He who can destroy a thing controls it
June 17, 2010 11:53 PM Subscribe
Joe Lieberman never disappoints: now he's proposing an Internet kill switch. Since America is so dependent on the Internet nowadays, Joe Lieberman has proposed a bill that would force all ISPs to have a special switch that the President can use at his whim to ... disable the Internet. Just in case.
Because that would never be a weak spot allowing terrorists to disable America's Internet. The bill is 197 pages long, and yes, its title includes the word "Cyberspace" for maximum blood pressure augmentation: it is the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. We have to burn the Internet to save it, you see.
This would seem to be analogous to mining the Interstate system in case Bad Guys want to drive to a military base, but then I'm not a powerful politician and probably don't see the Big Picture.
Because that would never be a weak spot allowing terrorists to disable America's Internet. The bill is 197 pages long, and yes, its title includes the word "Cyberspace" for maximum blood pressure augmentation: it is the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. We have to burn the Internet to save it, you see.
This would seem to be analogous to mining the Interstate system in case Bad Guys want to drive to a military base, but then I'm not a powerful politician and probably don't see the Big Picture.
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is a seriously bad bill but you need to not make your MeFi post into a GRAR GRAR editorial about it. Try again tomorrow? -- jessamyn
I'm in favor. Maybe I'll finally get some work done.
posted by ooga_booga at 11:59 PM on June 17, 2010 [4 favorites]
posted by ooga_booga at 11:59 PM on June 17, 2010 [4 favorites]
Time for Jon Stewart to bust out the Droopy impersonation again.
posted by mightygodking at 12:00 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by mightygodking at 12:00 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
Surely there's a way to post this without linking to Alex Jones.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:03 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:03 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
This has been in the pipe for awhile. Of course it has nothing to do with "cyber terrorists", unless WikiLeaks counts. Bring on the impenetrable darknets.
Collins went further, signing up as a co-sponsor and saying at a press conference that "we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government realises the importance of protecting our cyber resources".
Fuck you, Collins. I hope someone flies a fucking cyber plane into your cyber building. And I hope it's all portrayed in shitty 90s CGI.
posted by mek at 12:04 AM on June 18, 2010 [6 favorites]
Collins went further, signing up as a co-sponsor and saying at a press conference that "we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government realises the importance of protecting our cyber resources".
Fuck you, Collins. I hope someone flies a fucking cyber plane into your cyber building. And I hope it's all portrayed in shitty 90s CGI.
posted by mek at 12:04 AM on June 18, 2010 [6 favorites]
Only if we can install one in the back of every politican's head.
posted by Lukenlogs at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Lukenlogs at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2010
Well I am thrilled to know the Senate is hard at work solving all the country's most urgent problems I mean that is the first one I think of when I think of problems don't you?
posted by furiousthought at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by furiousthought at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2010
Next: Internet proposes switch to disable Joe Lieberman.
posted by notionoriety at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2010 [27 favorites]
posted by notionoriety at 12:05 AM on June 18, 2010 [27 favorites]
Mind your manners, internet. One member of the 2000 Presidential ticket brought you into this world, and the other can take you out.
posted by sallybrown at 12:06 AM on June 18, 2010 [10 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 12:06 AM on June 18, 2010 [10 favorites]
After the bitter fights over net neutrality I think it's really big of Joe Lieberman to put forward an inevitably doomed bill in an effort to bring internet providers and consumers back together again.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 12:06 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 12:06 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
This bill is mostly just an overhaul of Federal Information Security Management Act which is desperately needed with a hell of a lot of poorly defined executive authority.
posted by Blasdelb at 12:07 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Blasdelb at 12:07 AM on June 18, 2010
From the article:
The only obvious limitation on the NCCC's emergency power is one paragraph in the Lieberman Bill that appears to have grown out of the Bush-era flap over wiretapping without a warrant. That limitation says that the NCCC cannot order broadband providers or other companies to "conduct surveillance" of Americans unless it's otherwise legally authorised.
That's not a limitation of power, that's an explicit grant. That's saying that the NCCC can order private companies to spy on you, with a court order -- they don't even have to do it themselves.
