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US Rep. Joe Barton Has a Plan To Stop Terrorists: Shut Down Websites (arstechnica.com)
Earthquake Retrofit writes: In an FCC oversight hearing, U.S. Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) asked Chairman Tom Wheeler if it's possible to shut down websites used by ISIS and other terrorist groups. He said, "Isn't there something we can do under existing law to shut those Internet sites down, and I know they pop up like weeds, but once they do pop up, shut them down and then turn those Internet addresses over to the appropriate law enforcement agencies to try to track them down? I would think that even in an open society, when there is a clear threat, they've declared war against us, our way of life, they've threatened to attack this very city our capital is in, that we could do something about the Internet and social media side of the equation." Wheeler pointed out that the legal definition of "lawful intercept" did not support such actions, but added that Congress could expand the law to validate the concept.
Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee is exploring the idea of using the recent terror attacks in France as ammunition to force tech companies away from end-to-end encryption. "Lawmakers said it was time to intensify discussions over what technology companies such as Apple and Google could do to help unscramble key information on devices such as iPhones and apps like WhatsApp, where suspected terrorists have communicated."
Yes! Shutdown Facebook! Shut down Twitter! Shutdown those damn emojis and skateboards too! And don't forget the damn rap music!
I will vote for that!
Oh yes, I remember. He's the one that thinks that wind turbines will use up the wind and cause Earth to warm up.
https://www.facebook.com/reale...
If left up to them we will see patriot act part 2, death to the constitution edition.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
... technology. You can't shut down the internet, they will find a way to communicate regardless.
Could we PLEASE have a basic IQ and literacy test requirement to serve in public office?
That way we can gather intel! If we push them off of the internet and back onto the sneakernet then we will have a much harder time getting information. We'll need to find and infiltrate the cells, gain trust, let some incidents happen as a calculated risk in order to get deeper into the organization, etc.
At least this way if they post we can determine the time, possible location, IP addresses, we can set up taps to capture PCAPs and further enumerate, the list goes on and on.
Shut down a website hosted in another country, run from outside the USA, not affliated with any US company ... ... or one that is use by 3 billion people legitimately, and 2 terrorists ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Let the hackers shut them down. Once you let the GOVERNMENT start shutting them down, they will have their little fingers into sites that are terrorists like, then they will go after sites that say "hateful" things about the government or politically protected groups. Where will it end. 1st amendment, means FREE speech. Sadly you have to take the good with the bad. Who will decide what is "bad"? I don't like all the porn sites, the crap on tv that is overly sexually aggressive, but I just don't bother viewing or hearing it. But, if you start letting the government, be the one who determines what is "allowed", it starts you down that path, you'll never be able to stop.
You're not alone in that regard, I'm sure it's been out there by now that the politicians and people in the US are calling for the exact same thing. We're at a point where terrorists don't need to 'assault our freedoms and way of life', we're just going to do it for them, all they need to do is poke their heads out from time to time, do something small scale with 'splash'. Then we get the calls for 'well let's just let the Christian ones in', or 'nope not even 5 year old orphans', somehow to these people this sounds like a reasonable reaction. Shutting down the sites and social media just hinders intelligence gathering, which is the only way you have a chance to figure out where that next 'poke' is going to come from.
Half of his appeal comes from the principle that the open society is not a suicide pact. That means "our Bill of Rights is more important than your feelings." If that means we have to tell people from countries with known terrorism problems that they are categorically not welcome, then so be it. Their feelings are simply nothing when juxtaposed with defending the 4th amendment. I'd rather see 1M Syrians forced to stare down ISIS than see the status quo continue and help ensure a steady supply of potential excuses for abridging our rights.
Forget going after their internet communication. Go after their money. Bomb their trucks, bomb their oil wells. Block all money flowing from Saudi Arabia to ISIS. We can't do anything about random terrorists in Paris but we can do something about the huge area of land that ISIS is occupying. Many people in that region are joining ISIS just so they can get better food, cheaper electricity, and luxuries like Redbull. Seriously, why do they have access to American luxuries like Redbull. If we can do a trade embargo on Iran, surely we can do something about ISIS getting Redbull. Sure, Redbull isn't that important but if they are getting imports of that then you can be pretty sure that they are getting imports of a ton of other things. Cut off their money. I might even be in favor of taking out their electricity. Definitely bomb any oil rigs, gas tankers, etc.. under their control. If we have to airlift food in to feed the civilians, fine, but make sure that the terrorists there are not living more comfortable than the civilians. If you really want to go after their communications then don't worry about their communication over here but instead block their communication over there. Block their communication to the outside world, airdrop jammers so that the whole area is on radio silence. It's hard to deal with Terrorists living among us. It's really easy to deal with them when they occupy specific territory. Send their territory back to the stone ages. If they don't have electricity then we don't have to worry about whether or not they are using facebook. If they dislike modern culture then oblige them and send them back to the 1300s where their views belong.
Well, I know that shutting down Pirate Bay has been the easiest, simplest thing that world governments have managed to do, over and over again.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I'm just so inexpressibly sick of the stupid Reductio ad Hitlerums (technically Reductio ad Terroristiums.)
Because *Insert Offending Group* uses *Insert Technology/Product/Thing*, it's bad and we need to get rid of it because it's bad and we don't like bad stuff.
That's essentially what both Barton's statements, and the whole "we should ban encryption that we can't break easily" arguments are.
