You have alternatives to the internet which involve the use of radio. You can communicate very well over the radio. You can send email, you can browse websites, you can do all of that. It's not necessarily going to be as fast but it depends on the power of your antennas.
If they have basic knowledge of information security it wouldn't be possible to do all that. Sure they might get physical access to the machine, but to actually manipulate data on it, corrupt it, trace sources and gain access to bank accounts? Now you are getting ridiculous, as ridiculous as expecting hackers to steal the nuclear codes and launch nukes.
They do, for the most part, and for most of the agencies (DOD, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc...). They have redundant network capabilities served both by wired and wireless means (micro-wave and satellite transmission capabilities). The "business" apps at those agencies do not necessarily have a private network. The terminals that serve you the internet at a great many of these agencies also have access to these other applications that interact with the "shadow" networks. Also, the same network providers that provide you and me with our "pipe" (AT&T, Verizon, Quest, etc...) also provide the "pipes" to the other, "shadow" networks. Should the systems at those installations become targets for malicious assault, then it could shut down entire sectors of the economy. The NASDAQ is one such "highly available" system that could be harmed, even though they have their own network. The financial networks that carry SWIFT, Cirrus, Visa, and ATM transactions would be susceptible even though they are on private networks. I'm not sure how turning "off" the internet will help. Wouldn't removing access to the internet have the same effect as a DDOS attack? The outcomes are the same aren't they (i.e. loss of connectivity)? The real goal of cyber attack is either one or both of the following:
Gain Access
Deny Access
If I were a cyber-assassin bent on disabling large networks for the purpose of disrupting an economy, I now would have two tactics available to me. I could launch my DDOS against a financial network or sufficiently large commercial target and hope to disrupt their capabilities. The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
There is a higher probability of terrorists robbing Fort Knox than the probability of terrorists hacking the shadow networks and NASDAQ. The amount of security is so ridiculous that most terrorists would be killed or arrested before they can even attempt it. The idea of terrorists targeting NASDAQ is completely ridiculous but even if somehow they managed to gain physical access to these computers they'd still have a very difficult time. It's not going to be as simple as writing a script, or worm, it's going to have to be a hell of a lot more sophisticated than that.
Sure it could be done, but theres no organizations or individuals around today who can do it. Maybe if NASDAQ where hacked a few times then we could talk about the need for this.
Give a situation where shutting off the internet would improve national security? I cannot think of any situation where it would influence national security. All the essential functions should be kept off the internet. All the functions on the internet shouldn't be essential for national security. As far as I know mission critical networks are not accessible from the normal internet. Anybody telling you it is, is using that as an excuse to pass ridiculous laws.
It's not in the public interest to shut off the internet just like it's not in the public interest to ban books. It promotes ignorance. When people are ignorant they cannot make wise decisions and don't know how to act. If they get their news and form their opinions on the internet, shutting off the internet is one of the worst things you can do.
Imagine if you had a month where you cannot access the internet. How would you get your news? How would you contact your friends? How would you do your research and form your opinions?
You are saying they could pass a law to close off the electromagnetic spectrum and shut down all communication in this country? That would put us back into the dark ages, and I can't see how anything the terrorists could do could be worse than that.
I've been on the internet for a long time and I've seen all sorts of hackers. I've never met any of these E-Terrorists. Everybody who is anybody knows how to function in the real world. Cyberspace is only used as a communication tool and if the USA were to shut down the internet the criminals and terrorists, along with the majority of hackers and smart people would just go to another network and on top of that it would be something decentralized and it would be something spontaneous.
Shutting down the internet would trigger immediate chaos for everyone else. If you don't know what packet radio, or about communication technology in general, and if you think that facebook and twitter is how to get your news, when the internet is shut off you'll have no way to communicate for months at a time. You wont be able to talk to your friends, you won't be able to talk to some of your family members, you wont be able to access the news, you won't be able to do any of that for an entire month.
Individuals who know how to use radio will set up an antenna in their backyard or buy a shortwave radio and will be fine, but you'll be confused as hell. And sure the government can jam the radio and everything else along with shutting off the internet and smart people will use pigeons, lasers, and other more unorthodox methods to communicate. This sort of situation would really separate the men from the boys on a technical level but it would put the majority in chaos because the majority has no technical understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and no understanding of how the internet works.
