

Internet 'kill switch' proposed for US - petercooper
http://www.zdnet.com.au/internet-kill-switch-proposed-for-us-339303838.htm

======
philwelch
Let's imagine there's really a national security risk that actually requires
the President to order the internet turned off. I don't know what it would be,
but let's say it's dire. In that case, the president (for all practical
purposes) has the power to send the national guard into all the relevant
physical locations and cut the power to the internet backbones. It's illegal
and wrong, in the same sense that Abraham Lincoln's multiple violations of the
Constitution were illegal and wrong. Which is to say, it's one of those edge
cases that the law, by design _has_ to leave out, a situation where you have
to violate the Constitution in order to save it, but there is no way in hell
you're going to give any freedom within the law itself to do anything of the
kind. This is a very difficult idea for a lot of people to wrap their heads
around.

~~~
lionhearted
I was just talking about Lincoln with a friend. If you're bored sometime, look
at one of Lincoln's speeches and replace "union" with "empire" - it still
works! "Our most sacred American empire must not be divided... these rebels
may not be allowed to break the spirit of the empire..."

And for the record, I like Lincoln - but he's easily, easily the most
imperial-minded president in U.S. history. It's a shame we don't call it for
what it is - the Confederate secession was by-the-books legal, the south
became a separate sovereign country, and the north went and conquered them.
And yet, I think it was the right call.

Every American should read Lincoln's first inauguration address. Basically
everything school teaches about Lincoln is wrong. Here's his own words:

<http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html>

\--

"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service
or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as
any other of its provisions:

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein
be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim
of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made
it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of
the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the
whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the
proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this
clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would
make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity
frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by
national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very
material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little
consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should
anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?"

\--

Here's Lincoln's part about the union being preserved, his argument is that
the American union is older than the Constitution and comes before it (a crazy
argument never used before or since):

"Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in
legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the
Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in
fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by
the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith
of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should
be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787,
one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution
was "to form a more perfect Union."

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be
lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution,
having lost the vital element of perpetuity." \--

And here's my swapping out of "empire" for "Union" -

"But if destruction of the _Empire_ by one or by a part only of the States be
lawfully possible, the _Empire_ is less perfect than before the Constitution,
having lost the vital element of perpetuity." - It still works.

And mind you, I like Lincoln. He made the right call. But saying the Civil War
was about slavery is like saying World War II was about coal. I mean, it kind
of sort of was in a very tortured way, but that's a very incomplete
understanding. Lincoln was very pro-slavery in his first inauguration address,
and threated the South with war to preserve the empire if they tried to leave.
They thought he was bluffing. He wasn't. Every American should read that first
inauguration address, it's Lincoln's own words. Your view of the American
Civil War will never be the same afterwards.

~~~
philwelch
I'd say the Civil War was about slavery the same way WWII was about fascism--
the _casus belli_ wasn't that one side held slaves or that one side was
fascist, but having fascists control a couple of central European countries
leads to war the same way having a pseudo-aristocratic slave-owning social
structure in the same country as a free-labor capitalist society leads to
inevitable divisions and attempted secession.

The South was a deeply evil society even then--plantation owners were
hereditary lords in all but name, except their slaves were mere chattel rather
than serfs, and everyone in the middle were exactly that.

~~~
lionhearted
Partially yes, but 1860 was the most divisive Presidential election in
history. The Republican strategy was basically to punt on the South and run on
an entirely pro-Northern/Western platform. Notably, the Republicans ran on a
platform putting tariffs on foreign machinery, requiring raw materials to be
processed in America before being shipped, granting free farmland in the
federally owned West (instead of selling it), and support for a
Northeast/Western railroad. _All_ of those were unpalatable to the South. The
tariffs protected Northern industry at the expense of making it more expensive
for Southerns. Not letting raw cotton be shipped overseas until it was sent to
the North for processing was going to be a nightmare.

The free land would again reduce the price of inputs to Northern factories by
producing more agriculture, at the expense of the South. Mind you, the South
had also been a part of paying for and fighting for Western lands in the
various purchases and wars, and now the land they'd bought/fought for was
going to be given away, which would also lower the prices of their crops.

And so on, and so on. Lincoln carried zero southern states, zero border
states. He took all of the Northeast and West Coast.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege1860.svg>

I agree with you on the deeply evil society thing, 100% agreement. Just that's
not why the war started. Or, it's one small component of it. Slavery was ended
without a massive violent conflict in most civilized places and could have
been ended that way in the USA, and besides, the Civil War was only partially
about slavery. Lincoln's entire platform was anti-South, he ran his campaign
similar to Bush II: That is, punt entirely on large parts of the country and
try to win core demographics. The tariffs, shipping laws, giving federally
owned lands for free, and railroads were all pro-Northern measures and
somewhat hostile to the South. Lincoln didn't even want to end slavery, as
you'll see in his inauguration speech. The way they teach the Civil War in
American high school, as sort of a moral fight, is entirely wrong - it was
about politics, money, and empire. But anyways, I'm on the North's side for
the Civil War, glad they did it, and glad they won. But we should all
understand the real root causes of it. It wasn't fought for morality's sake.