Never mind that there are HUGE legal obstacles (and some nasty consequences) to such government overreach.
Never mind that end to end encryption makes users safer, even if the government IS lumped in with all the other bad guys.
It's incumbent on all of us to stand up to these assholes and say "no".
And, every time they bring this idiocy up again, stand up and say "no" again.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Even (and especially) with regard to the lot unhanged knaves in our own government.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The PS4 think seems to be some nonsense some idiot made up, with no truth to it. There is a more substantial rumour that a phone has been found, and with the recent raid on a flat it seems likely that more will be uncovered. If one of them is a recent Android or iPhone with full device encryption that Google/Apple can't decrypt, shit is going to really hit the fan.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Now that the world is subject to the jurisprudence of the United States, this should be trivial. /rolleyes
That is often how Americans see things, unfortunately.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Screaming for the government to actually uphold and enforce existing immigration laws is not a call for "isolation". Unfortunately governments in Europe have decided to do nothing about the tidal wave of immigrants and some even treat them as if they had special rights despite the fact they enter the country illegally. A country is supposed to be able to decide who it lets in. Refugee or not. It's also supposed to see if the claims are valid and if the person attempting to enter is a criminal wanted in other countries. I've been a resident in many, many countries and a criminal records/interpol check is ALWAYS done.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If the question is, can't we just identify which web sites or social media services terrorists are using and shut them down, regardless of borders? My reply would be, can't you just identify which people are terrorists and kill them regardless of borders?
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
The west has become nothing more than a collection of cowards and morons......
Hey our way of life is under threat, we need to defend it by........changing our way of life!
Umm do none of these politicians notice how stupid that is?
First of all, no matter what measures you put in place, short of getting a few of pre-cogs or embedding a chip in everybody's brain that monitors and reports back all thoughts or locking up all humans, THERE IS NO WAY TO ELIMINATE TERRORISM. Ever.
Second, if we want to have a free an open society, this is just the cost of of having such a society, We will forever be vulnerable to such attacks. Yes horrendous and tragic, however hardly a threat to a society as a whole.
Funny thing is, we as a society, accept the fact that in order to have cars, there will always be deaths caused by car accidents. However, we can ACTUALLY eliminate all car related deaths OVERNIGHT, by banning cars, Yet nobody in their right mind would suggest such a thing because, for some reason, people as a hole realize that the benefits of having cars far far far outweighs the cost to society (the tragic thousands that are killed every year in car accidents). Why this logic is not carried over when terrorism is involved is beyond me (although the constant bombardment from propaganda I mean mainstream media telling us to be terrified might have something to do with it).
And my final point for the day, didn't terrorism exist LOOOONG before the invention of computers and SLL encryption? It didn't seem to stop them or slow them down back then, why would it today? Also how will you force terrorists to NOT USE encryption? You can't simply un-invent it, or put the genie back in the bottle. All this would accomplish is remove the few protections we have from an over-reaching tyrannical government, while terrorist will happily keep using their rooted/jailbroken android/ios devices to send encrypted communications to each other.
...that just means that the voters are embiciles.
There are certain words that you should be really, really sure to spell correctly. I think "imbecile" is one of them.
So what should they do?
Enforce the law. By force if necessary. Government has no problem using force on you when you brake the law, up to and including deadly force. Why is immigration law different?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
'SJW' is now just a self-ambiguating term that calls out anybody using it as a simple-minded tool. It's the new Nazi metaphor. Can we please just stop it, and go back to using actual words to describe our thoughts and feelings?
Too late. The terrorists have already won because instead of being principled leaders and extending their middle finger at a bunch of ignorant savages, the Republican assholes are selling fear by the truckload, and the sheep are buying it "like it's going out of style".
"The Eagle has Landed"
That is an encrypted statement, and without my decoder the 3-letter-folks are not able to understand it? And we're pretty sure the terrorists have spoken several of these words on several occasions, who knows what they could be saying? Speech needs to be banned NOW because it can contain nuances and double-meanings which prevent literal evaluation of the already-recorded conversations across the board!!
They probably did use a PS4. And WhatsApp. And Snapchat. And IRC. And every other common communications tool. Because for all of their deranged ideologies, terrorists aren't (as a generalized group) completely moronic. They'll use whatever happens to suit their needs best at the time and they'll change their methods as the world changes around them.
Somehow block them from WhatsApp? They'll use Snapchat. Block them from Snapchat? They'll embed steganographic messages on Imgur. Block that they'll do something else.
Put back doors into your encryption? They'll use a tool that doesn't do that. Shutdown a website they use? They'll use another one.
The whole concept of shutting things down to stop information flow on the internet is just balls ass backward in every single context. The RIAA and MPAA have been fighting that battle since before 9/11 made this something even worth talking about.
Installing hidden back doors isn't a bad idea in theory, but they have to remain hidden. Permanently. As soon as anyone unauthorized knows about them, they'll be found and exploited immediately.
Computer systems aren't like the force -- there's no inherent "light" and "dark" sides. They work for anyone who uses them, no matter how good or evil the user's intent so as long as any communication tools exist or can be created, they will inherently be possible tools for terrorist communications.
The sooner lawmakers realize that the sooner we can stop creating stupid laws that hurt law-abiding citizens with minimal or no effect on their intended targets, and start considering how to create laws that might actually be useful.