Terrible idea. I'm not surprised Lieberman thought it up.
This is like the talk of martial law and plans to build camps. Shutting down the internet will trigger so much chaos that there would be riots in the streets. To shut off the internet for MONTHS would create more chaos than 911, more chaos than Katrina, it would be like a blackout that lasts for a month where the majority of young people wont know how to communicate with their friends and family. They wont know how to get their news. They'll be confused and will accept news from random sources.
Also theres no talk about shutting off the TV, or the phone or government censored access points for information. This idea seems political and I doubt Google, Microsoft or any internet company thinks this is a good idea. This is going to lead to something bad.
Why would they only shut down the internet? They aren't talking about shutting off radio, telephone, or TV. It's only the internet because the internet is the last free speech zone left in this world. To shut down the internet for any reason is to kill free speech, I cannot think of any logical reason where shutting down the internet makes sense.
A civil war situation? even if there were a civil war we'd need open communication just to know whats going on and whos winning. Who exactly benefits if theres no communication? The citizens certainly wont. And I'm talking the ordinary citizens here not the slashdot types who are sophisticated enough to figure out how to communicate by radio or other devices. Shutting down the internet hurts individuals who get all their news, all their information and do all their communications on the internet.
Honestly most of us would rather take a virus than shut down our computer.
When you talk about destructive viruses this could be a way to stop destructive memes (mind viruses) from spreading. This seems to be about information control and I'm definitely against that and all forms of censorship. If something is so dangerous and so much of a secret that we'd have to shut down the entire internet to keep it from spreading, or if an idea really is so destructive that its better to shut the internet off, the kill switch in all likelyhood is going to cause more harm than any possible website, worm, virus or whatever the excuse is.
If they want to shut off the internet they should shut off THEIR internet, not OUR internet. This is like shutting off our lights, or shutting off the TV and radio, or shutting off all communications in the country to prevent a terrorist attack. If the government is going to jam civilian communications it's essentially terrorizing the country to protect the country from terrorism.
So no it's a horrible idea. Whether you are a nazi or not, banning their websites is wrong. Banning books is wrong. Are we going to go back to the dark ages?
The passing of this bill will be the end of the internet and the end of all free speech on the internet. The US government will be able to determine what is or isn't dangerous enough to shut off the internet. In my honest opinion it's just ridiculous to give something as important as the internet BACK to the government. They had the internet and gave it to corporations and this is what lead to the internet as we know it, and now they want to go back to how it was?
No virus, no worm, is so much of a threat that we'd have to shut off the internet. And to shut off the internet is probably even worse than any of the danger any worm could cause. I suppose they want to rush this bill through because of the wikileaks situation because I don't understand why it's being rushed without any debate or obvious need for it. What is the reason for this?
And there is a good reason why it is impossible to find strong leaders. The moment anybody has leadership potential arises, a team of very experienced investigators begin to investigate this individual to find something on them. Given enough time (years), it's highly probable that the individual being investigated will say or do something stupid and thats it, they are permanently compromised. They might go on to become a congressman, a senator, a President, and when they do somebody will have something from their past from which to blackmail them with.
Everybody eventually makes a mistake and even if you don't make a mistake, they can frame you up and make it look like you did. The media has so much control over how situations are perceived that you don't have to do anything wrong or be guilty of anything, you just have to look bad or look like you did something wrong. This is the problem with politics.
The problem isn't so much that we can't find people with the right nature to do the job, it's that the people with the right nature to not be corrupted by power will also have the nature to be corrupted in other ways. If you have the wrong kind of sex, if you have the wrong kind of thoughts or opinions, if you used the wrong kind of drugs, if you LOOK like a criminal (anybody can be made to look like one), if you aren't normal in every sense of the word you probably wont make it as a politician and that is the problem.
We expect the best politicians to look, think, act normal. We expect them all to come from perfect backrounds. We have this media image of politicians as being boycout leaders who live the perfect life and go to the best schools before running for office. Maybe the best politicians don't all come from the same backround?