Admittedly, the Patriot act gives the FBI many of the same powers, but the more places that sort of thing is in the legal code, the harder it is to overturn, and the more fronts you have to fight on if you want to maintain any privacy at all.
posted by Malor at 12:09 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
The only obvious limitation on the NCCC's emergency power is one paragraph in the Lieberman Bill that appears to have grown out of the Bush-era flap over wiretapping without a warrant. That limitation says that the NCCC cannot order broadband providers or other companies to "conduct surveillance" of Americans unless it's otherwise legally authorised.
That's not a limitation of power, that's an explicit grant. That's saying that the NCCC can order private companies to spy on you, with a court order -- they don't even have to do it themselves.
Admittedly, the Patriot act gives the FBI many of the same powers, but the more places that sort of thing is in the legal code, the harder it is to overturn, and the more fronts you have to fight on if you want to maintain any privacy at all.
posted by Malor at 12:09 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
I can only suppose that Lieberman, working his way chronologically through the X-Files DVDs, has finally seen that one episode that William Gibson wrote and is now awake to the dangers that rogue AIs pose to the nation.
posted by Iridic at 12:11 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Iridic at 12:11 AM on June 18, 2010
All you fearmongers need to stop overreacting. This is no different than, say, the nuclear bombs buried underneath all major highways that the president can detonate at any time, or the master control switch for all the nation's water mains that's in the oval office. Nothing new here.
posted by heathkit at 12:13 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by heathkit at 12:13 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
heathkit: "This is no different than, say, the nuclear bombs buried underneath all major highways that the president can detonate at any time, or the master control switch for all the nation's water mains that's in the oval office. Nothing new here."
Actually, it's more like an Oval Office kill switch for network television. Actually, the idea of Obama having his finger on a Fox News off button is kind of attractive...
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:21 AM on June 18, 2010
Actually, it's more like an Oval Office kill switch for network television. Actually, the idea of Obama having his finger on a Fox News off button is kind of attractive...
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:21 AM on June 18, 2010
These closeted webaphobes are all the same. I'm officially starting the countdown to when Joe is discovered in an airport bathroom giggling like a schoolgirl to 4chan on his iPad.
posted by yellowbinder at 12:21 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by yellowbinder at 12:21 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
Sure, why not? Let's create a "kill switch" for the Internet. Figure out the logistics of being able to do such a thing with a central switch while maintaining enough security around the system such that it is protected on the level of the nuclear launch codes.
You see, if such a system were even remotely possible, shutting down the Internet (or at least all American owned/located portions of such) would cause worldwide havoc. The financial sector would be paralyzed, commerce would take a huge hit, communications would be drastically cut off, and the entire world would be absolutely pissed at America for hitting that switch. It would essentially be the information based equivalent of precision-bombing a significant portion of key infrastructure in every nation in the world at once.
This would encourage the rest of the world to build redundant networks either within their own nation or over a spread of nations such as the EU. However, even if a country is not reliant upon the US for most Internet connections, there are enough commercial, financial, and informational transactions going on every day that it's still going to shake most developed countries heavily.
In essence, Joe Lieberman is proposing that the US create a new type of weapon. A non-violent super weapon which would cause serious damage to everyone. While a nuclear exchange between two nations is not desirable by anyone, the immediate damage would be in the two involved nations. If the Internet is shut down, everyone suffers immediately. Every single developed nation and most developing nations have great interest in making sure the American Internet remains accessible. Suddenly, calling for allies in a situation leaves a lot of countries feeling obligated whether they want to or not.
I'm sure Joe Lieberman wants this to be a bit more targeted and for domestic use. If Podunk Online is serving 300 customers and two of them are plotting something bad, Joe wants the President to be able to push a button and stop the ISP to cut the two plotters off from communication. That is, until they whip out their 3G phones, drive to the next town looking for open Wi-Fi, or use a remote dial-up connection, along with many other options. Perhaps it would be used against ISPs that openly permit spammers to run off their networks, stopping them immediately without court proceedings that take too long for effective action. That wouldn't stop the botnets, of course. How about shutting down an ISP which refuses to bow to copyright lawsuits and instead provides only the minimum required by law? I could see that thrown around in Congress, but even most of them recognize that the fallout from cut-off registered voters would not be an ideal situation.
