Could Egypt Happen Here? Obama's Internet "Kill Switch" | Hacker News Reader

Could Egypt Happen Here? Obama's Internet "Kill Switch"

fastcompany.com

38 pointsmiraj19 comments

'Egypt' won't happen in the US because the US is not Egypt, does not have Egypts standard of life for a very large portion of the population, does not have Egypts unique elements of history and does not have a repressive dictatorship propped up by foreign funds.

Having the internet shut down for the local population? I don't see it happening though as I wrote in an earlier thread I think it would be trivial and I'm sure they have a playbook on exactly how to do it that gets kept up-to-date, 'just in case'. But I think even the government does not have a clue as to what circumstances would prompt them to trigger this based on the current state of affairs. I just think that they find it hard to live with the idea that if TSHTF that they have something that might potentially be hard to control. Think of it as a control issue, not something with immediate applicability. A kill switch is a pretty blunt instrument of control, I'm sure the powers that be can come up with more subtle ways of dealing with issues like that.

Americans are no longer capable of revolution, this goes for any country in the world where the standard of living is high enough and people are for the most part happy with their lives including Western Europe and Australia. There simply isn't enough reason to do it, not enough people with nothing left to lose. There are simply no issues important enough to people any more to get out of their comfy chairs and go on to the streets. Witness what happened in France with the civil unrest there a few years ago, it was the kids with nothing left to lose that vented their anger, but they were (and continue to be) only a small fraction of the total population.

If a dictator should come to power (which you can never really rule out, even in a democracy) then that may change but it won't change overnight. It took 30 years for Egypt to get to that stage, it took more than 40 years in the former East Block countries.

Revolutions happen when the pot boils over, it has to be on the fire for a long long time gathering pressure and heat before that happens.

Ironically, if a kill switch were implemented and triggered the masses no longer having access to facebook and entertainment might be just enough reason for them to get out on the streets.

I completely agree. I think the high standard of living is also the reason why we'll lose the fight against the government regarding our privacy on the internet. The larger part of the population just doesn't give a damn about anything other than their own comfort.

Not that I disagree with you, but I think its healthy to remember that you, and me live in a world that is somewhat isolated. I live in Boston, and travel to San Francisco quite often. Life is great here, its really difficult to see how the recession is actually having an impact. However when I fly home (I grew up in an industrial town in Wisconsin) I see a VERY different picture. There are many people in the US who are not comfortable with their standard of living. Just like France we also have a large portion of youth that has nothing to loose. We also have a large workforce that used to work in factories. These people didn't disappear when we transitioned their jobs. The standard point of view in capitalism is to say "well now they have the opportunity to move on to better jobs" which would be true if it was possible to take a person who pulled a lever all day, and teach him to program a computer... but that is very rarely true. Instead they end up getting "downgraded" instead of working in a factory making $20/hr they're now working in Walmart making $10/hr... or less. Why and how does not matter to this group of people, what does matter is that they used to live a middle class comfortable life, and now they don't.

Please don't confuse my statements with the idea that i'm saying there's going to be a 'revolution'. What i'm saying is the pot is already hot, and has been for a while.

Personally I think the big barrier stopping people from joining the momentum from Tunisia is that a clear end goal is not obvious the way it is in a country with a cruel dictator. However once Glenn Beck, or some other idiot gives them one (whether it is in their interests or not)... its hard to say nothing will happen.

The standard view is that redundant factory workers move into retail or the "knowledge economy" (such as IT workers), but these white collar jobs are going to be just as vulnerable to a combination of technological unemployment and outsourcing. IT has already seen a considerable amount of outsourcing. Ultimately I think the solution is going to be a Citizens Income, but that's an entirely different discussion.

I'm glad you pointed this out, as I was going to express something similar. I don't know that I would classify the pot as "hot", but at the same time I'm glad Jacques tempered his opinion with the following:

If a dictator should come to power (which you can never really rule out, even in a democracy) then that may change but it won't change overnight.

