granted 30 days to appeal before releasing

[raymorris]

DHS was granted 30 days before they have to release the document, to allow time for an appeal.

You can always appeal, but it sometimes an appeal would be pointless because it would be too late.
In this case, plaintiff wants a document released. Normally, that would mean the document would be released immediately.
How do you appeal a decision to release a document AFTER it's been released, though? Plaintiff is going to publish the information.
If DHS wins the appeal, would plaintiff be ordered to unpublish it?

In such cases, a court will grant a "stay", meaning everything stays as it is until the appeals court gets the case or time runs out.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

Give Mudge a terminal, a case of beer, and 30 minutes.

Narrow mindedness

[Okian Warrior]

It's narrow mindedness in a government institutions, a common malady.

The DHS sees a need to stop some activity or other, and this makes perfect sense in context. One only has to look at the Syria and Egypt for examples of how this is used in practice - if the US ever descends into armed revolt, the switch will disrupt revolutionary communications and make it easier for the government to regain control. The military has its own, separate channels of communication.

Like all government institutions, it's narrow minded. They only think of themselves and their (DHS's) own needs, without regard to anything outside of their remit. Turning off the internet will have massive consequences to the economy locally and worldwide, but that is considered unimportant. There is no consideration of the action "in context" or the ramifications thereof, it simply achieves the goal.

They need this functionality, and other considerations be damned.

A recent post asked about "fear" and how it's used by the government to control people, but fear works in reverse as well. The government's actions are unsustainable (at the very least, economically) and it's control over the people is rapidly coming to an end. They're terrified of the end-game, and are putting pre-emptive measures into place ahead of time.

As someone previously said, elected officials are cutting everything except checks to supporters. If they stop handouts to supporters their control will fail. If cutting services causes massive unrest, they will fail.

They are between a rock and a hard place and getting squeezed harder every day. It will be interesting to see the end game when it happens.

(Look to the first month-or-two of 2014 as a possible start-date. That's when budget/debt limit talks start anew, and it's when everyone's health insurance costs will double. That's only a possibility, but next summer is looking really good for massive protests.)

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[heypete]

There's plenty of DNS servers (both root servers, gTLD servers, and ccTLD servers) located outside of US jurisdiction.

While an unexpected shutdown could certainly cause some disruption both inside and outside the US, I'm not sure how effective a global DNS shutdown would be -- there's been significant fractions of the root DNS infrastructure that's been taken offline due to attacks in the past and the system continued to work without interruption. Even if there was a disruption, it's likely that non-US operators of root/gTLD/ccTLD servers would setup workarounds fairly quickly and the rest of the world would go about its business.

Anyway, it's something the government could ever do *once*. The instant they do it, the world changes and would highly unlikely to depend on a system managed by a single country.

Shutting down something like Google, for example, would likely be far more disruptive.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[rock_climbing_guy]

Dude, the US Government was able to get malware planted in Iranian centrifuge controllers that were supposed to be air-gapped. I wouldn't be surprised in Windows 8 is pre-programmed to cut itself off the internet when the spooks say so.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[duke_cheetah2003]

If you were the US Government, how would you go about completely (or functionally completely) shutting off the Internet? Could it be done?

Considering that the US government has nigh exclusive control over the core DNS servers (not to mention countless backdoors in every ISP's terminal room), yea, it could totally be done.

I was under the impression the internet by its very design would route around 'problems.' Can the US Government really shut down every pipe? DNS is irrelevant, in my opinion. It's important, no doubt, but shutting DNS does not shut the internet. Just makes it substantially harder to use.

economics

[minstrelmike]

Everybody has been complaining about the high cost of American government without really talking about what you get with it.
Makes it seem as if we should cut the price of government since we don't need it.
But what actually happens when the govt shuts down? Business loses money.
If business is running the government, or rich people are running the government, then it will cost them money if they shut down the internet.
Economics is a pain in the butt. You actually _can_ dominate everyone else in your area for a while (or longer if some other country supports you the way China props up North Korea) but you can't actually be better off than other countries. Being rich in North Korea means being able to get a ripe banana.