~~~
philwelch
Tariffs in particular were an issue between North and South forever, most
notably in the nullification crisis, where South Carolina "nullies" petitioned
their states to "nullify" the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations". The legal theory
at the time was that the states had the power to nullify federal law, so if
you were in California and California legalized medicinal marijuana (hey!) the
federal government had no legal power to enforce drug laws[1]. Andrew Jackson
and the U.S. Army put a quick end to _that_ idea. (This confrontation also put
to an end the service of South Carolinian Vice President John C. Calhoun, who
resigned and ran for Senate, not at all helped by his wife making wild
accusations about the Secretary of War and his wife.)

Lincoln's election (when he wasn't even on the ballot in half the states) was
the _casus belli_ , in the sense that some Serbian bomb-throwing anarchist
killing some archduke was the _casus belli_ of the First World War. But that's
like dousing your neighbor's house in kerosene and lighter fluid and then
saying it was burned down by a single match.

Incidentally, you're right on the morality thing. A few enlightened liberals
were abolitionists, but most anti-Southerners just thought the whole slavery-
backed aristocracy thing going on in the South was bad news, and that the
"Slave Power" would take over the country and crush democracy. Actually, that
was the more consistent argument--the North fulfilled its demand for cheap
labor by importing tons of poor European immigrants who worked in factories
and lived in tenements, which was in many respects a worse life than slavery.
It's hard to take a moral high ground from there.

[1] The legalization laws for medicinal marijuana simply create an exemption
for state laws. Since state and local cops don't usually enforce federal law,
this has the practical effect of sanctioning medicinal marijuana, even though
on a legal basis the DEA could go in and sweep every single dispensary and
cancer patient they find. At various points in recent years, the feds actually
have gone after medicinal marijuana even in legalized states, leading to
significant controversy. So if you can imagine Dick Cheney as a hardcore
stoner and Dick Cheney's wife spreading wild rumors about Don Rumsfeld, you
have a fairly decent grasp on Jacksonian-era political intrigue.

~~~
lionhearted
Good comment, I think we're basically on the same page. I generally like
Andrew Jackson, he was right about the banks and he balanced the budget, only
U.S. President born poor, etc, but how he handled nullification was wrong in
my book. Interesting that it's coming up again now with the medical marijuana
thing... of course, not many people are sympathetic to the drug laws right
now. I wonder what would happen if Texas declared income tax invalid in TX?
Well, it'd be interesting at least...

I think we're on similar pages, probably a couple differences in
interpretation but both aware that the official historybook version is
lacking. Good discussion, cheers.

------
Perceval
Any kill switch capability that is built in will simply become another vector
for attack—in this case an attack that overrides the core competency of the
Internet which is massive redundancy in case any one section fails.

It is almost a certainty that such a capability will be exploited.

~~~
stretchwithme
how about a guy at the border unplugging the fiber optic cable? I assume it
can already be disconnected somewhere physically; all this does is authorize
the government to do it.

~~~
blhack
There would be quite a few cables to unplug:

[http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeo...](http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeography/atlas/cables.html)

~~~
stretchwithme
The military has a lot of people.

------
fjabre
_Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure_

Is it any surprise that he's the primary sponsor? You can always count on Joe
to be on the wrong side of history.

An Internet kill switch is one of the worst and most authoritarian ideas I've
ever heard coming out of the US government. Here's to hoping Schmidt uses his
veto power on this one.

------
JulianMorrison
They have something similar in Iran - for all the wrong reasons. Although even
there, they don't dare sever themselves from the 21st century economy
entirely, and that has left enough gaps for circumvention software.

Turning the internet off is something that can't be used for good. It's a tool
of repression and anyone who supports it sees themselves as likely to benefit
by repression.

------
jawn
I tried to make this same argument in another thread and was down voted for
it, so here goes...

Any act of electronic warfare has an equivalent physical response. Regulation
such as this is nothing more than power grabs by government and the defense
industry.

~~~
pyre
I think that it's hard to make the case for open warfare when you can't prove
that it was the (for example) the Chinese government that launched the attack.
Or are you suggesting a covert retaliatory attack?

~~~
jawn
Open war, covert actions, or economic sanctions would work fine on a state v
state level.

In the case of non state actors, current policing methods should be
sufficient. In the cases where its not (and there is sufficient cause) covert
policing actions should not be ruled out.

------
Jach
So in the event that the main Internet goes down, for whatever reason, who
wants to help buy up a bunch of wireless routers (and other applicable items)
to start forming a giant mesh network? Neighborhood by neighborhood...
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Building_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Building_a_Rural_Wireless_Mesh_Network_-
_A_DIY_Guide_v0.8.pdf)

~~~
borism
me

------
MaysonL
What happens when somebody hacks the kill switch?

~~~
aw3c2
What could possibly go wrong?