No, the only viable use for this I can see is as a new form of super weapon which doesn't actively kill people, simply economies and information networks. Is that what Joe Lieberman wants, a new frontier in the arms race?
posted by Saydur at 12:24 AM on June 18, 2010 [7 favorites]
You see, if such a system were even remotely possible, shutting down the Internet (or at least all American owned/located portions of such) would cause worldwide havoc. The financial sector would be paralyzed, commerce would take a huge hit, communications would be drastically cut off, and the entire world would be absolutely pissed at America for hitting that switch. It would essentially be the information based equivalent of precision-bombing a significant portion of key infrastructure in every nation in the world at once.
This would encourage the rest of the world to build redundant networks either within their own nation or over a spread of nations such as the EU. However, even if a country is not reliant upon the US for most Internet connections, there are enough commercial, financial, and informational transactions going on every day that it's still going to shake most developed countries heavily.
In essence, Joe Lieberman is proposing that the US create a new type of weapon. A non-violent super weapon which would cause serious damage to everyone. While a nuclear exchange between two nations is not desirable by anyone, the immediate damage would be in the two involved nations. If the Internet is shut down, everyone suffers immediately. Every single developed nation and most developing nations have great interest in making sure the American Internet remains accessible. Suddenly, calling for allies in a situation leaves a lot of countries feeling obligated whether they want to or not.
I'm sure Joe Lieberman wants this to be a bit more targeted and for domestic use. If Podunk Online is serving 300 customers and two of them are plotting something bad, Joe wants the President to be able to push a button and stop the ISP to cut the two plotters off from communication. That is, until they whip out their 3G phones, drive to the next town looking for open Wi-Fi, or use a remote dial-up connection, along with many other options. Perhaps it would be used against ISPs that openly permit spammers to run off their networks, stopping them immediately without court proceedings that take too long for effective action. That wouldn't stop the botnets, of course. How about shutting down an ISP which refuses to bow to copyright lawsuits and instead provides only the minimum required by law? I could see that thrown around in Congress, but even most of them recognize that the fallout from cut-off registered voters would not be an ideal situation.
No, the only viable use for this I can see is as a new form of super weapon which doesn't actively kill people, simply economies and information networks. Is that what Joe Lieberman wants, a new frontier in the arms race?
posted by Saydur at 12:24 AM on June 18, 2010 [7 favorites]
Umm sure why not what could possibly go wrong. We trust you Joe.
posted by eredicatorx at 12:27 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by eredicatorx at 12:27 AM on June 18, 2010
Just in case it wasn't abundantly clear to everyone already, the only reason to ask for this kind of power is if the Federal government is planning to make war on its citizens. The main use for preventing your citizens from communicating is to prevent them from exercising their inherent authority to organize their government in any way they see fit. We just saw Iran use that tactic to fairly good effect last year.... and of course, vociferously condemned it. A year later, here's old Joe asking for the exact same powers.
What this bill means is that, to Lieberman, you are the enemy. And I would suggest very strongly that voting for someone that thinks you're an enemy is not in your best interest.
posted by Malor at 12:34 AM on June 18, 2010 [17 favorites]
What this bill means is that, to Lieberman, you are the enemy. And I would suggest very strongly that voting for someone that thinks you're an enemy is not in your best interest.
posted by Malor at 12:34 AM on June 18, 2010 [17 favorites]
"Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies — cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals."
Lieberman knows we must prepare for the coming Cybarmageddon. The end draws nigh!
posted by homunculus at 12:36 AM on June 18, 2010
Lieberman knows we must prepare for the coming Cybarmageddon. The end draws nigh!
posted by homunculus at 12:36 AM on June 18, 2010
Yeah, that's my take, too, Malor - Joe doesn't like the fact that Internet organization cost him the Democratic nomination in 2006, and he wants to make sure that sort of unruly behavior on the part of his subjects can be shut down if it gets out of hand.