The rulez of economics apply whether you are rich or poor. Cutting off the internet means shutting down profits.
That isn't going to happen for every long.

Unless it's too late such as pregnancy, release

[raymorris]

Suppose a couple wanted to have a baby. They spent a year planing for a baby and trying to get pregnant. They get pregnant and they are decorating
the nursery, etc. Then, three months pregnant, she changes her mind and wants to kill the kid and go back to partying all night like she did in college.
Pretty quickly, it's going to be too late to appeal a decision either way.

Similarly a release of information case, such as this one. Once DHS has been forced to release the document, they can't effectively appeal to unrelease it.
In this case, "left the door open for the agency to appeal the ruling" means they have 30 days to appeal BEFORE they have to release the document.

Re:Unless it's too late such as pregnancy, release

[denmarkw00t]

Suppose a couple wanted to have a baby. They spent a year planing for a baby and trying to get pregnant. They get pregnant and they are decorating
the nursery, etc. Then, three months pregnant, she changes her mind and wants to kill the kid and go back to partying all night like she did in college.
Pretty quickly, it's going to be too late to appeal a decision either way.

What? There shouldn't be a case at all - while the father certainly has some steak[sic] in the game, he certainly has no ownership or power over the woman's body. If the laws and regulations in her area allow for her to have an abortion, it is her right to do so and no one else's decision. It's ridiculous that these kinds of cases have ever even occurred, but then again we live in a country where women are still treated by many of the old-thought people as property, possessions, and pawns to manipulate and direct as they choose.

The father certainly should be involved in any kind of decision like that, but at the end of the day it shouldn't be anything a court would consider hearing as it should be thrown out on the grounds that it's the woman's choice.

Re:Unless it's too late such as pregnancy, release

[Anonymous Coward]

denmarkw00t, I think you misunderstand the post.
It is not a court case that raymorris is referring to, nor to legalities regarding abortion rights, but rather the concept of deadlines. He's making an analogy that if and once a baby is aborted, there's no way to reverse that decision, and also that if the baby is born, there's no going back on that decision either.
Similarly, once a document is released, there is no way to take it back regardless of any subsequent judge's ruling.

Re:Unless it's too late such as pregnancy, release

[ultranova]

There shouldn't be a case at all - while the father certainly has some steak[sic] in the game, he certainly has no ownership or power over the woman's body. If the laws and regulations in her area allow for her to have an abortion, it is her right to do so and no one else's decision. It's ridiculous that these kinds of cases have ever even occurred, but then again we live in a country where women are still treated by many of the old-thought people as property, possessions, and pawns to manipulate and direct as they choose.

Does the opposite also apply? That is, if the father-to-be gets cold feet, should he be able to disown any and all rights and responsibilities towards the kid? Because it seems like being potentially stuck paying child support for almost two decades is a larger inconvenience than carrying the child for nine months. So, on the basis of equality, should a "legal abortion" be possible in the same circumstances than a physical one (which, I agree, is anytime the parent-to-be wants to)?

Also, does every discussion online turn to abortion eventually? Is Midwife's Law the Godwin's Law for modern America ?-)

Re:Unless it's too late such as pregnancy, release

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking that argument to the wall, the father _should_ have no financial responsibility for the fetus == child either.

All of this BS about it's a woman's body is very misdirected, unless she was raped.

DHS Kill switch request

[Anonymous Coward]

DHS: Don't Have ta, Sorry!

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[minstrelmike]

Dude, the US Government was able to get malware planted in Iranian centrifuge controllers that were supposed to be air-gapped. I wouldn't be surprised in Windows 8 is pre-programmed to cut itself off the internet when the spooks say so.

The Blue Screen of Dominance.

My windows is able to shut itself off from the internet at random.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it matter? By the time things have gotten that bad we're pretty much shooting at each other anyway.

You know where you stand

[Anonymous Coward]

You are sheeple so you are hopeful even in the face of situations of no-hope that you all work so hard to create. You give your passive support to the vile warmongers of the USA, and you watch as the US war machine grows and prepares for ever large acts of aggressive warfare across our planet.

