Scary Thought.. Really Scary.. - Government Could Easilly Sh

[Xvall]

This just came up.
We are really becoming far too dependent on the internet. We use it for sources in debates, we use it for arguments against capitalism, we use it to converse between each other. Without the Internet, there are people here who wouldn't know jack-shyt about communism, socialism, anarchism, or anything like that! Think about it for a while. You can't exactly go to the cornerstore and purchase a communist manifesto. Or go to the library for information on victims of U.S bombings. Without the internet, we would have few news sources that give us the information we need. And the REALLY freaky thing, is that the government could shut down the internet if they wanted. All they need is an excuse. Some imaginary 'terrorists' who are sending non-existant e-mails across the internet would be a gread reason to 'temporarily' shut down the internet for Americans until the problem has been solved. Just a slight though. Where would we be without this internet? And what would become of us if they started shutting it down?

[Supermodel]

You worry too much.

We'd carry on like we did before the internet. Hell, we used to have no TV when I was a kid......

[bleed3r]

The government could easily shut it down? How do you figure? Where did this come from, it doesnt work like that. There's no centralized gateway that could be dropped to "shut down the internet" for any one country. The best the US could do is apply a huge physical firewall, and even that would be less than flawless to say the least. China used to have one i believe, a group of hackers opened it up and the hole went unnoticed for months. Jello Biafra mentioned this in his keynote speech at H2K (http://www.h2k.net/) in 2000.

Even if it were possible, would it really serve a positive purpose? The internet isnt used primarily for leftist communications, keep in mind lots of important economical resources are based here as well as propaganda centers. Jobs would shut down because of their reliance. Economy would fall to hell. The US would much sooner monitor the net than "shut it down"... And even that isn't 100% possible.

Aside from all of this, keep in mind that in the world of computers nothing is safe.

[Edelweiss]

I agree with bleed, the Internet was build to survive a nuclear strike due to it's decantralized construction. NO government ever will be able to take it down.

[deimos]

i wouldn't be so sure.Maybe theres now no possibility to "shut down" the net.but maybe in some years.Futurologists say that internet-crime will extermely increase in some years.Only 1, maybe 2 hackers will be able to crush the economy of a whole country.

(Edited by deimos at 7:04 pm on June 11, 2002)

[Xvall]

I don't think they would shut it down entirely, but they sure can RESTRICT the crap out of all our leftists sources if they're labeled as 'terrorist propoganda' or something..

[bleed3r]

Thanks Malte.


Quote: from deimos on 6:00 pm on June 11, 2002
i wouldn't be so sure.Maybe theres now no possibility to "shut down" the net.but maybe in some years.Futurologists say that internet-crime will extermely increase in some years.Only 1, maybe 2 hackers will be able to crush the economy of a whole country.


Who said anything about wanting to crush an economy? The point is the US would end up crippling themselves if they ever so much as attempted to lock up the fragile opressed eyes of its citizens by means of controlling the internet. They wouldnt "shut down" their country's access just to prevent its citizens from viewing this board or any other leftist resource. That's like shooting through 10 friends to kill a single enemy, they would be effectively destroying jobs and thereby crippling their own economy.

Study the protocols if you're not familiar with them. I have. There's no foolproof way this will or CAN ever blow over, trust me. Never. despite what "futurologists" will tell you.

I've been a security geek much longer than I've been interested in politics.

-- Edited for typos

(Edited by bleed3r at 9:38 pm on June 11, 2002)

[Angie]

The Internet is an excellent home for activists, urban guerrillas, etc. In making it harder for us to be able to contact each other, they're also stopping their own ability to "intercept" a lot of information, thereby shooting themselves in the feet as it were.

Learn how to create one-time pads and you'll be fine. They're very simple to make (a bit time-consuming if it's a long message, though), and it's impossible to crack the cypher-code without the correct numerical key for each individual message.

I adore espionage, can't you tell? :biggrin: