Word of the day: Oxymoron
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Australia mothballs Internet controls
WITH ITS PROSPECTS in the next Australian election not looking that well for the party in power, it seems that the Rudd government wants to avoid bringing in its daft Internet filtering plan.
The Rudd government has plans to censor the Internet to make it safer for children and right wing born again Christians.
However such a move would not be popular and right now with the government looking a bit like Gordon Brown's it needs to avoid doing anything unpopular.
The government is not abandoning the scheme. However the last thing it wants is to make it an election issue. Instead it says it will bring the plan in after the election, when it can say that it has a mandate.
Hopefully not mentioning the Internet filtering plan much will mean that it will not be debated in the runup to the looming election. But there are also those in the Rudd government who want it pushed through immediately, perhaps because they could then control the Internet coming up to the election.
Saner minds have prevailed, however. Nothing would be worse than it switching on the Great Rabbit Proof Fence of Oz only to have it break. There will be a lot of fall out as people discover how much it will interfere with their Internet access speeds and which sites the Rudd government will not let them see.
But Rudd can take heart that plans to take control of the world wide web are alive and well in the Land of the Free. There is a proposal before the US Congress to give the President the power to switch off the Internet in the event of a national security emergency or natural disaster.
What is alarming is that the US has dusted off the argument that it owns the Internet and the rest of the world uses it only according to its rules. If terrorists were to attack the US, the President might have the power to switch off the Internet for the whole world.
The proposed legislation, introduced by independent Senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Senate Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the Internet in times of national emergency.
Titled "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act", the bill stipulates that all Internet firms and providers must "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by a new section of the US Department of Homeland Security, dubbed the "National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications".
A good question is whether or not it might be possible for the US to switch off the Internet. After all, it is a distributed network that was designed to survive a nuclear war. But the sad fact is that the core of the Internet still resides in the US and as a practical matter if not legally it could probably pull the plug.
It is a scary doomsday scenario worthy of science fiction, to think that only one country, however big it is, might be able to shut down the whole world's digital commerce just to protect its own insecure power network.
Flicking such a switch would be far more dangerous to the world economy than nuking its capitals. While many feel that the US would not be that much of an arsehole, other nations have a right to feel worried.
The EU has been talking about setting up its own Internet structure for a while, which could continue to operate if the US did something strange like try to switch it off.
As the US Congress debates giving its President those sorts of powers the rest of the world might like to spend the time working out additions to the present Internet that are not dependent on routings that pass through the US.
One of the biggest problems for humanity is that the world wide web is centuries ahead of our social and political development. We still believe in things like nation states rather than all of us just being human.
But the Internet is designed for human beings not countries. It crosses borders and cultures in a way that makes nation states irrelevant.
Having one country have the power stand up and say "I am threatened, so I will switch the whole lot off" is potentially dangerous to the continuing survival and evolution of the species. µ
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"One of the biggest problems for humanity is that the world wide web is centuries ahead of our social and political development. We still believe in things like nation states rather than all of us just being human."
Of course we still believe in nation states, I'll tell you a coupple of people who didn't; Hitler and Stalin. We did however fight them off, and what did we win? Nation States and national sovereignty, which many of us lost to Brüssels later of course but still.
"I see the danger that by creating such a switch you're potentially..."
Who said anything about creating anything? That single point of failure already exists in the DNS system.
Fortunately, technically speaking, it would be relatively easy for the EU to create its own version. However, such a thing would not be spoken technically, but politically. As such... we can dream on.
The US already believes that a global network is its own personal asset, and this is the core issue. Fortunately, Obama seems to appreciate the international value of the Internet slightly more than his predecessor. Unfortunately, he is not the only person in a position to action potentially catastrophic changes on the DNS system.
One of the biggest ISSUES for humanity is that the world wide web is centuries ahead of our social and political development. It crosses borders and cultures in a way that makes nation states irrelevant.
Its funny that you mention those two countries and I'll add, the religion that the people were born into. Now look at the person bringing up the bill and the religion he was born into. Maybe I'm just imagining a conflict of interest here.
Iran, the current pariah state will be used as my example as it's likely to be the first to suffer this weapon.
Assume the "Internet Protection from Terrorism" law is passed, what powers will it give? It will allow USA to block "terrorists" from the internet, if that terrorist is a whole country then a whole country will have it's internet turned off.
So likely scenario is that Iran will have it's internet turned off, or certain sections of it.
What is this law for?
In order to do this without incurring legal asswhipping, first you must create the law and the desire for that law. This is what's happening now. Once you make this law then legally you can turn it off so long as some "security expert" write a few pages saying that "Iran is an internet threat".
Just think about it for 10 seconds. What would you do if you were a ruthless leader in charge of a very powerful country and you could disconnect everyone else from the internet with legal impunity?
That's what the law is for, imo.
Iraq, what's happened there? Think about what you know and remove the noise of spin. You know that the leader, bad guy, was caught n killed. Fair enough, he deserved it.
You also know that the entire leadership of the country, police, civil officers etc, all were disbanded. Why do this unless it's to allow chaos, unease, tension, crime and violence to grow?
IMO that was always the intention. Disband Iraq, weaken it, reduce it's structure to nothing so that old grievances can rise and battle can commence.
And while the streets are burning the oil is pumping! Kerching!
Iraq - a masterclass in weaking a country to exploit it's oil, leaving the people in such a mess that it will be 30+ years before they have any hope of reclaiming their oil fields ;-))
I wonder would Iraqi's have preferred that their internet was just turned off? ;-)
Creating a "switch" that turns off the internet is essentially introducing a single point of failure. You would have to protect this switch from unauthorized access. But no technical measures to implement such protection will be 100% safe.
I see the danger that by creating such a switch you're potentially handing a dangerous tool to cyber terrorists with the power to bring the entire world economy to a halt.
Government's seem to think that freedom & democracy is a choice that ONLY they should have - NOT- the people who elect them.
IT may seem scary,that any USA President has the power to switch off the web,but, it's nowhere near as scary as having a President with his finger on the nuclear button.
But yes, that in OZ they have a government contemplating using the same cowardly tactics as Gordon Brown,should surely be enough to seal that government's fate.
how with politicians, principles often retreat in the presence of elections
I'm a right wing born again Christian and I hate the idea of internet filtering with a passion, don't blame me for it. If it comes to fruition half the sites I like will probably find their way onto the ban list. Only the Left wing Christian or athiest would be safe from said filter.
As President For Life and sole member of People for the Ethical Treatment of the Hyphen, I must once again alert you, sir, to your shameful negligence in the misuse of this essential part of our grammatical structure.
It's "Rabbit-Proof", thank you very much.
And, while on the subject of spelling and grammar pedantry, it's "fallout", in one word.
Yes, I know, it's Friday, but in my time young whippersnappers could at least write properly and grumble grumble gnash gnash harrr grrr I need my medication.