So, lets be honest, you know America is going to be the trigger for the next World War. And you know that you are NOT going to be in a happy place when the world is set alight. Too late, far far too late, you the sheeple will want to talk to one another, and organise pro-peace efforts. THIS is why the Internet Kill Switch must exist.

Most of you are too young, too uninformed, and frankly too stupid to understand what happens in nations at time of total war. Even in the USA- even in the UK, concepts of a free press and free speech are eliminated (and yeah- I'm talking about the sheeple version of 'free' speech and 'free' press). People were imprisoned/hung/shot for attempting anti-war free speech in the UK and USA during ALL previous major wars.

Here's a clue. When your side is spending billions, and expending multiple thousands of uniformed lives slaughtering Humans in a target nation, they are going to have less than ZERO problem closing down your ability to question such murderous violence with a wider circle of 'friends'. You have the right to SUPPORT the aggressive war. You have the right to keep your big mouth tightly shut. You have no other right.

So-called 'anti-bullying' laws have been recently passed in every nation of the West. This is a carefully created project to demonstrate to the sheeple that what they say online can be used as justification by the state to punish citizens in the worst possible ways. The first nations to pass anti-bullying laws have now extended these laws to written/verbal criticism of named politicians. Both Britain and Ireland have convicted people in court for written or spoken anti-war attacks against pro-war politicians that did NOT include threats or profane language.

The Internet Kill Switch doesn't kill the Internet, or stop the owners of Slashdot from promoting racist attacks against nations on Obama's 'enemy' list. The Kill Switch simply turns the Internet into a regulated entity controlled and occupied by approved corporate content. The Kill Switch KILLS the uncensored words of the sheeple. It KILLS the ability of the sheeple to communicate in a greater sense with one another.

The ONLY thing protecting us against this future is their fear of a massive sheeple backlash. They want and need your PASSIVE support. That means that regardless of what you think about Obama's islamic extremist terror attacks against the popular secular regime of Syria, you don't do anything about it other than 'supporting our heroes in uniform'. The German people were AGAINST the invasion of Poland, but they gave their passive support, and you all know what happened next.

A crudely activated Kill Switch runs the risk of damaging this passive support. The Owners of Slashdot, for instance, argue against crude censorship of the sheeple, using psychological manipulation instead. They say that since 99.99% of sheeple are no threat whatsoever, no useful solution should risk impacting the livs of the 99.99%, lest some of them start to have 'dangerous' thoughts.

Blair prefers persuading the sheeple that THEY want massive censorship of the Internet, through extensive compulsory Internet filters that adult bill payers CAN currently request be deactivated. Britain is implementing Blair's soft Kill Switch at the end of 2014, if the sheeple don't revolt in the meantime. If stage one goes ahead successfully, Blair plans a stage two tabloid campaign stating that homes with children that deactivate the filters are run by dangerous child-abusers, and that laws are needed making the filters MANDATORY wherever an Internet device is accessible to under-age children.

Stage three of Blair's Kill Switch, of course, is to run tabloid campaigns saying that only 'perverts' (terrorists, extremists, choose-your-label) use an uncensored Internet, and for the sake of greater society, the rights of 'decent' citizens trump the rights of 'perverts'. This stage returns censorship back to pre-Internet times for most nations.

Re:You know where you stand

[Maritz]

Blair? Seriously? lol, I think maybe your credibility just took a hit.

We need an emergency printing press off switch!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

When you read, "We need an Internet emergency off switch", think: "We need a printing press emergency off switch."

The fear, presumably something similar to using cell phones to trigger bombs, is certainly serious, but it's seductive rationalizations like this that lead the Founding Fathers to their absolutist stance for freedoms. History is the study of power struggles between the quick talkers who can sway masses.

There is a way to deal with this -- the deliberately laborious process of amending the Constitution. If it's a good idea, most will agree, and will agree over years of discussion, rather than a transient, small majority, the historical realm of charismatic demagogues.