Stopping domestic insurrection is the only way this could benefit the federal government.
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:40 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Stopping domestic insurrection is the only way this could benefit the federal government.
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:40 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Just in case it wasn't abundantly clear to everyone already, the only reason to ask for this kind of power is if the Federal government is planning to make war on its citizens
Joe Lieberman couldn't make war on a Zagnut bar. I think we're safe for another couple hundred years.
posted by fleacircus at 12:40 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
Joe Lieberman couldn't make war on a Zagnut bar. I think we're safe for another couple hundred years.
posted by fleacircus at 12:40 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
Peppito - no. China can shut off its Internet contact to other nations at the border. China doesn't have a (known) mechanism to shut off its domestic Internet at will. That's because China is ruled by non-idiots.
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:41 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:41 AM on June 18, 2010
Peppito - no. China can shut off its Internet contact to other nations at the border. China doesn't have a (known) mechanism to shut off its domestic Internet at will. That's because China is ruled by non-idiots.
Ah, that's right, China isn't this stupid.
posted by peppito at 12:43 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Ah, that's right, China isn't this stupid.
posted by peppito at 12:43 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Internet kill switches are awesome.
So I lived in house with 4 other guys. One of the roomies was a pain in the ass. One week he was back home visiting his family so we decided to fuck with him. His T1 cable ran through another room mate's room, so we cut it and through process of elimination figured out which wire had to be cut in order to completely cut his internet connection (we had already used the crawlspace to break into his room and he didn't have a password on his computer). We installed a toggle switch on the all important wire of his T1 connection and hid it it the other room mate's closest. For 9 months we randomly switched his internet off while he was using his computer. The best part was that our shitty Linkys router was prone to crapping out and so we were all used to resetting it. When he found out he was not happy.
posted by nestor_makhno at 12:43 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
So I lived in house with 4 other guys. One of the roomies was a pain in the ass. One week he was back home visiting his family so we decided to fuck with him. His T1 cable ran through another room mate's room, so we cut it and through process of elimination figured out which wire had to be cut in order to completely cut his internet connection (we had already used the crawlspace to break into his room and he didn't have a password on his computer). We installed a toggle switch on the all important wire of his T1 connection and hid it it the other room mate's closest. For 9 months we randomly switched his internet off while he was using his computer. The best part was that our shitty Linkys router was prone to crapping out and so we were all used to resetting it. When he found out he was not happy.
posted by nestor_makhno at 12:43 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
He might actually be proposing a kill switch for each Internet.
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:55 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:55 AM on June 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
One of the things that pisses me off the very most about Joe Lieberman is that conservatives can always point to him saying that Democrats stand for evil stuff like shutting down free speech (well, now they can't as well, since he's no longer a Democrat) - case in point: some moron in Maine saying "There is a constant push by the Progressives in Congress to halt freedom of speech on the Internet. It is a thorn in their side, because it makes it so much more difficult for them to successfully & quietly muscle their oppressive bills through Congress."
Which is a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly, if you substitute "conservatives" for "Progressives". But since Holy Joe calls himself a liberal, he gives unlimited ammo to this kind of moron.
posted by Michael Roberts at 1:02 AM on June 18, 2010
Which is a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly, if you substitute "conservatives" for "Progressives". But since Holy Joe calls himself a liberal, he gives unlimited ammo to this kind of moron.
posted by Michael Roberts at 1:02 AM on June 18, 2010
Has he not considered that flipping that switch amounts to a declaration of war against the rest of the world?
posted by vbfg at 1:02 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by vbfg at 1:02 AM on June 18, 2010
Uhh I'm confused. Isn't this common practice anyway? Internet comes and goes...I mean, I can prove that by personal experience. So someone must be switching it on and off, no? (and must be messing with my modem, which I have to re-set all the time).
posted by Namlit at 1:02 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Namlit at 1:02 AM on June 18, 2010
You joke, but we can't even begin to realize the scope of how many killswitches we'll need to engage in order to shut down each tube of teh internets.
