Emergency control of Internet?

[jackdanson]

Or a terrorist could just walk through the front door of the power plant... delivering packages to these places makes you really doubt how "secure" they are.  The only place I've been to with "good" security is Boeing.  And by "good" I mean armed guards who aren't mental midgets.. you could still probably get by them, getting something out might be a little tough.

The local power plant is a laugh, unarmed guards, often times asleep, no guns for employees, plenty of places to easily and stealthily jump fences.  The airport is only a smidge better.

[RevDisk]

That's no different than a large-scale VLAN.

With a VLAN, you still have access to the physical switch where the other traffic is happening.

Hack the switch and you can alter the VLAN or packetsniff on the other network.

If you can packetsniff, then you can break encryption after enough analysis.

Oddly, I wrote up a thing on how to hop VLAN's a couple days ago, primarily for VOIP purposes but the concepts are the same. 

http://revdisk.net/blog/?p=51

Two points, there's a bit of difference between setting up VLAN's on a Cisco Catalyst and the encapsilation used by the telco kit.  You can't easily hop channels on the telco kit.   Secondly, uh, no, good encryption can't realistically be broken no matter how much you listen in.  (I mean avg person, not NSA level resources. )

I still insist that there's no reason to not be running separate physical networks for these resources that are so vital.  If AT&T, Global Crossing, Verizon and others can run fiber or other backbone, then the FedGov can do it also.

After all... I doubt the communication channels to naval vessels are VPN-tunneled or VLAN-circuits across the innernetz.

Uh, no.  You wouldn't want the FedGov running their own world wide telco.  Special stub networks like oversea bases or naval assets, sure.  The main trunks?  No.

And as for the seperate network for WAN's.  I don't see the necessity.  Point to point T1's, good crypto, and well programmed routers are cheaper, more efficient and probably more secure.

[grey54956]

Folks,

Why the heck does the President need a kill switch on the Internet?

There are only three reasons that I can come up with:

   1.)  Computer virus runs rampant at a previously unimaginable speed, creating problems nationwide.

   2.)  Chinese/Nigerian/Russian/Alien? hack attack on U.S. information interests.

   3.)  Silence internet communication in the event of revolution/uprising/secession.

Seeing as how people are openly questioning gov't expansion these days, #3 might not be too far off the mark.

[RevDisk]

   1.)  Computer virus runs rampant at a previously unimaginable speed, creating problems nationwide.

   2.)  Chinese/Nigerian/Russian/Alien? hack attack on U.S. information interests.

   3.)  Silence internet communication in the event of revolution/uprising/secession.

Seeing as how people are openly questioning gov't expansion these days, #3 might not be too far off the mark.

1) So let the govt write an open source anti-virus program and offer it for free.  If it's open source, folks can check it for backdoors and whatnot.  Less work than you think, as ClamAV already exists.  Fork it or improve it, and give it the US govt stamp of approval.  Done.

Similiar idea, create a better patching solution.  Open source it, done.  Between the two of them, you solve 60% of the computer security issues of the entire US.
 

2) So specify control over the undersea fiber lines, not domestic networks.  Technically, the govt has darn near unlimited rights to do as they please when it comes to the border.  Not saying it's a good idea, just a probably Constitutionally ok one.

3) Yea, that's my take on it.  Censorship or whatnot rather than security.  That's the purpose of most govt security programs.

[tokugawa]

Um, as we just watched Scotland let the Lockerbie bomber go with nary a peep, and are releasing terrorists, and contemplating putting our guys on trial for torture, I will submit that protection from terrorist activity is the LAST thing on the big O's mind. Methinks cutting out the communications of the "opposition", IE, every source but the bought and paid for MSM, is the goal.

[AZRedhawk44]

RevDisk, your perspective on #2 is poorly thought out.

A determined foreign government is not going to launch a net attack against the US from their own soil.  They would transport the software to the US mainland to initiate such an attack.  Higher potential bandwidth available, faster exposure to zombie clients that further infect other systems.

The undersea links will be used to transport weaponized software, not to initiate intercontinental WAN attacks.

[RevDisk]

RevDisk, your perspective on #2 is poorly thought out.

Yep, that's why I said it was a bad idea.  But probably a legal one.

[MicroBalrog]

Um, as we just watched Scotland let the Lockerbie bomber go with nary a peep

And under Bush you watched Israel let Samir Kuntar go with nary a peep. And?

[brimic]

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/166192