Posted on 09/02/2009 2:30:33 AM PDT by kingattax
Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat senator from West Virginia, worries about the day a "Digital Pearl Harbor" happens. In response to what he sees as an inevitable attack on our communications infrastructure, he and his staff have been laboring to create law that will enhance our cyber security, under the name of S773 Senate bill 773). The Obama administration apparently fears the "digital Pearl Harbor" and their ability to respond-and if the Rockefeller bill is any indication, they think that pulling the plug and a federal certification program will do just the trick. This shows a basic lack of understanding of what the Internet is, how it works, and what it represents to present day America.
In an August 28th article on CBS, Declan McCullagh analyzes the second version of this bill. The original introduced in April was so bad that it was quickly deemed legislative garbage and sent back for complete re-work. This revised version was meant to address the concerns of lawmakers, trade groups and citizens by narrowing its focus and refining its goals. Instead it has unleashed a flood of criticism (mostly on the internet, mind you) on how this would give the government a "kill switch" for the Internet whenever they deem there to be a national crisis or emergency.
As has been demonstrated during times of national and regional crisis - whether we're talking about September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the San Diego wild fires or the health care proposals, the Internet is an important means of communication and self-organization among the population to respond to any crisis or any debate. Any move to limit this is a perceived as a direct threat to the constitutional rights of assembly and speech upon which the government cannot infringe.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
er, the internet was built to work even if a node was taken out. Its built as a decentralized communication system, a bane of centralized government effort to control communication
Is it me, or is there hidden code between line 001 and line 002?
“In response to what he sees as an inevitable attack on our communications infrastructure”
inevitable? Its happening 24 hours a day 7 days a week already.
“But, haven’t these guys ever heard of fault tolerant self-healing networks?”
Depends on their approach. They could ‘take over’ Verizon with Verizons forced cooperation. But it would be piece meal and time consuming.
Of course if they required (or have) code in the network equipment used by major corporations it would be a trivial exercise.
It seems much more likely (and more technically feasible) that they will just cut off communications to websites and services that would dilute their message to the people, such as Free Republic, Fox News, Drudge, etc. etc.
Taking over a single website is a trivial exercise.
Which means it is within the reach of even this bumbling, corrupt administration.
I don’t know very much about computer communications or how they work but I was wondering, if obama did shut down the internet, would there still be a way we could connect to Free Republic through hypertermal?
If you could dial in through hypertermal would obama still be able to shut it down?
LLS
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