In a flash, the net is gone
No doubt you’ve read of this:
US President Barack Obama would be granted powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet under a new bill that describes the global internet as a US “national asset”.
Local lobby groups and academics have rounded on the plan, saying that, rather than combat terrorists, it would actually do them “the biggest favour ever” by terrorising the rest of the world, which is now heavily reliant on cyberspace.
The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency.
There are so many levels at which service can be denied, from DoS attacks down to the one which occurred to me – a workman severed the cable outside my window – the 13 root servers are no fiction and can be put out of action, as can the more recent dependency on satellite communication and surveillance.
A friend working for a major utility once told me of a test run on behalf of the brass, where employees turned up next morning to a computer network, including guidance systems, which were simply not receiving electricity to operate, i.e. the plug had been pulled. The key finding was that staff had no hard copies, in order to carry on business by, say, mobile phone.
A dedicated attack involving massive resources, i.e. funded, can hit whichever targets it wishes.
All of which puts both the Obama control measure and the blind belief that the “shouts into the darkness hoping someone is listening”, i.e. Twitter, in context. We are only as connected as forces guided by both money and malice allow us to be.
In an emergency, in an unpopular political move or even during one by stealth, we can be severed just like that [he snaps fingers].
Filed under: Politics & economics, Technology & ideas
It might be a good idea to unplug the US from the net for many reasons.
If they do try and shut down the net then it will just route round them, after all it is just a collection of networks that have decided to work together.
Joe Lieberman has tried something like this before and was told it would not work. Indeed the main result would be to bring the US to its knees while the world carries on regardless.
Truly the evildoer fears the light. That might explain the push for digital radios, which would prevent receipt of amateur broadcasting in the event of a tyrannical shut-down. Information is a weapon, and the public are at risk of losing it.
I seem to have lost the link now but a year or so ago do you remember when two of the major cables were cut at around the same time? It slowed internet speeds around the globe up quite considerably.