Internet Kill Switch

[Tigersoap]

I am not too sure about an internet kill switch either and I don't pretend to understand this clearly but I've read a few articles in french where Deep packet inspection seems a more useful tool for spying upon all the internet communications.

The recent story involving Amesys/Bull in Lybia, with the involvment of a French company is a case in point osit.

_http://blog.operationreality.org/2011/09/01/how-international-firms-placed-libya-under-total-surveillance-for-gaddafi/

_http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/08/30/gaddafi-hired-international-firms-to-spy-on-libya-uprising/
In french : _http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2011/09/02/amesysbull-un-parfum-daffaire-detat/

Just thought that I would mention this fwiw.

 

[anart]

because I think the PTB are creating unrealistic fears when they threaten to take down a system the entire US economy has become EXTREMELY dependent upon..

I agree - not to mention the intel community is extremely dependent on - people give up all their info on a platter on the net. They're not going to kill it. Fear is food, people - remember?

 

[ocean59]

In the mean time, I think it would be a WONDERFUL idea if someone started an instructional thread on how to reach the Cass Forum if the DNS is blocked?

Everyone could save a copy...just in cae?

I think that is an excellent idea.

Of course, in my mind, the real issue is electricity disappearing unexpectedly (which would obviously take out the internet pretty quickly). However, since landline telephones operate on their own current, I'm thinking there is a likelihood that the POTS (plain old telephone system) network would be easier to restore than the rest of it. Maybe.

Perhaps an even bigger solution would be to have an offline, internet-independent, mirror of the sites accessible to anyone with a landline telephone/modem via a BBS framework? I realize that that is no small idea. But the cost involved would be minimal (maintaining a few cheap landlines), though the work involved would take a chunk of time for sure. It would, however, insure that we were at least one step ahead of certain probable future scenarios. And communication may not even be international - perhaps only regional centers would be functional at first -- but it would be more than nothing should some grand scenarios present themselves.

I'm fairly busy today, but if nobody else has started the basic DNS thread, I will work on it later tonight.

 

[mcb]

I still miss those days sometimes, interacting with dozens of local communities via BBSes. Does that paperclip payphone trick still work anymore? :D

I bet it would, IF you could find a payphone. Sometimes I miss the old BBS's too, although I don't miss using a cassette recorder as a hard drive

This is a VERY interesting discussion, and one I want to jump into because I think the PTB are creating unrealistic fears when they threaten to take down a system the entire US economy has become EXTREMELY dependent upon...but I've got a LOT I have to do over the next couple of days. If yawl don't mind, I'll get back to this thread at a later date? I don't want anyone to think I'm ignoring your well thought out responses...but I got to finish the other stuff first.

In the mean time, I think it would be a WONDERFUL idea if someone started an instructional thread on how to reach the Cass Forum if the DNS is blocked?

Everyone could save a copy...just in cae?

I miss the BBSs too. I ran a Fidonet BBS from the late 1980's into the early 1990's, in a former life. I operated the local Fidonet hub for at least a year or two -- my memory of it is hazy and I am struggling to recall the timeline. I wasn't terribly interested in the "hobby" aspect of it, but the 'networking' aspects (in the sense that we use here, via Echomail forums) were very interesting to me and as a software developer I had no difficulty setting up and operating the BBS itself.

I vaguely recall an ongoing discourse even back then about being able to survive any attempt to shut down that network, which carried a great deal of "alternative" dialogue and free thought. There was talk about using packet radio, with which I was never involved. The next thing I remember, the Internet opened up and Fidonet was pretty much history. I signed up with an ISP for personal access in early 1995 (I was already online at work, and somewhat versed in the joys of network configuration) and one of the first things I did was become involved in an online movement that exposed and more or less brought down the cult church I belonged to at the time. Only a vestige of it remained after that.

I'm not at all sure what it would take today to maintain the ability to network independently of the Internet, and that sort of problem is not my forte. One thing I do see, however, is that it would be a relatively simple matter to extend DNS caching at our client machines to create a degree of independence from the DNS system using a DNS archive.

I am much more dependent on things like a comfortable house where my back problems aren't a disability, a supply of natural food and clean water, and staying healthy enough to remain employed. Unconstrained Internet access is somewhere lower on the list.

Another thought, however, is that present-day forums like the Cassiopaea Forum are particularly vulnerable because they are server-based, with a central server providing a central target for attack. There were servers in the Fidonet echomail system as well -- I ran one of them for a while -- but they were less centralized. With terabyte disk drives readily available today (I think I started my BBS with 33 Mb), there could be many mirrors of the entire message base, with no need to delete anything but duplicate messages.

I think the vulnerability of the central forum server could be of greater concern than the vulnerability of the Internet as a whole. Centralization does carry certain benefits, however, including reduced complexity (less to go wrong) and ease of control by the moderators. It also facilitates having private areas within the forum.

I am not recommending anything as yet; just trying to think ahead a bit.

 

[dant]

Take a look @ _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root

 

[obyvatel]

Personally, I think earth changes impacting internet access in areas of the earth to be more likely than the PTB shutting it down. Are they capable of doing it - most likely yes. But is the cost in terms of resources worth it - possibly not - at least I think that is what the game theorists in their payroll are going to tell them. They can and do try to test out smaller scale ideas to introduce and implement internet censure and check for the response from the public. Till now, it seems to me that the resistance of the general public to internet censure is high - which would mean that their "models" would tell them that it is not worth the effort.

My not so internet-literate take on this - fwiw.

 

[Buddy]

I'm more inclined toward obyvatel's reasoning due to possible economic consequences. Personally, I think the most likely scenario is related to the megabucks being spent on the military-based cyber-defense force and technology.

Maybe they just want to be able to target and destroy individual sources of internet communications. That way, no major loss of income for corporations (the destroyed hardware has already been sold and will probably be replaced with new equipment), more lazy jobs for "public servants", and the general public is none the wiser and less inclined to revolution.

Just my thoughts.