Senators decry link between Egypt and U.S. 'kill switch' bill | Hacker News Reader

Senators decry link between Egypt and U.S. 'kill switch' bill

news.cnet.com

63 pointsMikeCapone48 comments

I still haven't heard a single remotely plausible argument for why a kill switch is a good idea. What's the worst that a "cyber attack" can do? Take down the internet? So why do it for them?

Including text in the law forbidding the president from using it to prohibit citizen's communication is incredibly disingenuous, too, given that that's one of the main points of the constitution.

We already know the US government isn't allowed to do this kind of thing. So why give them the tools? If there's no tool there isn't even any temptation to use it.

A couple of years ago they announced something similar with GPS. On the same day two bits of government made announcements.

1, A massive funding for improved GPS security to prevent terrorists causing chaos by them blocking GPS signals.

2, An increase in the powers of everybody from the port authority to the girl guides to have a kill switch to shut down GPS if there was a threat of a terrorist attack.

Finally I have a justification for making an android application that will tell you where you are based upon photographing the stars.

Might find this useful: http://astrometry.net/

Useful when you absolutely definitely need to be there on time - and the other side has just destroyed your GPS satellites

http://books.google.ca/books?id=QymEXZIWEe8C&pg=PA332...

"We already know the US government isn't allowed to do this kind of thing."

You sure about that? I'm pretty sure the President already has far the ability to do far more drastic things than this bill authorizes. See for example: http://gcn.com/articles/2010/06/28/no--kill-switch-in-lieber...

Well,

We could split the difference and say "it tramples constitutional freedoms as generally understood as well as the overall principles of democracy but it's certainly already contained in one or another of the broad powers the executive has amassed over the years."

It feels like the distinction between law and "policy initiative" has been getting thinner and thinner lately given said broad power of the executive branch. This seems to be one of a number of laws which aren't so much passed to give the president new authority to do something but rather to ramp up a policy in a smooth and public fashion. The website seizure bill is another example - when the bill got bogged down, ICE just went out and proved they could do what they wanted regardless. The only cost is flack the government gets on all this.

I think it speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology, but to be fair, the proposal is not to grant the power to disable the Internet.

The proposal is to grant the power to partition the Internet. So, it would not be analogous to how Egypt disabled the Internet almost entirely within their borders. Depending on how you look at it, it's either a subtle distinction, or a huge difference. It still serves the exact same purpose (granting the power to shut down "troublesome" communication channels even if they are physically located outside the country). On the other hand, its activation would not in and of itself impact the vast majority of American citizens (because they only use U.S.-based sites).

The internet is a global internetwork, a network of networks, as it were. That's where the name comes from.

Partitioning the internet is isomorphic to destroying the internet.

Would you say that the Internet is "destroyed" whenever there's an earthquake or something that cuts trans-Atlantic cables? Would you say that it's "destroyed" by China's filtering?

If they cut off US access to internet sites outside of the country, the internet could still be used to organize protests, etc.

Except that if you can partition it you can also take it down. Even if the world "kill switch" doesn't express their intent, it will still effectively be one.

> They said, however, that they'll make sure their forthcoming legislation "contains explicit language prohibiting the president from doing what President [Hosni] Mubarak did."

Oh great, I'm sure the Egyptians can testify as to how laws prevent leaders from doing bad things, especially in cases of emergency / unrest / whatever.

So if you think laws don't matter, why would you care if the kill switch bill is enacted?

Good question. I do believe that laws matter. I'm just skeptical that they'll always prevent abuse by the leadership. Look how the Patriot Act invalidated many basic rights, rights that were enforced by laws. Now they want to reauthorize it. Can you blame me for being skeptical?

I'd rather give the government just enough power, rather than a large amount of power "just in case". In this specific case, I'd rather the president not have such a power, lest he decides to use it in an absurd way in the future. (e.g. America gets attacked again, like 9/11, president pushes button.) Especially since these laws are being proposed and voted on by people who think that shutting down the internet is the way to protect yourself from "cyber attacks", whatever that may mean. They are obviously unqualified to make such a decision, as is the president unqualified to decide when the button must be hit.

I imagine because enacting the law will create avenues that make 'killing the internet' easy. I.e. infrastructure will be put into place to enable it to be exercised at the push of a button.

I'd be willing to bet Lieberman has barely used the internet. Ever.

I mean, my Nana won't touch it, and she's about 10x as progressive as him, so...

Look over Lieberman's job history ... he has never held a job in the private sector, period.

Well, plenty of people in the public sector know how to use a computer :)

I don't see the relevance of what you're saying? At best it is an attack on the man and not on what he's saying. If his arguments are incorrect, correct them. Don't smugly point out his work history as if it somehow contributed to the conversation.