As long as we can keep Neo occupied at the train station, we should be okay..
oh shit
foot-in-mouth, hurry do it, it's our only def... KITTEHS!!1
posted by hypersloth at 1:10 AM on June 18, 2010
As long as we can keep Neo occupied at the train station, we should be okay..
oh shit
foot-in-mouth, hurry do it, it's our only def... KITTEHS!!1
posted by hypersloth at 1:10 AM on June 18, 2010
This is one of those proposals that can only come about because their originators are deeply ignorant of how the internet works.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:12 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:12 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
I've got a better idea.
How about a switch to deactivate stupid or craven politicians mid-term? Nothing violent. They can be carried off on velvet cushions, given a modest stipend and allowed to grow potatoes on a secure but remote farm until the threat to the civilian population passes.
posted by MuffinMan at 1:17 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
How about a switch to deactivate stupid or craven politicians mid-term? Nothing violent. They can be carried off on velvet cushions, given a modest stipend and allowed to grow potatoes on a secure but remote farm until the threat to the civilian population passes.
posted by MuffinMan at 1:17 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
This is one of those proposals that can only come about because their originators are deeply ignorant of how the internet works.
Agreed. I don't know a whole lot about the Internet, but I isn't the only way to shut off the whole damn thing to shut off all electricity in the country everywhere. So is Joe talking about a series of EMP bursts?
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:21 AM on June 18, 2010
Agreed. I don't know a whole lot about the Internet, but I isn't the only way to shut off the whole damn thing to shut off all electricity in the country everywhere. So is Joe talking about a series of EMP bursts?
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:21 AM on June 18, 2010
According to my local paper:
"....One of Australia's top communications experts, University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt (...) said the US would be the only country in the world with the ability to shut down the internet."
Can anyone explain to me (user of the internet as an appliance) how "turning off" the internet is even feasible? Does it involve killing all kittens?
posted by moody cow at 1:33 AM on June 18, 2010
"....One of Australia's top communications experts, University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt (...) said the US would be the only country in the world with the ability to shut down the internet."
Can anyone explain to me (user of the internet as an appliance) how "turning off" the internet is even feasible? Does it involve killing all kittens?
posted by moody cow at 1:33 AM on June 18, 2010
Joey Michaels, you are correct. You don't know a whole lot about the Internet. Just answering the question.
posted by gene_machine at 1:33 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by gene_machine at 1:33 AM on June 18, 2010
gene_machine : Fair enough, but how would something like this even work?
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:39 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:39 AM on June 18, 2010
Actually I'd think it'd be pretty easy to shut off the American portion of the internet by talking to a couple of BGP routers at tier-1 ISPs. Maybe only one.
The famed survivability of the Internet is mostly its ability to survive damage— this is pretty different from being able to survive an inside attack.
posted by hattifattener at 1:44 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
The famed survivability of the Internet is mostly its ability to survive damage— this is pretty different from being able to survive an inside attack.
posted by hattifattener at 1:44 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Well, hopefully this proposal destroys him politically. If it doesn't, we're doing something wrong.
posted by millions at 1:49 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by millions at 1:49 AM on June 18, 2010
Now, finally, at long last, can we not take this man, stuff him into a man-sized douchebag filled with grain alcohol, set it alight and catapult him over the horizon?
posted by trondant at 2:03 AM on June 18, 2010 [4 favorites]
posted by trondant at 2:03 AM on June 18, 2010 [4 favorites]
Hahahaha, millions, that's a very funny joke you just made there.
posted by Michael Roberts at 2:16 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Michael Roberts at 2:16 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
I'll allow it, as long as it makes a Droopy "oh deeeaaarrr" sound when it's flipped - voiced by Lieberman. Transmitted to every computer connected to the internet.
posted by pyrex at 2:20 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by pyrex at 2:20 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
The famed survivability of the Internet is mostly its ability to survive damage— this is pretty different from being able to survive an inside attack.
