Internet Kill Switch.  2-2011



     The turmoil in Egypt prompted the state to shut down internet and cell phone use in most of the country because of civil unrest. The Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been ruling for over 30 years and many of his subjects have become hostile.  Recently in Tunisia cell phone texting and internet sites were used to organize such an effective uprising the ruling family fled the country.  I assume Mubarak was concerned about the same thing in Egypt.  The stock market and banks are all closed now, your debit card won't work, no email for any business in Egypt.  Some small amount of internet traffic is coming and going, I suspect Mubarak's email still works, as well as his families', also some traffic from ham radio operators.  The vast majority of Egyptians have no internet this weekend, there are riots in the streets and the only source of news is the state TV, which I'm sure is saying "go to work, go home, all is well".



     Could this happen in America?  If too many people become unhappy enough to protest the status quo here, I would imagine the internet and cell phone network would be used to organize protests.  If these protests got riotous should the government be allowed to limit access to the public telephone network, internet or cell phone text?

In 2010 a new computer virus was found that targeted hardware configurations not common to most computers, it targets controllers used in manufacturing exactly like what Iran uses to control its centrifuges to produce uranium.  The virus, named Stuxnet, was at least industrial espionage or at most an act of  war.  It attacked a countries ability to manufacture high grade uranium.  The same idea can be used to attack automated manufacturing, banking or communications and will become more common in the future. 



     The American government wants a kill switch for the internet to protect itself from internet attack.  Currently our government holds very little say in what happens to the internet, the FCC has some power to regulate the telephone system, which comprises the links between servers, but should the FCC govern content or access to the internet?  Do we have a right to the internet?  Do I have a right to a cell phone?  Can I use it to call mom, or to organize a revolution?  What happens when corrupted politicians get access to a kill switch or the ability to filter access to their oppositions' web sites? 

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     Power to exert control over the internet is a dangerous thing to delegate.  Why would we want to?  A viral attack would spread rapidly, but what use would shutting down the internet do but offer success to the viral attack and cripple our economy?  An internet kill switch would not have helped Iran because once the infection was located it was too late (and later found not to have been spread on the internet).  A kill switch may have helped Mubarak control his people, but I don't know how long it took to call communication centers and set up the service outage, and also,  protests have been organized for thousands of years without cell phones.   

I feel an internet kill switch to be a useless concept that I will be taxed to implement and opens the door to first amendment abuses.