All Your Internets Are Belong to Obama

Jesus Christ on a bike.

Quote :

nternet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring whena U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

wat

Quote :

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

WAT


You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I'd better kick that torrent addiction of mine then. :lolinsane:

I guess U.S pretty much declared a war against trolls now.
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I'm so doomed.

Quote :

Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

What the fuck. I don't understand how this bill is supposed to help anything.

Bulllllllllllllshiiiiiiiiiiiit. It'll never pass. It's too broad.

It's an overreaction - the President can't just flip a switch and turn off the internet despite whatever bill they're trying to push through Congress saying he can.

And we have had cybersecurity breaches occur before that have caused problems: in July North Korea engaged in a cyber attack that knocked out several systems in both South Korea and the United States (though no sensitive data was compromised), security breaches occurred at the FAA in February due to a cyber attack, and over 18,000 similar incidents were reported in 2008 alone.

I don't know about the US, but in the UK parliament won't let a government - any government - take powers to itself without stating how they're intended to be used.

Guys, guys Obama's just trolling. Just watch, he'll put on his coolface.

Problem, America?

This will never make it out of committee. There's no pork in it.

Spotts1701 wrote:

It's an overreaction - the President can't just flip a switch and turn off the internet despite whatever bill they're trying to push through Congress saying he can.

Not unless they hire Al Gore to handle it. :lolinsane:

From the part of the bill I read, it seemed to give the president emergency power over servers that the federal government used. I didn't see anything about the private sector.

From the language I read, I doubt it has anything to do with the private sector. It most likely applies to computers in federal agencies. Like Spotts said, there HAVE been serious breeches of security on government computers in the past, though thankfully, nothing major was lost.

Methinks this is yet another case of someone who doesn't like that Obama's in office trying to come up with another way to prove he's a socialist/marxist/ commie/insert your disparging word of choice here

Oh, need to insert the obligatory statement from Ted "Toobz" Stevens since this is an internet topic:

"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material"

I have to wonder if they are learning the wrong thing from the Iranian election protests.
Iran cut off all journalism to the outside, yet the people used the internet to show how badly they were being treated until the government pulled the plug on that as well.

Even if this bill should somehow pass, there's a 90% chance the Supreme Court will strike it down.

Rabby wrote:

Methinks this is yet another case of someone who doesn't like that Obama's in office trying to come up with another way to prove he's a socialist/marxist/ commie/insert your disparging word of choice here

Methinks this is yet another Obama-tard hadwaving away any dimwitted idea the Democrats come up with.

Now, it may be a little hasty to pin this on Obama, as it's the Senate that came up with this crap. We'll have to see what he says about it.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Rabby wrote:

Methinks this is yet another case of someone who doesn't like that Obama's in office trying to come up with another way to prove he's a socialist/marxist/ commie/insert your disparging word of choice here

Methinks this is yet another Obama-tard hadwaving away any dimwitted idea the Democrats come up with.

You're aware that the person saying this actually read the bill in question as opposed to just reading the news media's take on it, yes?

But don't look at China too hard, because they're funding the stimulus. Never mind that the government bought a bunch of hard drives from them. Hard drives with backdoors on them. That relayed classified information to the Chinese once they were set up in government computers.

Nope, we've gotta give the president a mythical off-switch! That'll fix everything.

[quote="Narwhal"]

Quote :

nternet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring whena U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president toseize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Pierre Gringoire wrote:

From the part of the bill I read, it seemed to give the president emergency power over servers that the federal government used. I didn't see anything about the private sector.

Maybe a quote or a link to the bill would be good here?

[quote="Narwhal"]

Narwhal wrote:

Quote :

nternet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring whena U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president toseize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The key word in that article is "appears".

In other words, in this author's opinion the bill would allow Obama to seize any private sector network.

However, if we look at the actual bill it seems the power would be limited to "critical infrastructure networks" - you know, electrical grids and so on.

Either way (and I say this as someone who is decidedly Not An Obama Fan), this can't be pinned entirely on the current admin or the current Congress. Congress has been trying to put taxes on internet access, pile more regulations on internet access, and just basically have more control over the access Americans have to the web at least since GWB's first term. Probably earlier than that and I was just too young to care at the time. Certainly a critic of this bill can lay some of the blame at the current Congress's collective feet, but even if it is as creepy and over-controlling as the article implies, this is hardly a radical and new idea.

And until I read the bill, I think I'll have to stop here.

Spotts1701 wrote:

In other words, in this author's opinion the bill would allow Obama to seize any private sector network.

However, if we look at the actual bill it seems the power would be limited to "critical infrastructure networks" - you know, electrical grids and so on.

Congrats! You know approximately dick about the Internet or law!