Edit: This cropped up on HN a few days ago again, http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html I feel "DH1" covers what I'm trying to say to you.

as he

Yeah, and he's got a stupid face! That's why I don't support his bill!

You see, the President will only switch off the internet to preserve freedom.

We had to destroy <strike>this village</strike> the internet to save it.

We need to draft a bill that would allow him the power to switch off freedom to preserve the internet, just in case.

Maybe they'll cite Independence Day, when our own satellite communication network was used against us. If the bad guys are using "our" Internet to communicate we should shut it down and evacuate everyone to Area 51 with the help of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum.

Would that citation be fair use, or would the MPAA issue a DMCA notice?

It feels like it would pass a fair use defense test...not taking too more than necessary and shouldn't harm the commercial market for the original.

And any bill with an internet shutdown is something the MPAA could get behind :)

What I don't understand is how it is acceptable to essentially "void" all the contracts for internet and point to point/transport (which would travel over the same fiber and routers) just because the gov't says so.

The entire idea of having a court system is to ensure justice in criminal issues and in civil issues, protect the enforcement of contracts. Somehow this is getting turned around.

Isn't that kinda the point? If <foreign government> launched a massive DDOS against US servers, you don't want people dithering over violating SLAs when they could be stopping the attack

But why is a massive DDOS against US servers an issue though? As long as critical infrastructure doesn't go down (i.e. you get what you deserve if your nuclear reactors are controlled via a publicly accessible telnet session, or if they can be DDOS'd at all) then the damage is minimal. It certainly doesn't warrant a military-level response.

As long as critical infrastructure doesn't go down

That's the whole point. Critical infrastructure is the only thing the bill covers.

It certainly doesn't warrant a military-level response.

The bill has nothing to do with the military.

  > The bill has nothing to do with the military

The president is the commander-in-chief and this bill is about preventing 'cyber attacks' from outside of the country. That seems to be encroaching into 'military' territory in my book, even if there isn't a particular branch of the military involved.

Actually it would be trivial to shut down such an attack, using the existing tools and policies already in place.

"When the President does it, then it's not illegal."

- Richard Nixon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejvyDn1TPr8

"L'État, c'est moi"

- Louis XIV

Senators decry people watching them break what's not broken. Film at 11.

I haven't seen any kind of justification for the provision making the president's hypothetical action immune from judicial review. And I can't think of any justification, either.

Anybody care to explain what they're thinking?

I'm actually OK with the bill aside from this provision.

(Worth noting, though, that the bill hasn't been reintroduced yet so we can't actually see that language... and CNET's source for this removal of judicial review appears to be a single lobbyist for companies opposed to the bill.)

Here's an idea: let's pick out one provision of the bill that sounds sketchy when summarized and whip ourselves into a massive rhetorical frenzy over it in lieu of reading so much as a word of the rest of it and considering ways it could be improved to better address the problems it is attempting to address.

Oh wait, you're way ahead of me, as usual. Stay classy, HN.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111s3480rs/pdf/BILLS-111s...

But a lobbyist working for companies opposed to the bill told CNET that a new version that no one can see yet is really bad! What more do you need?

"A final decision in any appeal under this subsection shall be a final agency action that shall not be subject to judicial review." Section 254(c)(1); appears on pg. 402 of the linked draft.

I am against any law which contains those words. Other parts of the law are troubling to various degrees, but that single sentence is enough for me to know that I oppose this law.

considering that the Internet becomes an "additional, external, brain lobe" (how many of you remember things instead of looking it up everytime, or take for example Google voice/translate or any other traditional "brain" function that tomorrow will be transferred to and/or extended by Internet) - any government power on the Internet means government's power over your brain. Because tomorrow the unconnected brain vs. connected will be like being a pedestrian vs. riding a car.

Of all the possible threats to a free Internet, the idea of a rogue US President shutting it off seems pretty far down the list. This is not something worth worrying about.

True - a rogue US president isn't a problem.

Of course a Chicago mayor shutting off bits of it when there is a G20 protest.

Or an Alabama governor for a civil rights march.

Or just an MPAA owned senator shutting down an ISP because of a pirate copy of a movie.

Any power given to the government is something to worry about. Any power given will eventually be used, and not always the way we thought it would when we gave it.

"No, it's fine, we're good guys, we won't abuse these powers."

Benevolent rule is still rule. And the risks of centralized power being wielded by a benevolent authority falling into the hands of a malicious authority is very real and should never be ignored.

the reason for this bill are a bit somewhat false..

Note, to date the number one entity skilled and reacting fast to cyber attacks on Net infrastructure has been commerce not government. In government has shown to be poor performer in this area.

It would not surprise me if this bill was being lobbied by MPAA/RIAA

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