If the goal were simply to find the individuals least likely to be corrupted, they could find that. They are looking for people from a specific backround, with a clean image, (like Barack Obama). But in order to make it or survive in some of these backrounds sometimes compromising is the best way to get things done. At this point politicians are basically like artists, actors, actresses, they have a little bit of actual power but the special interest groups and individuals operating in the shadows have so much on them that their power is very limited.
The politician can be influenced in so many ways that we've never had a politician free from the influence of different special interest groups. If you are a career politician the key to getting re-elected is compromise.
That and compromising politicians is generally a common practice. This one cheated on his wife. That one took a bribe. This one is gay and fears being outed. Eventually corporate intelligence has enough dirt on every politician to control their actions.
So no politicians do not have free will. I hope that much is understood. If politicians had free will it might not necessarily be better, but it definitely wouldn't be worse. So the game is chess and whoever controls the pawns/politicians controls the board.
It's not wise to talk to the police or federal agents. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to remain silent. I'd plead the 5th.
I don't/won't talk to the police or federal agents directly. If they want to talk thats what lawyers are for. They can talk to me through my lawyer who will communicate in legalese. It's very credulous of you to place your faith and trust in complete strangers who don't care if you live or die. Those strangers might work for the government, and people they talk to often end up dead or missing.
I never said I hated the US Gov. I said I fear the US Gov and rightfully so. We have torture, secret prisons, and more prisoners than any other country. We also have some of the worst laws.
I have a right to fear my US Gov. I fear the North Korean Gov as well.
Assange is spending his time publishing things that the most powerful people in the world want to keep private. If anyone has a reason to be paranoid, it is him -- this is not a case of tin foil hats, this is a case of a person with some really powerful enemies.
Anybody who is involved with Wikileaks should be paranoid. It's a dangerous time to be involved with the project. That being said it's also a situation where they want to torture the founder hoping to get a list of names of all those people who might be involved. It's a dangerous scary situation, and if Assange is captured and does decide to name names then those powerful enemies with teams of assassins will have the information they are hoping to get.
So it's a situation where Julian is right to be paranoid along with anyone else involved with Wikileaks.
Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?
The guy has already been put into hiding. He'll either have an accident or be labeled a terrorist.
I would think those two options would be the worst possible options they could choose. If Wikileaks founder were to be labeled a terrorist or were ot be killed Wikileaks would grow immensely and there probably would be a lot more leaks than before. It would probably only make the situation that much more out of control.
Since he never leaked it. He may have received it and may be in position to publish it but the individual who leaked it already has been arrested. So what law is he breaking if he is in possession of the material but did not leak it?
Our US thuggery is fairly predictable. I'm sure the CIA or equivalent has already been given hit orders.
You've seen a few too many movies.
More than likely, Assange is having his lawyers try to get some kind of amnesty deal in turn for testimony and/or returning the materials. The only danger to Assange is that he be arrested, held and tried like any other person who breaks the law. He may even get off at trial due to Constitutional protection of freedom of the press.
Playing up the danger does get Wikileaks more press, so bonus points for good guerrilla PR for Assange.
If Assange basically turns into an informant for the government against his own source, Wikileaks will lose ALL credibility. That might be what the government wants him to do but that would ultimately kill Wikileaks as a project. How can it recover from that?
And returning materials? You mean refusing to publish it?
The reason they wont kill him is they want information out of him. A dead body can't talk. They want to talk to him which probably means they want to get him alone in a room and torture the names out of him.
What about secret prisons and torture? If you understand what is at stake and how the government operates you'd understand the paranoia. The government appears to be declaring war on Wikileaks. Julian is the founder of Wikileaks. The government wants to "talk" to Julian and is desperately trying to locate his whereabouts.
Slashdot Mirror
You have alternatives to the internet which involve the use of radio. You can communicate very well over the radio. You can send email, you can browse websites, you can do all of that. It's not necessarily going to be as fast but it depends on the power of your antennas.
Have any of you actually done your research to find out what the laws are if theres no Constitution? Or is it the law of the gun?
