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Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

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Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#51

Post by marshray »

Zak wrote: post #18

I read this, and become more concerned about bills to give the US President an Internet kill-switch. They say it's to protect against cyber-warfare, but something makes me think it's just as likely to be applied to civil unrest, and civil unrest doesn't usually happen unless there's something pretty wrong with the government.

Obama already claims to have the power to commandeer networks in the form of an obscure provision in a pre-WWII law relating to communications base stations.

People in the US government are becoming painfully aware though just how dependent every bit of our infrastructure is becoming on continued internet function. Nobody is really sure, for example, just how much of the phone and power networks would stay up if all IP routing is shut down.

So more than likely, any new laws passed are going to have the effect of giving the president the fine-tuned ability to tamper with specific websites, addresses, protocols, etc. even if that's not the how the bill is sold to the public.

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#52

Post by marshray »

mey wrote: post #48
nkassis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except now they pissed off all 20 million (the guardian has a nice chart at the end of their article that states this) internet users. We will have to see but I think tomorrow's planed move will just have gotten bigger because of this move.

I wonder how many places of employment in Egypt require a internet connection to function. I wonder how many of these people now have absolutely nothing to do for work or entertainment tomorrow, who may not have joined the protest, now will be...

Really, this one is going to go down in history as one of the most boneheaded moves ever by decision makers out of touch with the basic realities of modern life.

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#53

Post by jemfinch »

danenania wrote: post #38
jemfinch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's arguable, but I'd say that the real Internet is like that, at least in well-connected places like the US. I cannot imagine the act of God necessary to stop Americans from accessing Google.

You know, it seems that way, but Americans might be the most docile population on earth. There's no way I'd believe they could get away with all the shit they have in the last decade with nothing but token complaints from the masses if it hadn't already happened. If the end of the internet in America was decreed tomorrow, sure it would be a monumental logistical challenge for the NSA, but there's always the Fed to pr…

Americans may be docile, but businesses and corporations are not. What do you think the proprietors of the thousands of POPs across America are going to tell the feds who come to shut them down? What do you think Google or Microsoft or Facebook are going to say when the government tries to cut off their primary source of income?

Do you really think the same corporations that extensively lobby the government now are going to sit idly by while the government shuts this Internet thing down?

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#54

Post by btilly »

zoomzoom wrote: post #39
Zak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passing a law like that means they'll put in the infrastructure to actually do it. If things deteriorate significantly in the US, it is likely that attempting to gain the ability to shut down the internet would directly trigger some sort of civil unrest while now it only triggers angry blog posts.

Don't trust me - but I would wager a bet that the US government already has such infrastructure. We trust them with the power to detonate 1,000's of thermonuclear warheads or study Ebola virus for weapnization at USAMRID - the internet kill switch is horrible, but it is nowhere near the top of my list.

One nuclear bomb, set off at the right location and altitude, could wipe out the Internet and most consumer electronics for most of the continental USA. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse. And this is with no direct physical injury.

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#56

Post by Jach »

seancron wrote: post #28
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They're called mesh networks, and I think you've just described why they will never take off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking

Interesting. Are there any pieces of software that can transform ordinary laptops/phones into mesh networks? A quick search shows B.A.T.M.A.N. ( http://www.open-mesh.org/ ), but it looks a little tricky to setup. Are there any simple ways for non-technical users to run a mesh network node? A "click to install and run" solution would be ideal, but I'd be interested in hearing about other people's experiences with mesh…

I think this is linked from the wiki article, but it's a good read for various general info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Building_a_Rural_Wireless_...

I haven't set one up myself but if the government did kill the internet I'd take it as a good time to start creating a city-by-city mesh, hopefully hooking up with other people with the same idea. If the government leaves the regular lines off for too long, it may actually end up being a good thing. I don't think the kill-switch strategy would work so well in the US, so long as it's not short-term, but it's possible the people who want the ability of a kill-switch haven't thought it through.

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#57

Post by jemfinch »

jacquesm wrote: post #41
jemfinch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's arguable, but I'd say that the real Internet is like that, at least in well-connected places like the US. I cannot imagine the act of God necessary to stop Americans from accessing Google.

Take out a few core locations and you'd have a very hard time getting to google, or most other sites for that matter. All it takes for the vast majority of the internet to become unusable for the larger fraction of the population is to take the .com, .net and .org TLDs down. Your packets will still route but where do you want them to go? It would take long enough for people to regroup and find work-arounds that more…

> Take out a few core locations and you'd have a very hard time getting to google, or most other sites for that matter.

Definitely untrue. How familiar are you with how the Internet works? Google and other major websites are massively multihomed: they peer with tens or hundreds or perhaps thousands of other ISPs and backbones in as many different peering points around the world.

> All it takes for the vast majority of the internet to become unusable for the larger fraction of the population is to take the .com, .net and .org TLDs down.

8.8.8.8 is an easy enough number to memorize. So is 8.8.4.4. How long do you think it would DNS admins there or anywhere else to fix their servers not to flush their caches? Certainly less time than it would take the US government to shut down thousands of redundant peering points.

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#58

Post by awakeasleep »

jerf wrote: post #40
Zak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passing a law like that means they'll put in the infrastructure to actually do it. If things deteriorate significantly in the US, it is likely that attempting to gain the ability to shut down the internet would directly trigger some sort of civil unrest while now it only triggers angry blog posts.

I am at a loss as to what this additional infrastructure really permits that having lots of armored men with guns does not. Armored men with guns are a flexible bunch, they can do lots of things. The marginal distinction to the person in power between pressing a button and ordering other people to go shut the net down is pretty minimal; it's not like without this switch, the President is going to actually have go out…

I see this argument get a lot of play.

These sorts of things are important because ease dictates more of what happens in life than posibility. Make it easier to turn off the net, there is more chance of it happening, and it'll take less resources from the controlling party to do it.

Like you said, 'they' could already turn off the internet. So why bother with the effort to make a killswitch? Because the resources it'd take to kill the internet manually matter.

~~~~~~~

An similar argument might be, "If someone can always find a flaw in crypto implementations, why bother with cryptography?" or "You can walk anywhere a car can go, what's the point of having a car?"

Re: Egypt has shut off the Internet (update: not everywhere)

#59

Post by tomhenderson »

btilly wrote: post #54
zoomzoom wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't trust me - but I would wager a bet that the US government already has such infrastructure. We trust them with the power to detonate 1,000's of thermonuclear warheads or study Ebola virus for weapnization at USAMRID - the internet kill switch is horrible, but it is nowhere near the top of my list.

One nuclear bomb, set off at the right location and altitude, could wipe out the Internet and most consumer electronics for most of the continental USA. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse . And this is with no direct physical injury.

When all you have is a hammer...
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