Ham radio -- avoid getting cut off in an emergency

[volvox_voxel]

I wonder what their reasoning is for cutting off all communications the citizenry? This looks to be another good motivator to get/renew your ham radio licence. It might be easy to kill the internet by turning off the root-servers and even cel-phones, but it would be hard to jam all the ham stations/radios in the area, repeater towers, etc. There are also modulation techniques that would make it even harder to jam, but are discouraged by the ARRL because it wouldn't be able to be easily detectable by other hams.. Software defined radio has been a hobby of mine, which gives you a lot of freedom to communicate..

A QPSS signal on 5Watts is purportedly detectable all over the world.. All you need is a microcontroller board, like the Arduino, and a little bit of hardware, and you could communicate far below the noise floor..The trick with QPSS is that each bit may take several/tens of seconds to transmit each bit on a very narrow frequency (the -174dBm noise floor reduces to -184dBm). If you lock your reference oscillator to GPS, you can synchronize both transceivers.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Immerman]

There's only a handful of major pipes, the so-called "internet backbone" interconnecting major ISPs. Shut those down and you've brought the 'net to its knees.

Fractured Internet in 3...2...1...

[DigiShaman]

They will appeal the ruling because it's so patently obvious it involves the root DNS servers. Otherwise, the UN really will have something to to on with regards of taking away control from the US. Which BTW, sounds like a good idea until you realize what the alternatives would be. From bad to worse no doubt.

Oh well, it was an interesting experiment while it lasted. The single interconnected world wide web that is. A real shame it is!

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Immerman]

You're presuming that the point would be to protect critical infrastructure. It's not impossible that that is the actual intent and the congressional technology advisors are simply incompetent or ignored, but that seems a foolish way to bet. Look at what's been going on on the 'net in the last few years - the Occupy movement, damning information released by wikileaks and others, the Arab Spring. My bet is that there is at least a faction within the US government that wants some insurance against online-coordinated popular uprisings. That is the kill switch is not intended to protect the *country*, it's intended to protect the *government*, or a faction therein.

Responses

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not condone violence, but IMHO, if it is establish that HSA has an Internet Kill Switch, then I think that alone provides enough justification for a military response on that and related government agencies. It is far overeaching. Only the Military should have that degree of control, and then only if we are under attack from a foreign country.

Oh, the irony!

[WanderCat]

Political contributions are protected speech, but access to Internet-based services? Eh, not so much.

Thanks Obama!

[locopuyo]

Thanks Oba

What a ploy...

[Kazoo the Clown]

I can see it now. "We're going to have to install interrupting devices at key points on the internet.". And OBTW, when they're not interrupting the flow of data they're sending copies of it all to NSA Utah. And we're all paying for it. What a crock.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[TangoMargarine]

+1 Sadly Plausible

Not worried

[blanddragon]

Answer: Guns lots of guns...

Dangerous

[101percent]

This is so dangerous. Shutting down the INTERNET worldwide would have more drastic affects than a small nuclear explosion would have. Even if you don't think the top echelons would use this for nefarious purposes, I doubt the US government is competent enough to manage these abilities. I back this up with a bankrupt economy; we're stretched so thin and the government isn't even capable of keeping a website operational, and the NSA isn't strong enough to protect from people literally just walking away with classified information. No one should have this power.

Periodic kill switch test and maintenance

[WaffleMonster]

The switch ought to be tested periodically to make sure it is in full working order modeled after monthly testing of the emergency broadcast system here in the states.

Given cataclysmic apocalypse sure to ensue if kill switch were needed then failed to work properly we should demand it be well tested.

Plausible-sounding story, but...

[ArtFart]

...the cited source is rather Sketchy. Looks like it's the house organ for a group of right-wing whack jobs.

Paranoid and non insightful

[aepervius]

Mobile phone save video, they can simply save it and transmit later. They would have to conficate *all* phone on a massive scale. Not something which would be easy to do, considering how easy it would be to hide one somewhere in the street, and considering how this would be told 100* time over tweeter and facebook as soon as internet come back. And it would have to, or do irreparable damage.