If they have basic knowledge of information security it wouldn't be possible to do all that. Sure they might get physical access to the machine, but to actually manipulate data on it, corrupt it, trace sources and gain access to bank accounts? Now you are getting ridiculous, as ridiculous as expecting hackers to steal the nuclear codes and launch nukes.
They do, for the most part, and for most of the agencies (DOD, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc...). They have redundant network capabilities served both by wired and wireless means (micro-wave and satellite transmission capabilities). The "business" apps at those agencies do not necessarily have a private network. The terminals that serve you the internet at a great many of these agencies also have access to these other applications that interact with the "shadow" networks. Also, the same network providers that provide you and me with our "pipe" (AT&T, Verizon, Quest, etc...) also provide the "pipes" to the other, "shadow" networks. Should the systems at those installations become targets for malicious assault, then it could shut down entire sectors of the economy. The NASDAQ is one such "highly available" system that could be harmed, even though they have their own network. The financial networks that carry SWIFT, Cirrus, Visa, and ATM transactions would be susceptible even though they are on private networks. I'm not sure how turning "off" the internet will help. Wouldn't removing access to the internet have the same effect as a DDOS attack? The outcomes are the same aren't they (i.e. loss of connectivity)? The real goal of cyber attack is either one or both of the following:
Gain Access
Deny Access
If I were a cyber-assassin bent on disabling large networks for the purpose of disrupting an economy, I now would have two tactics available to me. I could launch my DDOS against a financial network or sufficiently large commercial target and hope to disrupt their capabilities. The other tactic would be to launch the assault and wait for the "kill" switch to be engaged. The outcome in both of those scenarios is favorable to the attacker.
There is a higher probability of terrorists robbing Fort Knox than the probability of terrorists hacking the shadow networks and NASDAQ. The amount of security is so ridiculous that most terrorists would be killed or arrested before they can even attempt it. The idea of terrorists targeting NASDAQ is completely ridiculous but even if somehow they managed to gain physical access to these computers they'd still have a very difficult time. It's not going to be as simple as writing a script, or worm, it's going to have to be a hell of a lot more sophisticated than that.
Sure it could be done, but theres no organizations or individuals around today who can do it. Maybe if NASDAQ where hacked a few times then we could talk about the need for this.
Give a situation where shutting off the internet would improve national security? I cannot think of any situation where it would influence national security. All the essential functions should be kept off the internet. All the functions on the internet shouldn't be essential for national security. As far as I know mission critical networks are not accessible from the normal internet. Anybody telling you it is, is using that as an excuse to pass ridiculous laws.
It's not in the public interest to shut off the internet just like it's not in the public interest to ban books. It promotes ignorance. When people are ignorant they cannot make wise decisions and don't know how to act. If they get their news and form their opinions on the internet, shutting off the internet is one of the worst things you can do.
Imagine if you had a month where you cannot access the internet. How would you get your news? How would you contact your friends? How would you do your research and form your opinions?
You are saying they could pass a law to close off the electromagnetic spectrum and shut down all communication in this country? That would put us back into the dark ages, and I can't see how anything the terrorists could do could be worse than that.
I've been on the internet for a long time and I've seen all sorts of hackers. I've never met any of these E-Terrorists. Everybody who is anybody knows how to function in the real world. Cyberspace is only used as a communication tool and if the USA were to shut down the internet the criminals and terrorists, along with the majority of hackers and smart people would just go to another network and on top of that it would be something decentralized and it would be something spontaneous.
Shutting down the internet would trigger immediate chaos for everyone else. If you don't know what packet radio, or about communication technology in general, and if you think that facebook and twitter is how to get your news, when the internet is shut off you'll have no way to communicate for months at a time. You wont be able to talk to your friends, you won't be able to talk to some of your family members, you wont be able to access the news, you won't be able to do any of that for an entire month.
Individuals who know how to use radio will set up an antenna in their backyard or buy a shortwave radio and will be fine, but you'll be confused as hell. And sure the government can jam the radio and everything else along with shutting off the internet and smart people will use pigeons, lasers, and other more unorthodox methods to communicate. This sort of situation would really separate the men from the boys on a technical level but it would put the majority in chaos because the majority has no technical understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and no understanding of how the internet works.