------
adamtmca
I find myself very conflicted about this. I think the wording of "kill switch"
is an extremely poor choice so I will try to illustrate what I think the
genuine national security reasoning is, using China as the hypothetical
aggressor. The Chinese government controls all of the hubs which connect the
internet in China to the rest of the world, the "great firewall" as some have
called it. The chinese use this for censorship, but it also puts them in an
advantageous situation during a conflict. Imagine the impact widespread denial
of service attacks on financial and governmental institutions would have on a
nations ability to wage war (read estonia). China could launch such attacks
while effectively defending itself against similar attacks from foreigners.
The chinese subset of the internet would continue to function while blocked
off from the rest of the world.

With that in mind it seems like the "kill switch" should kill or limit
connections to outside the United States. That said, the power this would give
the domestic leadership may pose a greater threat to liberty than a foreign
aggressor. I think I agree with philwelch.. I would rather see the plans to do
this confidentially drawn up by the CIA than written into law.

~~~
steveklabnik
So, we save our computers from a DDOS by... shutting it off? I don't really
see how this makes any sense.

~~~
Vivtek
That's why you're not the Senator from Connecticut.

I hate that man.

------
ars
So you are saying you want to prevent me from talking to someone over a
private communication channel I paid for?

Unless it's a war, good luck with getting that past a court review.

~~~
loewenskind
Sadly, since the US government has tricked its people into fighting a
_concept_ it is _always_ war.

------
haily
Oh the irony! We want our Internet to be robust, robust, robust! This bill
just did half the work for some evil hacker.

------
barmstrong
What hypothetical attack would this prevent?

~~~
Vivtek
Domestic insurrection.

------
jauer
Reposting a commend I made on this topic when it came up sourced from
Infowars...

Unintended consequences aside, this is less about a kill switch or government
censorship and more about forcing a industry that has not taken security
seriously to get their act together.

Many providers don't actively police their customers for botnet activity or
respond to security incidents that don't affect their network infrastructure
or back office systems.

This appears to establish a regulatory framework where network security
officially becomes more than a law enforcement issue and lets DHS order
operators to secure their networks and help out if they are unable to do so.

~~~
Zak
Maybe it is, but

a. That's not the government's job.

b. Once a new power is in place, it will be used, and not just for whatever
the original intent was. We separate policy from mechanism in software for a
reason. It works in law too.

~~~
jauer
Amen on B.

As for A, it became the government's job when provider apathy with regard to
infected clients and hosts with botnet controllers etc permitted a situation
to arise where the means of a (supposed) attack for a foreign power is
actually based within the US. At that point it stopped being a private
security issue and became a national security issue.

I don't like it, but the problem it addresses does exist.

How would you separate policy from mechanism in this case?

~~~
Zak
Things that are critical to national security should be able to defend
themselves from botnets (most likely by firewalling themselves from the public
Internet). I think these threats are vastly overstated, mostly by people
trying to get more power in to the hands of the government.

As for shutting down hosts involved in a bot net, a court order can do that in
an emergency already. Sure, it adds a delay, but it also adds oversight and
separates policy from mechanism. The executive branch controls the policy,
while the courts control the mechanism.

------
joubert
It is quite ironic that ARPANET was designed for survivability.

------
yason
In other news: "Terrorists seed internet with dangerous files, government
places emergency connectivity restrictions all over the U.S."

------
lakeeffect
Killing the internet would seriously disrupt the flow of information,
information that is integral to remedy any attack and the psychological
welfare of those affected.

A Weather Service Style Notification Service would be much more beneficial,
that is unless that is skynet is controlling the robots.

------
jackowayed
Related: A few months ago, Bush's advisor on cybersecurity was on Fresh Air,
an NPR interview show, talking about cyberattacks:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1260970...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126097038)

------
ax0n
Awesome. Let's give The Prez the ability to leverage a massive-scale worldwide
denial of service attack at his every whim before the Evil Haxors can pound
their script kiddie tools through the firewall. Way to go.

------
sdh
what useful purpose would cutting off mass communications serve a democratic
government?

~~~
loewenskind
A democratic one... not much. :)

------
stretchwithme
If we are being attacked electronically, it makes sense to be able to defend
ourselves.

~~~
pyre
An Internet 'kill switch' is akin to a 'slash and burn' tactic. e.g. 'They'
are using our road system to attack us, so we mine our road system. In the
end, nobody wins. Even if we defeat 'them' we have to pick up the pieces that
we left ourselves.

~~~
Vivtek
Actually, this is an excellent analogy. Nobody would believe that mining the
Interstate highway system in case enemies used it to invade would be a good
idea. But put the word "computer" next to anything else and most people's
brains just switch off.

~~~
pyre
I think that the main reason they are trying to do this is that so many
government networks and even utilities are hooking up to the Internet, so they
want to be able to shut out 'invaders' if there is a bad attack happening.

The problem with this is that maybe those networks/utilities _SHOULDN'T BE ON
THE PUBLIC INTERNET_. If the military or other government agencies can't
defend themselves appropriately, then maybe they should invest in rolling out
a completely separate network just for US government purposes. Hell, they did
it once (i.e APRANet).

~~~
Vivtek
Good point! These morons always say, "But a hacker could destroy our
electrical power grid!" and I _always_ wonder _why is the power grid
accessible on the Internet_? What idiot thought that was a good idea, and
can't we fire him or her and take the grid back off the Internet? Like, today?