Kind of mythical. Certainly, packet-switched networks are more survivable than the telephone network in the 1960's, which was the point of the ARPAnet project. But interdomain routing — what makes the "inter" part of "internet" work — is kind of hackish and works only because the engineers who run the routers know what they're doing and aren't malicious. In the short-term, it's rather unstable from a technical standpoint (remember when some hapless NOC guy in Pakistan fatfingered an ACL and blackholed Youtube?) And interdomain routing is becoming less important, with major content/access providers building out their own networks to in essence become their own ISPs [warning, 2+MB geeky PDF slide deck]. This consolidation decreases risk to each individual provider of interdomain routing failures, but increases exposure to political idiocy.
That said, what this bill proposes is so incoherent as to be technically meaningless. Even if the US were somehow able to shut off transit across the US, there is limited but growing capacity on the Mediterranean-Indian Ocean link — capacity that gets incentivized as soon as you even start talking about such nonsense, and that would likely require military action to disrupt. Cut the cables at the Atlantic and Pacific landing points (physically or virtually), and all you do is hand a business opportunity in Europe-Asia transit to the KSA. The Internet will route around whatever Joementum this proposal picks up, but it'll do it at the economic and political layer, as opposed to at the routing layer.
posted by Vetinari at 2:26 AM on June 18, 2010
Kind of mythical. Certainly, packet-switched networks are more survivable than the telephone network in the 1960's, which was the point of the ARPAnet project. But interdomain routing — what makes the "inter" part of "internet" work — is kind of hackish and works only because the engineers who run the routers know what they're doing and aren't malicious. In the short-term, it's rather unstable from a technical standpoint (remember when some hapless NOC guy in Pakistan fatfingered an ACL and blackholed Youtube?) And interdomain routing is becoming less important, with major content/access providers building out their own networks to in essence become their own ISPs [warning, 2+MB geeky PDF slide deck]. This consolidation decreases risk to each individual provider of interdomain routing failures, but increases exposure to political idiocy.
That said, what this bill proposes is so incoherent as to be technically meaningless. Even if the US were somehow able to shut off transit across the US, there is limited but growing capacity on the Mediterranean-Indian Ocean link — capacity that gets incentivized as soon as you even start talking about such nonsense, and that would likely require military action to disrupt. Cut the cables at the Atlantic and Pacific landing points (physically or virtually), and all you do is hand a business opportunity in Europe-Asia transit to the KSA. The Internet will route around whatever Joementum this proposal picks up, but it'll do it at the economic and political layer, as opposed to at the routing layer.
posted by Vetinari at 2:26 AM on June 18, 2010
[root@whitehouse.gov ~]# stop internet
stop: Unknown job: internet
[root@whitehouse.gov ~]# kill internet
-bash: kill: internet: arguments must be process or job IDs
[root@whitehouse.gov ~]# kill internet process or job IDs
-bash: kill: process: arguments must be process or job IDs
You have new mail in /var/spool/mail/root
[root@voltaire ~]# outlook
-bash: outlook: command not foundposted by benzenedream at 2:27 AM on June 18, 2010 [5 favorites]
Btw, wikileaks almost surely routes around this kill switch already because any documents would already exist all over the world before wikileaks ever admits they posses anything.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:50 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by jeffburdges at 2:50 AM on June 18, 2010
I just uncovered the technical details of how this will be done. I found it on a bar stool that an apple engineer was sitting on earlier in the day. What they plan to do is to get Steve Jobs to point out that the Internet isn't really a good user experience.
posted by srboisvert at 2:52 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 2:52 AM on June 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
Internet isn't really a good user experience
Porn, flash, free, kinda crap industrial design, fewer turtlenecks than expected. Nuke it.
posted by maxwelton at 3:28 AM on June 18, 2010
Porn, flash, free, kinda crap industrial design, fewer turtlenecks than expected. Nuke it.
posted by maxwelton at 3:28 AM on June 18, 2010
And he ran with Al Gore who invented the internet!
posted by Obscure Reference at 3:36 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Obscure Reference at 3:36 AM on June 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
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posted by New England Cultist at 11:57 PM on June 17, 2010 [5 favorites]