Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Internet Kill Switch

So the conspiracy nuts must be spinning in their moms' basements, President Obama signed an executive order giving the Dept. of Defense the power to kill the Internet in the event of a disaster.

"According to The Verge, critics of the order are concerned with Section 5.2, which is a lengthy part outlining how telecommunications and the Internet are controlled. It states that the Secretary of Homeland Security will "oversee the development, testing, implementation, and sustainment" of national security and emergency preparedness measures on all systems, including private "non-military communications networks." According to The Verge, critics say this gives Obama the on/off switch to the Web." [cnet]

One agent blogged that it is a huge blow to the Cloud and the Channel. I tend to disagree. How do you shut off 144,000 switches? Sure you could shut down the top 5 ISP's and the government will disrupt the Internet, but it would be hard to shut it all down.

IN ADDITION: If people believed in all of these disaster scenarios, they would be buying DR/BC and redundancy. They would all be on Hosted PBX service. But they are not. People don't worry about this stuff. "It can't happen to me." And it probably won't, you know, except maybe martial law soon. Yeah. that WILL happen when the DOW sinks below 8000 again.

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