Kill switch for the internet?

[bogeyman]

Interesting story about a possible way of controlling the internet.

"The way the internet is designed is very much as a decentralised system.

'At the moment, because countries connect to each other in lots of different ways, there is no one off switch, there is no central place where you can turn it off.

'In order to be able to turn the whole thing off or really block, suppress one particular idea then the countries and governments would have to get together and agree and co-ordinate and turn it from a decentralised system to being a centralised system.

'And if that does happen it is really important that everybody fights against that sort of direction.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2198668/There-kill-switch-internet-says-inventor-Sir-Tim-Berners-Lee.html#ixzz25dt6SGbh

It seems it may be coming.....

[RMorgan]

Hey mate,

Why would they do it the hard way?

Instead of shutting down the internet, they could just spread a virus and render at least 75% of computers useless.

If the virus doesn´t work, on an emergency, they could simply shut down the civilian communication satellites.

Raf.

[ThePythonicCow]

Why would they want to kill the Internet? It's a great tool for monitoring us and for spreading propaganda in various forms.

[Sidney]

Why would they want to kill the Internet? It's a great tool for monitoring us and for spreading propaganda in various forms.


That made me chuckle. Your right though. Spot on!

[Operator]

Why would they want to kill the Internet? It's a great tool for monitoring us and for spreading propaganda in various forms.

Paul you are absolutely right ... today I found out that Facebook is gathering data about me while I don't even have an account.
They apparently log and store data who invited me in the past and figure out this way who I am socially related to.

But the internet can be used as 'weapon' by the general public too. And the average user is getting smarter. Encryption tools are
becoming more and more powerful and the people get more aware that privacy (encryption) is not luxury but a must ...
As long as the monitoring outbalances the threat it will be OK. But through e.g. Open Source projects they get to deal with the
creativity of some out of the masses. And this will be the driving force to flip the balance eventually.

[ThePythonicCow]

As long as the monitoring outbalances the threat it will be OK. But through e.g. Open Source projects they get to deal with the
creativity of some out of the masses. And this will be the driving force to flip the balance eventually.
I would expect, as I think happened during some of the Arab Spring actions, the Internet, cell phones, twitter, facebook, ... to be shut down for certain times, in certain places, when things go hot, and the bastards in power want to be the only ones to benefit from decent communication.

[Harley]

Hi All,

Here is a directly-related five page thread, that I started here on Project Avalon in Dec 2010, which contains all sorts of interesting info and comments to ponder:

The Internet: Can The Gov Shut It Down? YES! (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?9281-The-Internet-Can-The-Gov-Shut-It-Down-YES-)

:)

[Lone Bean]

I kind of doubt that even if the government is able to shut down the internet entirely, that it would be a permanent shut-down. There are way too many people who know how to create useful work-arounds and will keep the internet up and running despite the government's best geeks' efforts. Various internet(s) would continually spring up. Sort of like that game at the fair where you try to hit all the plastic ground hogs heads to make them go back down into their holes but they just keep popping back up! I think the only way to really shut it down permanently would be a catastrophic power failure, such as a powerful EMP to short out all electronic circuitry.

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

What encryption are people using? I use TOR myself.

[ThePythonicCow]

What encryption are people using? I use TOR myself.

TOR isn't what I'd call encryption, though it uses it :).

TOR is an onion router, that hides what you sending, where it is being sent from, and where it is going to ... but it only hides it while in transit inside the TOR system. See Tor: Overview (https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en) for more detail.

Encryption is also used in other ways, such as to encrypt email messages, encrypt individual files or entire computer disks, and to encrypt other forms of data.

For examples of how I use encryption:

I send encrypted email messages to myself via multiple email accounts, with some personal information I want to save, safely, on multiple diverse email account servers.
Ilie and myself use encryption for one of the various forms of Project Avalon forum backup, onto Amazon's S3 cloud storage, so that no one else can read that backup.
I use the lastpass.com facility for some of my web account passwords, which relies, in part, on encryption.
If I had a laptop with any confidential information on it that I used out and about in the world, I'd seriously consider encrypting its disk.
I use ssh (secure shell) to access the Avalon and other web servers I administer, so that my activity cannot be snooped while it travels over the web. Ssh encrypts everything sent back and forth over the Internet.
I use (as do most of us) https secure connections to encrypt my bank account and credit card purchase sessions over the web.
I encrypt pdf documents that I send to my lawyer or tax accountant, when I have to work with them.
I purchase books and documents that have limited access, controlled by DRM digital rights management) software, which relies on encryption.

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

Thanks for the info Paul. helpful stuff. Can you recommend any software or links?

[ThePythonicCow]

Thanks for the info Paul. helpful stuff. Can you recommend any software or links?

I'm getting off topic here ... if you have particular software needs, you might get some useful replies myself or other geeky members by starting a separate thread on it.

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

Will do. Cheers.