I completely agree with that, as did Thomas Jefferson apparently:

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

and

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Under the Bush administration we got the Patriot Act, warrant-less wiretaps, torture, and the repeal of habeas corpus (the right to due process which had to be reversed by the Supreme Court). There was a thread before on HN about some new Orwellian syle video from the DHS featuring Secretary Napolitano admonishing shoppers at checkouts in Walmarts to keep on the lookout for anything suspicious. At airports we are now forced to either be exposed to a radiation laden scan of our body, or intrusive physical pat down whenever we take a flight, no matter that we've done nothing wrong. Indeed, you risk being arrested [1] with this direct challenge to the Fourth Amendment which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures if you don't submit to it.

So while I agree with Jacques that Americans are much farther from any revolt than the people of Tunisia or Egypt, and I wouldn't say there is a pot which is boiling, or maybe even hot, I also think it's a mistake to imagine there is no pot at all.

[1] http://noblasters.com/post/1650102322/my-tsa-encounter

Why do they need to kill the entire Internet? Why not have a provision to keep certain services online? Or only shut it off in certain areas?

Shutting down the Internet for the entire U.S. seems like it could only be used for bad.

I can see two immediate uses:

- crowd control

Disrupt the ability to organize to some extent.

- poison pill

A way to completely shut down the economy and to deny the enemy access to a critical resource in case of an invasion (far fetched).

If a country ever trips an internet kill switch, it has just tipped its hand and revealed that it's a de facto oppressive regime.

Right now, the US relies heavily on the perception that it is a free democracy.

Compared to Egypt it actually is, in fact, compared to most countries it actually is.

The problems that the United States have are special interests and businesses having too much power over politicians, a form of corruption. Campaign financing the way it's done in the United States would be illegal in most of the other democracies, and other problems related to that but it's not an 'oppressive regime' by any stretch of (my?) the imagination.

Certianly not if you view the regime as those said to be in power. If you consider the special, entrenched interests the ones in power, then you get a different image. Of course, either image is too black and white, and misses the core idea of democracy: No one has power.

Some have more than others, but its a free for all. One that you and I can hardly even participate in.

special interests and businesses having too much power over politicians

I think that's such an oversimplification that it misses the truth quite significantly.

It's not that various organizations have power over politicians. It's that they have power that the politicians need, and that in turn the politicians have power that those organizations need (viz regulations allowing rent seeking, etc.).

This leads to an unholy symbiosis between the two, with each groups power (relative to the people) spiraling ever upward. And the people don't do anything about it because they're buying the surface rhetoric (that it's a clash between the values of the GOP and DEM, when in fact they're just two sides of the same coin) since the cost to dig deeper isn't justified by the potential payoff (see "rational ignorance", and The Myth of the Rational Voter.)

So why build a switch that you can never use w/o compromising everything you stand for?

I love how "A bill proposed in the Senate", introduced by Joe Lieberman who personally doesn't get along with Obama became "Obama's Internet 'Kill Switch'". Good job by that editor on the headline.

I came here to say the same thing.

Folks, we can do without hyperbole on HN. Please keep your BS biases out, and just lay out the facts. The readers are smart enough to decide for themselves.

I very much doubt the U.S. would turn off the internet, as doing so would cannibalize the economy.

It seems far more likely that the government would mandate an I.D. system to track everything we do online than simply turn everything off.

And IPv6 addresses could provide just that I.D. system.

Why aren't companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook lobbying against this? It seems they stand to lose the most is such a thing were used.

Is this true? Is it any different than IPv4?

Obviously a permanent static address would have tracking value, but proxies and networking would seem to have equal obfuscation capability...

Though there are doubts expressed that anything comparable to what happened in Egypt could also occur in the US, it would be wise for Americans to reject giving the president such powers. The idea that one person can block the communications of millions of citizens, for reasons of their own choosing, is fundamentally undemocratic.

I think a lot of bills like this are designed to stretch our perception of what is appropriate action for our government to take. The bill might never pass, but now that we think it's possible lesser control measures won't feel so bad in comparison. Notice how our attention has already been shifted from the targeted shutting down of music sharing sites to this potential kill switch. I would argue that the targeted shutdowns are more dangerous because they can slip in largely unnoticed by the general population. The government isn't stupid enough to shut down our internet in America, but it provides a great distraction while they give themselves more targeted power to take out sites they don't like. I think we all suspect our government would kill Wikileaks if they could and they've already shown that they have no regard for "due process" in taking out RIAA's opponents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com