"Critical infrastructure networks" does not refer to "networks used by critical infrastructure," but rather "infrastructural networks that are critical." The distinction is subtle, but important since the Internet itself is an infrastructure, and a particularly critical one due to its gigantic and still growing role in our economy and culture. Given that all three of these words are amorphously defined,* especially when used together, the bill basically gives the President broad authority to hijack anything from a backbone to an ISP, and possibly the internal networks of companies that are important to the Internet or just important in general. He will have that authority until a court finds otherwise, which it can't until an organization or person with standing to sue complains, and probably won't anyway.

*Hilariously, "network" is explicitly defined in the bill specifically as the National Research and Education Network established by a law enacted in 1996, despite that having nothing to do with anything. Legislators don't read anything these days, it seems.

007bistromath wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

In other words, in this author's opinion the bill would allow Obama to seize any private sector network.

However, if we look at the actual bill it seems the power would be limited to "critical infrastructure networks" - you know, electrical grids and so on.

Congrats! You know approximately dick about the Internet or law!

"Critical infrastructure networks" does not refer to "networks used by critical infrastructure," but rather "infrastructural networks that are critical." The distinction is subtle, but important since the Internet itself is an infrastructure, and a particularly critical one due to its gigantic and still growing role in our economy and culture. Given that all three of these words are amorphously defined,* especially when used together, the bill basically gives the President broad authority to hijack anything from a backbone to an ISP, and possibly the internal networks of companies that are important to the Internet or just important in general. He will have that authority until a court finds otherwise, which it can't until an organization or person with standing to sue complains, and probably won't anyway.

*Hilariously, "network" is explicitly defined in the bill specifically as the National Research and Education Network established by a law enacted in 1996, despite that having nothing to do with anything. Legislators don't read anything these days, it seems.

Uh.

Quote :

A national research and education network (NREN) is a specialized internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education communities within a country.

It is usually distinguished by support for a high-speed backbone network, often offering dedicated channels for individual research projects.

NRENs are usually the places where new Internet protocols are introduced before deployment within the Internet. Two examples of these protocols are IPv6 and IP multicast.

It's the national internet system. One of which is Internet2.

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The not-for-profit partnership includes leaders from research, academia, industry and government...Internet2 operates the Internet2 Network, a next-generation Internet Protocol and optical network that delivers production network services to meet the high-performance demands of research and education, and provides a secure network testing and research environment. The Internet2 Network, through its regional network and connector members, connects over 60,000 U.S. educational, research, government and "community anchor" institutions, from primary and secondary schools to community colleges and universities, public libraries and museums to healthcare organizations.

The Internet2 community is actively engaged in developing and deploying emerging network technologies beyond the scope of single institutions and critical to the future of the Internet. These technologies include large-scale network performance measurement and management tools, simple and secure identity and access management tools and advanced capabilities such as the on-demand creation and scheduling of high-bandwidth, high-performance circuits.

So how is this "amorphously defined"? Pretty straight forward. The government can shut down a government internet service.

I think it is YOU who knows fuck all. SO YOU GET NOTHING. YOU LOSE. GOOD DAY SIR.

007bistromath wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

In other words, in this author's opinion the bill would allow Obama to seize any private sector network.

However, if we look at the actual bill it seems the power would be limited to "critical infrastructure networks" - you know, electrical grids and so on.

Congrats! You know approximately dick about the Internet or law!

The diploma I have from law school says otherwise. As well as the 8+ years I have spent studying politics, doing research and actually understanding how the process works.

But what do I know compared to someone who misreads a simple term as Mafiosa pointed out?

Mafiosa wrote:

That is unalloyed bullshit. The way the word is used in the bill strongly suggests that its writers were working with the generic definition of the term, and that inclusion of the §5512 NREN (which I am near certain refers to a specific infrastructural network and not a template for experimental ones as you describe) in the definitions section was in error. If it is not in error, then this bill actually limits itself to total uselessness, and basically amounts to a giant wad of funding attached to wild speculation, a vague promise to "do something about" infrastructural security.

Not that Congress wouldn't pass something like that.

007bistromath wrote:

Mafiosa wrote:

That is unalloyed bullshit. The way the word is used in the bill strongly suggests that its writers were working with the generic definition of the term, and that inclusion of the §5512 NREN (which I am near certain refers to a specific infrastructural network and not a template for experimental ones as you describe) in the definitions section was in error. If it is not in error, then this bill actually limits itself to total uselessness, and basically amounts to a giant wad of funding attached to wild speculation, a vague promise to "do something about" infrastructural security.

Not that Congress wouldn't pass something like that.

:hmm: My point still stands and you're pulling this out of your ass. The bill refers directly to what it wants to control, which is a government owned internet network. You fucked up, bro.

Google search more and don't claim you know what you're talking about when you clearly don't.