Terrible idea. I'm not surprised Lieberman thought it up.
This is like the talk of martial law and plans to build camps. Shutting down the internet will trigger so much chaos that there would be riots in the streets. To shut off the internet for MONTHS would create more chaos than 911, more chaos than Katrina, it would be like a blackout that lasts for a month where the majority of young people wont know how to communicate with their friends and family. They wont know how to get their news. They'll be confused and will accept news from random sources.
Also theres no talk about shutting off the TV, or the phone or government censored access points for information. This idea seems political and I doubt Google, Microsoft or any internet company thinks this is a good idea. This is going to lead to something bad.
Why would they only shut down the internet? They aren't talking about shutting off radio, telephone, or TV. It's only the internet because the internet is the last free speech zone left in this world. To shut down the internet for any reason is to kill free speech, I cannot think of any logical reason where shutting down the internet makes sense.
A civil war situation? even if there were a civil war we'd need open communication just to know whats going on and whos winning. Who exactly benefits if theres no communication? The citizens certainly wont. And I'm talking the ordinary citizens here not the slashdot types who are sophisticated enough to figure out how to communicate by radio or other devices. Shutting down the internet hurts individuals who get all their news, all their information and do all their communications on the internet.
Honestly most of us would rather take a virus than shut down our computer.
When you talk about destructive viruses this could be a way to stop destructive memes (mind viruses) from spreading. This seems to be about information control and I'm definitely against that and all forms of censorship. If something is so dangerous and so much of a secret that we'd have to shut down the entire internet to keep it from spreading, or if an idea really is so destructive that its better to shut the internet off, the kill switch in all likelyhood is going to cause more harm than any possible website, worm, virus or whatever the excuse is.
If they want to shut off the internet they should shut off THEIR internet, not OUR internet. This is like shutting off our lights, or shutting off the TV and radio, or shutting off all communications in the country to prevent a terrorist attack. If the government is going to jam civilian communications it's essentially terrorizing the country to protect the country from terrorism.
So no it's a horrible idea. Whether you are a nazi or not, banning their websites is wrong. Banning books is wrong. Are we going to go back to the dark ages?
The passing of this bill will be the end of the internet and the end of all free speech on the internet. The US government will be able to determine what is or isn't dangerous enough to shut off the internet. In my honest opinion it's just ridiculous to give something as important as the internet BACK to the government. They had the internet and gave it to corporations and this is what lead to the internet as we know it, and now they want to go back to how it was?
No virus, no worm, is so much of a threat that we'd have to shut off the internet. And to shut off the internet is probably even worse than any of the danger any worm could cause. I suppose they want to rush this bill through because of the wikileaks situation because I don't understand why it's being rushed without any debate or obvious need for it. What is the reason for this?
And there is a good reason why it is impossible to find strong leaders. The moment anybody has leadership potential arises, a team of very experienced investigators begin to investigate this individual to find something on them. Given enough time (years), it's highly probable that the individual being investigated will say or do something stupid and thats it, they are permanently compromised. They might go on to become a congressman, a senator, a President, and when they do somebody will have something from their past from which to blackmail them with.
Everybody eventually makes a mistake and even if you don't make a mistake, they can frame you up and make it look like you did. The media has so much control over how situations are perceived that you don't have to do anything wrong or be guilty of anything, you just have to look bad or look like you did something wrong. This is the problem with politics.
The problem isn't so much that we can't find people with the right nature to do the job, it's that the people with the right nature to not be corrupted by power will also have the nature to be corrupted in other ways. If you have the wrong kind of sex, if you have the wrong kind of thoughts or opinions, if you used the wrong kind of drugs, if you LOOK like a criminal (anybody can be made to look like one), if you aren't normal in every sense of the word you probably wont make it as a politician and that is the problem.
We expect the best politicians to look, think, act normal. We expect them all to come from perfect backrounds. We have this media image of politicians as being boycout leaders who live the perfect life and go to the best schools before running for office. Maybe the best politicians don't all come from the same backround?
