Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers | Hacker News Reader

Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

westernjournalism.com

19 pointspssdbt13 comments

He can also nuke half the U.S. if he wants to, but that doesn't make it probable.

An hour of internet downtime in the U.S. would cause more economic damage than 9/11 and the grounding of all airplanes. Do it once and you lose the confidence of investors everywhere, and you will see a bank run that will drive the value of the dollar to the ground. Not to mention what it will do to domestic confidence.

Economies and national sovereignty are an illusion that must be kept by the state, through constant projection of power and stability. Shake that a tiny bit and it will ripple across the board.

[Edit:

This blog is a fringe, vanity publication that seems to cater to the extreme right. Their "articles" include a list of properties and social-security numbers of people associated with Obama, along with other wacky ideas, like using the word "homosexual" as a derogatory. Doesn't look very credible, or for that matter accountable.]

This.

The recent popularity of this topic is a bit FUDish. If it comes to the point that an administration would willingly shut down the Internet, whatever precipitated that scenario would be much worse than the Internet shutting down.

Readers of this publication may very well be preparing for the rapture by stockpiling bibles and ammunition, so it's not worth applying logic to the situation.

And spam. Mustn't forget spam.

Great, a blog with stories like "Yet another terrorist tie to Obama White House" excerpting prisonplanet.com. I suppose this means we're supposed to think that Obama will shut down the internet to allow William Ayers to assume power as Grand Imperator of North America, who will then kill you with a missile from a black UN helicopter before revealing his true Reptilian form and teleporting into space.

Is shutting down the internet physically possible? Ignoring the consequences, I'm just curious about the implications on infrastructure. I, for one, am really unsure about what the internet is as far as the hardware connections go.

Sort of. There are two probable ways it would happen. The first, and most likely, is that the government could order all ISPs to stop the flow of data through their pipes. Theoretically, they could also shut down some of the root nameservers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nameserver), many of which are owned by the government. But again, this wouldn't truly shut down the Internet, it'd just stop browsers from being able to turn addresses into IP addresses. If you knew the IP of the site you were trying to visit, they couldn't stop you with that method.

Edit: also note that since DNS resolution is a redundant system, they'd have to shut down EVERY root nameserver (or at least the ones in the US) to stop resolution completely. Otherwise it'd basically just slow down, though potentially to the point where it'd become unusable.

I don't even know what that means, but I can't wait till hollywood gets hold of it

Except that when it gets shut down the "real hackers" will be able to link up to forgotten/abandoned satellite networks and still be able to communicate and plot their various schemes.

You know, like Die Hard 4.

I'm pretty sure that "shutting down the internet" is something that is well beyond the reach of US administration. Because most of the important infrastructure is redundant and in most cases not operated by US government (and also often not even located in US).

If this story is accurate, and it probably isn't, it's a step forwards for Internet-libertarians. Under the Communications Act, the President already had the power to shut the entire Internet down indefinitely for national security reasons. The people making angry noises about stuff like this don't understand the law as it already exists.

I'm at a loss to think of one good reason a president needs this power. Can anyone elucidate?

And if she wins the next election, Sarah Palin can also choose to shut down the internet for 4 months.

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