The Internet is killing the establishment

[MoonShadow]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north1203.html

[sadpandatech]

Have no fear, Establishment. Napolitano is scrambling her department's ass off to get this Cyber Security Bill(now executive order) drafted for you. Down with those evil, freedom loving cyber punks!

[MoonShadow]

Except there is one problem with that 'kill switch' concept, there is no way to do it even if they have the legal "authority".  A government document has no more power to "kill" the Internet in the US than gun laws have the power to disarm criminals.  Iran tried it because they only have a half dozen international connections to unplug, all of which were owned by semi-government entities anyway; and even then data was getting out of Iran.  The US has 10K independent ISP's with varying degrees of their own tier 2 or international connections; and international connections aren't even necessary since Facebook & Youtube (the sites Iranians were trying to access anyway) are in the US.  Sure, they can drop the tier 3 connections linking NYC/Portland,OR/San Franisco/Atlanta,GA and force my ping rates to the moon and my frame rates to unplayable levels, but that's not going to break much else.   Maybe some torrents would drop to zero.  Even sending men with guns to Google & facebook to shut them down is only going to force alternatives to the top in short order.

[Gabi]

9/11 conspiracy theory, facepalm.

[myrkul]

9/11 conspiracy theory, facepalm.

The official story is a conspiracy theory too, you know... one with a lot of holes, I might add. The article just pointed out those holes.

[cedivad]

I find it offensive to associate (serious) 11/9 theories with the free energy (huge bullshit by definition).

[malevolent]

Except there is one problem with that 'kill switch' concept, there is no way to do it even if they have the legal "authority".  A government document has no more power to "kill" the Internet in the US than gun laws have the power to disarm criminals.  Iran tried it because they only have a half dozen international connections to unplug, all of which were owned by semi-government entities anyway; and even then data was getting out of Iran.  The US has 10K independent ISP's with varying degrees of their own tier 2 or international connections; and international connections aren't even necessary since Facebook & Youtube (the sites Iranians were trying to access anyway) are in the US.  Sure, they can drop the tier 3 connections linking NYC/Portland,OR/San Franisco/Atlanta,GA and force my ping rates to the moon and my frame rates to unplayable levels, but that's not going to break much else.   Maybe some torrents would drop to zero.  Even sending men with guns to Google & facebook to shut them down is only going to force alternatives to the top in short order.

A lot of internet infrastructure is based in US (ICANN, IANA, PIR, root nameservers, IXPs, gTLDs) so unfortunately they can cause some harm but overall US is too big to have Internet easily shut down, not like in Armenia xD
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12985082

[Jermainé]

9/11 conspiracy theory, facepalm.

Come on the jews reported the builiding down before it actually WENT DOWN. hmmmm?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7SwOT29gbc

[MoonShadow]

Except there is one problem with that 'kill switch' concept, there is no way to do it even if they have the legal "authority".  A government document has no more power to "kill" the Internet in the US than gun laws have the power to disarm criminals.  Iran tried it because they only have a half dozen international connections to unplug, all of which were owned by semi-government entities anyway; and even then data was getting out of Iran.  The US has 10K independent ISP's with varying degrees of their own tier 2 or international connections; and international connections aren't even necessary since Facebook & Youtube (the sites Iranians were trying to access anyway) are in the US.  Sure, they can drop the tier 3 connections linking NYC/Portland,OR/San Franisco/Atlanta,GA and force my ping rates to the moon and my frame rates to unplayable levels, but that's not going to break much else.   Maybe some torrents would drop to zero.  Even sending men with guns to Google & facebook to shut them down is only going to force alternatives to the top in short order.

A lot of internet infrastructure is based in US (ICANN, IANA, PIR, root nameservers, IXPs, gTLDs) so unfortunately they can cause some harm but overall US is too big to have Internet easily shut down, not like in Armenia xD
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12985082

Indeed, that's my point.  The Internet isn't some singular thing.  While google & DNS would certainly represent single points of failure for how many people use the Internet, that is most certainly not the case for the savvy minority, and it's that same minority that are capable of doing the kind of harm that the 'kill switch' BS is intended to affect.  It won't have significant effects on this group of people, but would affect the regular Internet users a great deal.  That alone should make people question it's true intent.  Either the bosses are truly ignorant of the nature of the Internet AND completely ignoring their own technically educated employees on the matter; or the deliberate disruption of the common users' regular communications methodologies is the real goal.  Considering that I've worked for government in the past, I consider the first possibility to be more likely.  Most people tend to assume that government agencies hire very talented people and listen to what they have to contribute, and thus, as an organization they function as an intelligent and well connected body.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The reality is that "the fog of war" applies very well to inter & intra-agency politics; and those that have risen to positions of authority tend to insulate themselves with politically & ideologically similar underlings, so the faults of the leadership often pervades deep enough vertically that anyone who has real knowledge to contribute are not in the position to communicate that knowledge with those in authority.  Improve Anywhere has a much more effective group communcations network than many military units that I've experience with, even if the official military networks are more timely when properly used.  I've seen evidence that a text-message based flash mob has better real time communications than the police.

[allthingsluxury]

Thats why they are trying to pass so many bills to limit the internet. They are attempting to gain control. This is something that needs to be resisted.

[MoonShadow]

Thats why they are trying to pass so many bills to limit the internet. They are attempting to gain control. This is something that needs to be resisted.

But they are going about it the wrong way.  All they are likely to achieve is to piss off the millinials by attempting to interfere in their communications.  This alone could lead to civil war.  These oldsters don't have any concept of how personal most millinials would take any deliberate act by government to seperate them from unrestricted Internet access.  They most certainly do consider the access that they have paid for, and contracted with a private third party to provide, is a human right; and I agree simply based upon the right of contract.

Let them flail with their ineffectual edicts.  It will be their downfall.