How much government control of Web in cybercrisis?

AP ^ | September 26, 2009

[ConservativeStatement]

WASHINGTON — There’s no kill switch for the Internet, no secret on-off button in an Oval Office drawer.

Yet when a Senate committee was exploring ways to secure computer networks, a provision to give the president the power to shut down Internet traffic to compromised Web sites in an emergency set off alarms.

Corporate leaders and privacy advocates quickly objected, saying the government must not seize control of the Internet.

[ConservativeStatement]

If Obama controls the Internet, it should be renamed in the Messiah's honor: The InterNut.

[proxy_user]

If one router outside the US has a route to the ‘blocked’ site, and any router inside the US has a route to that router, it’s not blocked, is it?

[DannyTN]

There should be no Executive branch control over the internet internal to the U.S. without prior and specific judicial authorization and oversight.

It would be nice if we could unplug africa until they started prosecuting scammers.

And in times of war, the ability to block malicious external sites should be developed.

[pallis]

Give this government an inch, and it will take a mile, making us foot the bill for tyranny. We need a moratorium on any new federal powers or authority.

[Dick Bachert]

Obama has selected the “czar” of his new Emergency Internet Management Agency. The acronym for the new agency is ENIMA. The person chosen is a Dr. Goebbels (photo below) who described the mission statement of the organization: “To purge any crap about der furh -- er – President Obama out of the internet by any and all necessary means.” Herr Doctor reminded the interviewer that failure to comply with the rules and regulations to be administered by ENIMA will be dealt with “most harshly because ve know ver you live.”

In an effort to assure the public that Obama would use these new powers ONLY in declared cyber-emergencies, Goebbels told AP that “ve vould, fur example, haf to shut down ze internet only fur zings like a fire in ze Reischstag – er -- Capitol, ze federal invasion uf Texas or other renegade states, another uf zos sthupid Tea Parties, a march on Vashington by Jim Thompson und his band uf ruffians und zealots – you know zings uf zat sort.” Und, uf course, zer vill alvays be zat qvestion ve lufed to ask citizens ‘VER ARE YOUR PAPERS?’ LOL.”

[ThunderSleeps]

Bad idea. You realize that being able to block sites, subnets, etc. means that an attacker's DOS attack is guaranteed to be 100% successful.

obama, bringing you unintended consequences through inattention to detail.

[Milhous]

It would be nice if we could unplug africa until they started prosecuting scammers.

The author makes A Real Gullible Genius (my favorite chapter), a takeoff on the movie A Real Genius freely available. Fyodor also makes his own chapter, Return on Investment, freely available.

Good luck to control freaks in wrangling that metaphysical metaphor known as the Inet.