Obama 'Internet kill switch' plan approved by US Senate panel

[the_poet]

President could get power to turn off Internet

A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.

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[Archangel]

I've heard about this... I'm not too sure I like it.

 

[Alex P]

Sounds ugh horrible.

 

[labrocca]

And more government interference with the internet. Yeah! Just what nobody wants from our government yet they're doing it anyways to expand their powers. Ridiculous.

 

[DU]

Right now ICANN has authority over the 13 (?) DNS root servers.

In the event of a major SNAFU what *should* be done and who *should* be coordinating the effort?

Or is it a case of......

Everyone PANIC!!!

 

[Sparhawke]

I read this sometime last week myself when it first came out and this topic too

What none of these sensationalist sites tell you much of is that this would be quite normal, I saw a film once with Bruce Willis where all the gas is piped to one specific location to cause a pressure build up with the obligatory explosions and I am not sure this is possible but all these companies with potentially dangerous bits of code could get hijacked.

This bill is simply stating that in the case of an attack like that the specific area affected would be closed down.

I don't think anyone can shut down the internet without worldwide holocaust, beyond the 13 major route servers I remember watching Virtual Revolution (documentary on BBC) which said there were another 190 or so little ones as back ups.

No president wields that much power.