If the goal were simply to find the individuals least likely to be corrupted, they could find that. They are looking for people from a specific backround, with a clean image, (like Barack Obama). But in order to make it or survive in some of these backrounds sometimes compromising is the best way to get things done. At this point politicians are basically like artists, actors, actresses, they have a little bit of actual power but the special interest groups and individuals operating in the shadows have so much on them that their power is very limited.
The politician can be influenced in so many ways that we've never had a politician free from the influence of different special interest groups. If you are a career politician the key to getting re-elected is compromise.
That and compromising politicians is generally a common practice. This one cheated on his wife. That one took a bribe. This one is gay and fears being outed. Eventually corporate intelligence has enough dirt on every politician to control their actions.
So no politicians do not have free will. I hope that much is understood. If politicians had free will it might not necessarily be better, but it definitely wouldn't be worse. So the game is chess and whoever controls the pawns/politicians controls the board.
No you wont. I don't think you'd feel sorry for anyone.
It's not wise to talk to the police or federal agents. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to remain silent. I'd plead the 5th.
I don't/won't talk to the police or federal agents directly. If they want to talk thats what lawyers are for. They can talk to me through my lawyer who will communicate in legalese. It's very credulous of you to place your faith and trust in complete strangers who don't care if you live or die. Those strangers might work for the government, and people they talk to often end up dead or missing.
I never said I hated the US Gov. I said I fear the US Gov and rightfully so. We have torture, secret prisons, and more prisoners than any other country. We also have some of the worst laws.
I have a right to fear my US Gov. I fear the North Korean Gov as well.
So Julian Assange is not a criminal. Case closed.
So how did the Pentagon Papers and other media reports like Valerie Plame Affair leak out without any consequences or treason?
I was under the impression that the press had the freedom to publish anything.
So what law says they cant?
Assange is spending his time publishing things that the most powerful people in the world want to keep private. If anyone has a reason to be paranoid, it is him -- this is not a case of tin foil hats, this is a case of a person with some really powerful enemies.
Anybody who is involved with Wikileaks should be paranoid. It's a dangerous time to be involved with the project. That being said it's also a situation where they want to torture the founder hoping to get a list of names of all those people who might be involved. It's a dangerous scary situation, and if Assange is captured and does decide to name names then those powerful enemies with teams of assassins will have the information they are hoping to get.
So it's a situation where Julian is right to be paranoid along with anyone else involved with Wikileaks.
Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?
The guy has already been put into hiding. He'll either have an accident or be labeled a terrorist.
I would think those two options would be the worst possible options they could choose. If Wikileaks founder were to be labeled a terrorist or were ot be killed Wikileaks would grow immensely and there probably would be a lot more leaks than before. It would probably only make the situation that much more out of control.
Since he never leaked it. He may have received it and may be in position to publish it but the individual who leaked it already has been arrested. So what law is he breaking if he is in possession of the material but did not leak it?
Our US thuggery is fairly predictable. I'm sure the CIA or equivalent has already been given hit orders.
You've seen a few too many movies.
More than likely, Assange is having his lawyers try to get some kind of amnesty deal in turn for testimony and/or returning the materials. The only danger to Assange is that he be arrested, held and tried like any other person who breaks the law. He may even get off at trial due to Constitutional protection of freedom of the press.
Playing up the danger does get Wikileaks more press, so bonus points for good guerrilla PR for Assange.
If Assange basically turns into an informant for the government against his own source, Wikileaks will lose ALL credibility. That might be what the government wants him to do but that would ultimately kill Wikileaks as a project. How can it recover from that?
And returning materials? You mean refusing to publish it?
The reason they wont kill him is they want information out of him. A dead body can't talk. They want to talk to him which probably means they want to get him alone in a room and torture the names out of him.
What about secret prisons and torture? If you understand what is at stake and how the government operates you'd understand the paranoia. The government appears to be declaring war on Wikileaks. Julian is the founder of Wikileaks. The government wants to "talk" to Julian and is desperately trying to locate his whereabouts.
Why would a government just want to "talk"?