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Look guys, the creators of South Park drafted a bill!

Started by Da6s, August 28, 2009, 10:06:49 PM

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Da6s

August 28, 2009, 10:06:49 PM
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

QuoteBill would give president emergency control of Internet
QuoteInternet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency....
We appear to be doomed by our DNA to repeat the same destructive behaviors our forebears have repeated for millenia. If anything our problem solving skills have actually diminished with the advent of technology & our ubiquitous modern conveniences. & yet despite our predisposition towards fear-driven hostility; towards what we anachronistically term primitive behavior another instinct is just as firmly encoded in our make-up. We are capable as our ancestors were of incredible breathtaking acts of kindness. Every hour of every day a man risks his life at a moments notice to save another. Forget for a moment the belligerent benevolent billionaires who grant the unfortunate a crumb of costfree cake. I speak of pure acts of selflessness. A Mother who rushes into the street to save a child from a speeding vehicle. A person who runs into a burning building to reach a family trapped on the upper story. Such actions,such moments,such unconscious selfless decisions,define what it is to be human

The Good Reverend Roger

#1
August 28, 2009, 10:16:56 PM
HAW HAW!
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cainad (dec.)

#2
August 28, 2009, 10:24:13 PM
Today, the Internet Terror Alert Level is: MAUVE

Cain

#3
August 29, 2009, 02:01:24 PM
Wasn't Jay Rockerfeller heavily involved in keeping Bush's NSA wiretapping program quiet?

I know he's been a dick about something like that, anyway.

Cramulus

#4
August 31, 2009, 02:42:59 PM
is that even possible??



as horrifying as it is, a maneuver like this is the only way to protect against a botnet strike, correct?

Triple Zero

#5
August 31, 2009, 03:32:47 PM
Quote from: Gramulus on August 31, 2009, 02:42:59 PM
is that even possible??



as horrifying as it is, a maneuver like this is the only way to protect against a botnet strike, correct?

Not really because

1. the DOS stuff is severely overhyped
2. if you switch off the entire (??) Internet, it's still a Denial-Of-Service, but even better

I'm not sure if it's entirely possible. Maybe the American Internet, but I doubt foreign ISPs would listen to the White House. Even though the Central Name Servers are located in the USA, afaik they are more like a first-line authority on DNS information (mapping hostnames to IP addresses) than strictly necessary because DNS info is mirrored locally (Ratatosk or others might be able to provide more accurate info on this).

If anything, it's pretty obvious to me that this bill simply clears the road for a similar "emergency stop" on the Internet as we saw with the Iran elections. That is, if any kind of real insurgency happens to (finally) get off the ground, they can shut down one of the major public-to-many communications media.

Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#6
August 31, 2009, 05:44:30 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 31, 2009, 03:32:47 PM

If anything, it's pretty obvious to me that this bill simply clears the road for a similar "emergency stop" on the Internet as we saw with the Iran elections. That is, if any kind of real insurgency happens to (finally) get off the ground, they can shut down one of the major public-to-many communications media.



Yes, exactly. Or if they pull anything really horrific, they can shut down the US internet so we can't let the rest of the world know what's really going on.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."

Cain

#7
August 31, 2009, 05:46:15 PM
I believe that is known as the "Joe Biden is Drunk As Fuck And Ranting About Russia" Protocol.

The Good Reverend Roger

#8
August 31, 2009, 06:05:49 PM
Quote from: Gramulus on August 31, 2009, 02:42:59 PM
is that even possible??



as horrifying as it is, a maneuver like this is the only way to protect against a botnet strike, correct?

We had to destroy the village to save it.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

fomenter

#9
August 31, 2009, 06:11:50 PM
technical question ... how? without shutting down phone lines every where ?    servers are privately owned and located all over right? a cop at the door of every server location? 
"So she says to me, do you wanna be a BAD boy? And I say YEAH baby YEAH! Surf's up space ponies! I'm makin' gravy... Without the lumps. HAAA-ha-ha-ha!"


hmroogp

Kai

#10
August 31, 2009, 06:39:06 PM
I'm telling you, we need to stop thinking about the "The Internet", and start thinking about "internets" with a lower cased i. The networks are decentralized and ubiquitous. Shutting them down would be as easy as shutting down all highways, that is, not easy at all.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
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The Good Reverend Roger

#11
August 31, 2009, 07:29:26 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 31, 2009, 06:39:06 PM
I'm telling you, we need to stop thinking about the "The Internet", and start thinking about "internets" with a lower cased i. The networks are decentralized and ubiquitous. Shutting them down would be as easy as shutting down all highways, that is, not easy at all.

Oh yeah?

Quote
DEAR PROFESSOR _____, At <every university in the USA>:

Shut down your servers immediately.  Failure to do so will result in anal probing at a facility to be determined by the DHS.  Thank you for your mandatory cooperation.

Repeat for other major servers.  Traffic load will deal with the rest.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

That One Guy

#12
August 31, 2009, 07:34:48 PM
Quote from: fomenter on August 31, 2009, 06:11:50 PM
technical question ... how? without shutting down phone lines every where ?    servers are privately owned and located all over right? a cop at the door of every server location? 

How hard would it really be to shut the phone lines down, though? You'd only have to have the ear of Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Roadrunner, and maybe a few more and that would allow you to shut off the internets of a shit-ton of people. The major phone/cable companies have already shown their willingness to roll over for the government in the illegal wire-tapping brouhaha, so it'd just be a matter of shutting off access to the servers, rather than shutting the servers themselves off.

Think about it - if Comcast, say, shut down their routers or were ordered to block a certain IP range for their customers, per gov't order, how would anyone getting their service be able to access the "prohibited" servers? Dial up? But your phone is also through Comcast if it's a landline. If you try to use a cell, wouldn't your carrier also have disabled data services/IP access too if it's a gov't order?

The servers themselves are scattered widely, but the access to those servers for most people is bottlenecked through a very small number of companies that have already shown their desire to have this kind of power and control.

Quote from: Kai on August 31, 2009, 06:39:06 PM
I'm telling you, we need to stop thinking about the "The Internet", and start thinking about "internets" with a lower cased i. The networks are decentralized and ubiquitous. Shutting them down would be as easy as shutting down all highways, that is, not easy at all.

But why shut down the highways when you can effectively stop the gas fueling the cars driving along it? If my internet provider shuts me off (cuts off my "gas"), then how can I ride the highway and reach those isolated servers?

Admittedly, it doesn't look like this bill would be giving the gov't the power to go to providers and tell them to "shut it down" (it seems to limit gov't authority to shutting down specific local servers or server clusters) but it certainly would be something within the realm of possibility, especially given the prior history of telecom companies rolling over at gov't (illegal) behest.

Also - the easiest way to ensure academic compliance with a gov't issued shutdown order is to threaten to revoke federal grant money. Watch how quickly they'd follow orders then!
People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.

Arguing with a Unitarian Universalist is like mud wrestling a pig. Pretty soon you realize the pig likes it.

Captain Utopia

#13
September 02, 2009, 04:36:54 AM
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 31, 2009, 03:32:47 PM
If anything, it's pretty obvious to me that this bill simply clears the road for a similar "emergency stop" on the Internet as we saw with the Iran elections.
Well even in Iran they couldn't completely pull the plug.. with so much of the economy dependent upon network communications, the results would be chaotic - I don't see how it would be in any Governments interest to go down that route - there'd be nothing left to govern.
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