Re:Paranoid and non insightful

[jmcvetta]

You don't actually control your phone's hardware. Even if you're using a more open-ish Android distro like Cyanogenmod, actual control of the hardware is done by binary blob drivers. I'd be shocked beyond belief if said drivers didn't already, by law, all have remote kill switches. See if you can find a copy of the (non-public) implementation docs for CALEA - they're incredibly creepy.

Re:Ham radio -- avoid getting cut off in an emerge

[Anonymous Coward]

You would need to hide your antennas....

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I would have qualified this as paranoid crazy a decade ago, by now I am pretty sure it is either on a to do list at the NSA, or already done.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

_NSAKEY 2387563501494614145123590836752 recognized

Executing Order 66 on users...

maybe, though facts matter, point: not appealable

[raymorris]

Your opinion isn't necessarily unreasonable, but the point is that if the first judge disagreed, she couldn't very well appeal the decision, could she?

Estimating it takes on average four months to get a court date, she's 7 months along at the first hearing. When the appeal hearing occurred, the baby would be two months old. If she "wins" the appeal, does that mean she kills the 2 month old infant? Obviously not, so there would no effective appeal. That's the point of my post.

> The father certainly should be involved in any kind of decision like that

Funny you say that, while saying that regardless of the facts, he has absolutely zero right to even alert the judicial system to what's going on.

> where women are still treated by many of the old-thought people as property, possessions, and pawns to manipulate and direct as they choose.

But you insist on treating babies very lives as property to be destroyed at whim? Odd.

In my personal opinion, facts matter. Let's say we have a typical happy family of four. White picket fence
and all that. Their third child is due in one month. Then she falls back into smoking crack cocaine, the
nemesis she thought she had defeated fifteen years prior. In that factual situation, I believe dad has a
duty to protect his children.

There is at least one more reason for them to fear

[Burz]

...an independent Internet:

Someone else(TM) e.g. a non-client state government might commandeer all that great surveillance tech the US has been inventing and turning loose on its population. And then our current 'The Privileged That Be' would be reduced to being just another set of the watched and herded sheep.

Re:I'm not sure how they'd do it physically

[DocSavage64109]

All they would need to do is turn off their "Man in the Middle" machines and the links would be severed. Kind of like turning off your network switch.

Wrong!

[DarthVain]

Only Captain Picard has that ability!

Hmmm, "kill switch"

[almechist]

No, no, I think people are getting this all wrong. The DHS internet "kill switch" doesn't kill the internet, it kills the users! Either selectively, or in one big all-inclusive purge! And that's why they don't want anyone finding out about the details. I mean it's obvious, when you think about it... But don't worry, they're so incompetent they'll probably just blow themselves up if they ever try to actually use the technology. Come to think of it, that should be the new DHS motto: "Safety Through Incompetence". I feel safer already.

Re:Ham radio -- avoid getting cut off in an emerge

[Anonymous Coward]

Pft, there's a hundred different ways to effectively do that I'm I'm sure that's a battle that the populous can win.

No, when the FCC breaks out the party van and starts cruisin for a brusin looking for HAMs to smash (those dastardly ruffians who dare sing on air "happy birthday" on air) they simply war drive around with a van. It's not hard to triangulate the position of a broadcast. Remember, the broadcaster WANTS to be heard by everyone. And they typically know the general vicinity of a broadcast due to complaints from other HAM operators or those having interference issues.

If the FCC were to become jackboot thugs shutting down communication in areas not designated a "free-speech zones", they'd know where the riot was taking place and where to suppress.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[CanHasDIY]

DNS is irrelevant, in my opinion. It's important, no doubt, but shutting DNS does not shut the internet. Just makes it substantially harder to use.

Your opinion doesn't matter here; "substantially harder to use" effectively means "shut down" in this case, as the vast, vast, vast majority of internet users lack the technical know-how to surf without DNS.

Plus, you seem to be ignoring the whole "NSA backdoors in every ISP terminal room" angle. That one matters too.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[CanHasDIY]

Something tells me the US government has little to no interest in having the ability to shut down internet access outside its own borders, for a variety of reasons.

