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Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

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f0dder:
Of all the things i worry about in terms of government overstepping it's bounds, worrying about them shutting down the internet or part of it is not even on my radar.  Any reasonably sized entity/company/group can take down almost any small website at will with a distributed denial of service attack, etc.. and persecuted/underground groups will always be able to pop up somewhere else.-mouser (June 29, 2010, 04:59 PM)
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Taking down individual websites is one thing - killswitching the backbone is something entirely different. Taking down all US-based websites, IP telephony, and whatnot? And possibly majorly FUBARing the global routing? Ugh!

higherstate:
I am sure someone has written a white paper about it somewhere (although they are probably in jail on anti-terror charges if they did) but isn't the Internet by it's very nature impossible to shutdown?

I am sure that there are many important hubs etc but wouldn't they just be replaced/mirrored pretty quickly & in the meantime everything would just be slower?

app103:
I have to quote my dad here, because it's funny....

If he ever shut down the Internet, half of America would die from going cold turkey! (Imagine streets strewn with Twitter corpses who couldn't repress a twit!) -http://www.google.com/buzz/117052107038197839303/ZQQcBBz58Hi/Re-Obama-Can-Shut-Down-Internet-For-4-Months-Under#1277922222051000
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Renegade:
I am sure someone has written a white paper about it somewhere (although they are probably in jail on anti-terror charges if they did) but isn't the Internet by it's very nature impossible to shutdown?

I am sure that there are many important hubs etc but wouldn't they just be replaced/mirrored pretty quickly & in the meantime everything would just be slower?

-higherstate (July 03, 2010, 01:32 AM)
--- End quote ---

No. The entire Internet can grind to a halt, completely. This has been an issue in the past, though I am not 100% certain about things now.

Basically, the US controls the 13 root DNS servers that control ALL domain name resolution for all domain names. http://www.root-servers.org/ Turning them off would effectively shut down the internet completely. (TTL would expire, and all records would be obsolete.)

Ironically, I'm having problems connecting to some sites at the moment, and can't look up more information for you. Perhaps someone else here can post a bit about it? Maybe some more current information?

Here's some fun: http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt

There are some CRAZY TLDs there like:

XN--0ZWM56D
XN--11B5BS3A9AJ6G
XN--80AKHBYKNJ4F
XN--9T4B11YI5A
XN--DEBA0AD
XN--G6W251D
XN--HGBK6AJ7F53BBA
XN--HLCJ6AYA9ESC7A
XN--JXALPDLP
XN--KGBECHTV
XN--MGBAAM7A8H
XN--MGBERP4A5D4AR
XN--P1AI
XN--WGBH1C
XN--ZCKZAH


WTF? Dunno what that's about...

[EDIT]
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/xn--11b5bs3a9aj6g.html
They are test TLDs.

40hz:
... isn't the Internet by it's very nature impossible to shutdown?

I am sure that there are many important hubs etc but wouldn't they just be replaced/mirrored pretty quickly & in the meantime everything would just be slower?

-higherstate (July 03, 2010, 01:32 AM)
--- End quote ---

It's designed to be very difficult to shut down, but that's a far cry from being  impossible to shut down.

Redundancy and mirroring minimizes the risk. But in any system, there is only so much "systemic damage" that can be absorbed before a catastrophic failure occurs.

And exactly who would you be doing your 'failover' to?

All of the redundant and backup systems are under the direct control of the same people who would be shutting down the main routers and DNS servers.

Killing individual network elements could cause a ripple in the pond. Killing large numbers of them would impact network speed and reliability. But killing all of them simultaneously would effectively kill the entire network.

Not to say that whatever was left over couldn't patch around it and get something up. But that would take time, money, and a huge amount of international cooperation. Getting all the ducks back in a row would be further complicated by the fact that this type of international cooperation usually requires formal treaties, which would further delay the process.

So while I'd hesitate to say the US could shut down the entire internet for an indefinite period, it could still cause a major snafu for several months at the very least.

Scary thought!  :tellme:

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