US president will have power to SHUT DOWN INTERNET!

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Joined: 4 Mar 2009
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22 Jun 2009, 9:20 pm

In recent history America has had no more free-speech than any other western country to be honest. In the past the american public had the illusion of free-speech. Current law changes seem to be waking people up.

ikorack
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22 Jun 2009, 10:18 pm

This sucks big time.(sorry that's all i could come up with)

Warsie
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22 Jun 2009, 11:29 pm

Roxas_XIII wrote:

The fact of it is, even though if the U.S. President had the power to shut down the internet, it would be a very bad idea to do so. This is because currently almost every major U.S. industry relies on the internet to some degree, and some industries would be totally up the creek without a paddle without it. Therefore, it would be something that would completely ruin our economy. Now I can understand if the President was given power to shut down the Internet TEMPORARILY in case of a large scale cyber attack; however, there would need to be limits as to how such a shutdown could be initiated. I propose that such an emegency Internet shutdown should be given the same required authorization as a nuclear strike (which requires an executive order from the President along with a confirmation order from someone important, such as the VP or the Secretary of Defense), because shutting down the Internet, even on a temporary basis, would be effectively nuking the U.S. economy and infrastructure.

Iran ended up 'shooting itself in the foot' economically by jamming and blocking a lot of internet and tech access. The US probably would have slightly more of a restraint but still..

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pakled
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23 Jun 2009, 2:10 am

First - Obama used the Internet to get elected in the first place. If he wants to get re-elected, it would be beyond stupidity to turn off the money supply.

Second - the major top-level domains are scattered around the globe. Even shutting down the DNS servers would be beyond any legal order, and probably illegal activity (c'mon; wouldn't the ultimate hack be shutting down the whole world?) If the Internet could be shut down at all, North Korean, Iran, or Saudi Arabia would have at least tried by now)

Third - there's not nearly as much privacy on the Internet as you'd think; except for anonymous remailers, et al, each packet sent over the internet has both a source and destination encoded into it. These are put on and taken off of every bit of information that crosses the web. If someone really wants to know, they'll find you.

Finally - the NSA and CIA, FBI, SVR, Mossad, Deuxeme Bureau, MI5 and 6, etc., are all over the web already. The only thing that saves Al Quaeda is anonymity. If they allowed the internet to be shut down, they'd have to find some other way of finding terrorists, and start all over again.

The Internet will be 'legalized' (international laws covering what's there) some day, if only for potential tax revenue. But I don't think you have to be that alarmed.

DeaconBlues
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23 Jun 2009, 10:45 am

For that matter, read the posted text again. Even should this bill pass, it would only give the power to shut down Internet traffic to and from "critical infrastructure". They could take whitehouse.gov offline, shut down the email accounts of your Federal representatives, and even deny access to, say, the website of the Army Corps of Engineers - but as noted above, it is simply not possible to "shut down the Internet". Internet is short for International Network, and grew out of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) assignment back in the Sixties and Seventies to design a decentralized computer network that could survive a limited nuclear war. There are nodes in every major country in the world, and most minor ones - the only continent that doesn't have any servers, so far as I am aware, is Antarctica. (If there are servers there, I'd be interested to hear about it.) In order to "shut down the Internet", the US Armed Forces would first have to overthrow every other nation on Earth - in which case Internet access would be the least of our worries.

In short, don't panic so easily, and don't rely on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for information about the doings of our government.

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irishwhistle
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23 Jun 2009, 10:52 am

DeaconBlues wrote:

Thank you! Finally. I'm pretty sure that was what I was trying to say from a position of topical ignorance. My good sense is telling me it's preposterous, but I can never explain why because I don't have the data. It just smacks of the sort of everyman indignation that message boards and e-mails serve to stir into a whirlwind.

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23 Jun 2009, 12:17 pm

DeaconBlues wrote:

Thank you Deacon. I overreacted! I feel better.

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23 Jun 2009, 3:23 pm

Hey, DeaconsBlues, I love your signature!

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ruveyn
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23 Jun 2009, 4:15 pm

kxmode wrote:

Once those five have been achieved the United States will transform into a Communist country. But wait, there's more...

7. create a security force that answers only the President

Congratulations: welcome to Nazi Germany...

I wonder if anyone really understands what's going on?

Your item 7 above is the equivalent of the Waffen S.S.

Yes, I understand what Lord Oboma is attempting to do. He will not succeed but he will surely try.

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23 Jun 2009, 4:41 pm

pakled wrote:

First - Obama used the Internet to get elected in the first place. If he wants to get re-elected, it would be beyond stupidity to turn off the money supply.

Well the bill would be putting this power in the executive branch so that speaks for itself. But it says the internet traffic would only be stopped in the event of a cyber terrorist attack. This would not be a permanent shut down.

pakled wrote:

Second - the major top-level domains are scattered around the globe. Even shutting down the DNS servers would be beyond any legal order, and probably illegal activity (c'mon; wouldn't the ultimate hack be shutting down the whole world?) If the Internet could be shut down at all, North Korean, Iran, or Saudi Arabia would have at least tried by now)

There are only 4 points that leave the continental united states . It they blocked those 4 points it would be irrelevant where the domains were located .

As for it being illegal the bill will make it legal.

I think there is some confusion. This bill would only make it legal to shut down internet traffic in the usa not other country's.

pakled wrote:

Third - there's not nearly as much privacy on the Internet as you'd think; except for anonymous remailers, et al, each packet sent over the internet has both a source and destination encoded into it. These are put on and taken off of every bit of information that crosses the web. If someone really wants to know, they'll find you.

That is true. But lets say you illegal things on your computer. you would need a warrant to be able to get that data. This new bill would make it perfectly legal to get that information with out a warrant.

pakled wrote:

Finally - the NSA and CIA, FBI, SVR, Mossad, Deuxeme Bureau, MI5 and 6, etc., are all over the web already. The only thing that saves Al Quaeda is anonymity. If they allowed the internet to be shut down, they'd have to find some other way of finding terrorists, and start all over again.

Yes that is true.

just-me
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23 Jun 2009, 4:47 pm

DeaconBlues wrote:

The problem I have is that they do not clearly define what is critical infrastructure.

MattShizzle
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23 Jun 2009, 6:52 pm

Even if the president could legally do this, would it even be possible? There are plenty of servers and isp's not located in the US.

Magneto
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24 Jun 2009, 8:13 am

Quote:

There are nodes in every major country in the world, and most minor ones - the only continent that doesn't have any servers, so far as I am aware, is Antarctica. (If there are servers there, I'd be interested to hear about it.)

McMurdo's doesn't have a server? They must have, if only for the Antarctic bases. Could run the entire internet on it, though, unless you removed porn, social networking, youtube, online games, and... well, that's it. The rest could be run on a Commodore 64 :lol:

EtotheC
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24 Jun 2009, 1:36 pm

just-me wrote:

IT IS IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE RIGHT NOW!

NOT ONLY WILL THIS GIVE THE PRESIDENT POWER TO SHUT THE INTERNET COMPLETELY OFF , THIS WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR PRIVACY OVER THE INTERNET!

We need to stop this bill from going through!! !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQSoq7Ex ... re=related

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.778:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.773:

GET THE WORD OUT!! !! !!

Sorry, but as a programmer, I have to point out that this is a gross misunderstanding of how the Internet (an International series of interlinked networks/ terminals) works...

But yes net neutrality is still a good thing, in any sense

xenon13
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24 Jun 2009, 4:55 pm

Aren't the root DNS servers under U.S. control - meaning that the President of the United States could possibly shut down the DNS system, not the internet per se?

EtotheC
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24 Jun 2009, 5:24 pm

xenon13 wrote:

Aren't the root DNS servers under U.S. control - meaning that the President of the United States could possibly shut down the DNS system, not the internet per se?

Yes the majority of root DNS servers are in the US, but the internet due to it's nature is adaptive, thus a simple work of rerouting traffic to other nation's servers is a solution.Also it would not even have down time, due to the redundant nature of the DNS system (and that's only technically for the web either way)

REAL MEN USE IP ADDRESSES!

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