First, they know that their affiliate clandestine organizations in said other countries (like the GCHQ) will happily do that for them.

Secondly, this is DHS we're talking about - their entire purview of authority is within US borders.

Finally, the kinds of shit DHS would pull that would give them cause to shut down communications are pretty much exclusively American problems (Not that dissent or a violent reaction to the declaration of martial law couldn't happen in other countries, but rather, unless it happens State-side DHS wouldn't give half a fuck).

Re:Court granted 30 days to appeal before releasin

[Altrag]

Just use the internet kill switch.. that'll unpublish it fast enough!

Hardcode favorite sites in hosts... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

It proofs you vs. DNS being down, redirected, or shutdown via DNSBL's (as is the case you're theorizing I suspect) or other means of disallowing particular host-domain names from resolving DNS-Server side, so you can STILL GET TO YOUR FAV. WEBSITES (by not being dependent on DNS).

APK

P.S.=> There's also far MORE benefits on many levels hosts files provide in added speed, security, reliability & even anonymity (vs. DNSBL's or DNS request logs) that hosts provide, enumerated in detail, here:

---

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

Summary:

---

A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

---

* THAT is the easiest way to create a custom hosts file for these purposes + others of value in order to get all of the benefits hosts provide - courtesy of "yours truly" via this "shameless plug"...

(It obtains absolutely current data vs. threats online from 12 reputable & reliable sources in the security community (e.g. - malwarebytes' hpHosts or MVPS.org are 2 "prime examples" thereof))...

... apk

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be surprised in Windows 8 is pre-programmed to cut itself off the internet when the spooks say so.

I genuinely don't understand why this was modded "funny". This seems like a very feasible, practical approach to implement strong government control of Internet access, and I would be rather surprised if Microsoft has not already deployed this -- either at the behest of the US government, or for their own business goals, or both.

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[Anonymous Coward]

That 'sewer' is more properly known as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you insensitive clod!

Re:Let's talk about the more interesting thing her

[duke_cheetah2003]

Your opinion doesn't matter here; "substantially harder to use" effectively means "shut down" in this case, as the vast, vast, vast majority of internet users lack the technical know-how to surf without DNS.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:I'm not sure how they'd do it physically

[Drakonblayde]

There are no man in the middle machines. The taps they use for monitoring are passive, not active. If the tap goes down, it has no effect on the data transferring across the wire that's being tapped.

I, for one, welcome our new killswitch masters...

[nctritech]

...assuming it only kills off Facebook and Zynga. Imagine...people WORKING instead of MASTURBATING TO GIFT TRACTORS (with a Google tab open to switch to in case the boss walks in!)

Favorite sites in hosts... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof you vs. DNS being down/redirected/shutdown via DNSBL's for them (what you theorize I suspect) since DNSBLs stop particular host-domain names resolving to their CORRECT IP Address, albeit DNS-Server side,

Thus, doing hardcodes?

You can STILL GET TO YOUR FAV. WEBSITES!

(By not being TOTALLY dependent on DNS - which is, unfortunately, NOT good vs. FastFlux & DynDNS botnets + redirect tricks (via UDP 51/53 zone transfers being forced & spoofed)).

APK

P.S.=> There's also MORE benefits on many levels hosts files provide in added speed, security, reliability & even anonymity (vs. DNSBL's or DNS request logs) enumerated in detail, here:

---

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

Summary:

---

A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

---

* It's the easiest way to create a custom hosts file for this + others features of value hosts yield - courtesy of "yours truly".

(It gets absolutely current data vs. threats from 12 reputable sources in the security community (e.g. - malwarebytes' hpHosts or MVPS.org are 2 "prime examples" thereof))...

... apk

Plans imply we didn't make one already

[WillAffleckUW]

Those weren't cable breaks a few years back, you know.

You can't disclose plans when you've already installed it.

spy

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be just like s the spy guys. They want to control the lines of communication.

The Internet...

[kmoser]

No problem. The Internet sees kill switches as damage and routes around them.