[atraub]

It seems that the media's comparisons of the situation in Egypt and the Internet Kill Switch have not gone unnoticed.

Quote

Three U.S. senators who want to give the president emergency powers over the Internet are protesting comparisons with the "kill switch" highlighted by Egypt's Net disconnection.
In a statement yesterday, the politicians said their intent was to allow the president "to protect the U.S. from external cyber attacks," not to shut down the Internet, and announced that they would revise their legislation to explicitly prohibit that from happening....


They said, however, that they'll make sure their forthcoming legislation "contains explicit language prohibiting the president from doing what President [Hosni] Mubarak did."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com...l#ixzz1CowKXjxJ

Currently, the language states:

Quote

the Department of Homeland Security could "issue mandatory emergency measures necessary to preserve the reliable operation of covered critical infrastructure." Although the term "kill switch" appears nowhere in the legislation, those "mandatory" measures could include ordering "critical" computers, networks, or Web sites disconnected from the Internet.

...the federal government's designation of vital Internet or other computer systems "shall not be subject to judicial review."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com...l#ixzz1CoyMaIMe

I won't pretend this is a simple issue. What if somehow a large percent of Verizon's customers got entangled in a botnet that was then used for a cyber attack? If the Government had the power to shut Verizon down for a temporary emergency, it would remove the threat. However, that same power would allow the government the ability to shutdown any and all ISPs if a situation similar to the one in Egypt happened here. What sort of checks and balances can be imposed in a situation that inherently requires quick action?

[Xeonen]

There IS a link yet on the other way, kill switch theory is designed by USA, implemented in Egypt...

[d.koen]

as much as no one really likes hackers....cough....I mean computer security analysts, wouldn't it make more sense just to employ those said people to shutdown individual networks that can be proven to show a security risk to the "infrastructure" of the US? I mean I'm sure there's a large amount of individual-created software that can target multiple networks in one attack.

[atraub]

So, you feel the solution is to have a team of hackers on call whose job is to negate a potential cyber attack?

I just want to clarify, it's an interesting idea.

[d.koen]

I think it would be a better suited method than a government ran kill-switch. Yes the government would still give the order but it would be ordinary citizens actually carrying out the tasks who if they felt the situation was inaccurate could refuse to "pull the plug". I think we've already seen enough of what the government can and does do when it has complete control over a form of media or anything else. Once it's tentacles are in it takes a revolution to pull them out.

On top of this even the best federal suits can only work undercover for so long before something winds up happening. Also they have limited contacts, whereas a hacker would know whose who in the cyber-underworld (usually) and therefore could find terrorists with those connections

This post has been edited by d.koen: 09 February 2011 - 11:08 AM

[atraub]

How would you respond to the concern that these hackers and by extension the US internet would be controlled by the highest bidder?

[badjava]

I'm currently reading 'CYBER WAR' The next threat to national security and what to do about it. by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake.

Very interesting information about events in Syria, Estonia, Egypt and others in just the first few pages. I would recommend it so far; I am on page 23 of 290 and I'll let you know if that changes.

[d.koen]

atraub, on 09 February 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

How would you respond to the concern that these hackers and by extension the US internet would be controlled by the highest bidder?

Isn't it practically ran that way already? Technically everything in the world is ran by the highest bidder, look at Microsoft, granted I own a laptop running Vista but the majority of computers on the mainstream market are Microsoft ran (as far as the OS), if you look at the stock, etc. Microsoft in the computer industry is the highest bidder. Although in order to keep this from becoming a personal rant I'll leave out my opinion of what the US should do with all the money it wastes.

[atraub]

Sorry, that doesn't really make any sense. Care to elaborate?