Obama is going to take over the internet.

[backlinks]

Has any one else heard about this.

Legislation that would allow the US government to take complete control over the internet?

Obama and Cybersecurity | MetaFever.com

 

[kblessinggr]

Ok... what is MetaFever, and who is their source?

Also how can you control the internet... certainly not worldwide as China's censors don't apply to us over here in the US.

 

[thunderlips]

try again...

 

[Bofu2U]

Also how can you control the internet... certainly not worldwide as China's censors don't apply to us over here in the US.

You do understand that 100% of the internet's backbones are in the USA right? Everything passes through here?

You know, at least last time I checked.

 

[kblessinggr]

You do understand that 100% of the internet's backbones are in the USA right? Everything passes through here?

You know, at least last time I checked.

I don't know about 100% but a good deal of the fiber/OC3/etc lines do indeed come thru the US.

For fun, here's a high resolution picture of the internet's city-to-city connection (as of June/2009)

 

[LotsOfZeros]

For fun, here's a high resolution picture of the internet's city-to-city connection (as of June/2009)

Thanks for my new wallpaper!
It's amazing to see that we have so much capacity yet we run some of the slowest connections for broadband enabled countries.

 

[Insomniac]

Thanks for my new wallpaper!
It's amazing to see that we have so much capacity yet we run some of the slowest connections for broadband enabled countries.

That is a common misconception. Take Norway for example, you can get gbit to your door, however if you are trying to transfer at anything close to gbit speeds outside of the country you are screwed. Just because you have a speed doesn't mean you can utilize it.

That said, I have gbit to my door in SF and I can utilize most of it without much problem.

 

[papajohn56]

That is a common misconception. Take Norway for example, you can get gbit to your door, however if you are trying to transfer at anything close to gbit speeds outside of the country you are screwed. Just because you have a speed doesn't mean you can utilize it.

That said, I have gbit to my door in SF and I can utilize most of it without much problem.

You'll still probably beat 50mbit speeds with it, and could host a nice server in your bedroom. What provider do you have in SF?

 

[kblessinggr]

That is a common misconception. Take Norway for example, you can get gbit to your door, however if you are trying to transfer at anything close to gbit speeds outside of the country you are screwed. Just because you have a speed doesn't mean you can utilize it.

That said, I have gbit to my door in SF and I can utilize most of it without much problem.

Yea, here in Michigan, over residential cable, can easily do 20Mbps down, 6Mbps up, but thats quite a bit slower than what you can get in Japan... but try to download US content over there.

 

[LotsOfZeros]

That said, I have gbit to my door in SF and I can utilize most of it without much problem.

Just what you said: SF
You live in an area of the country where speeds are high due to the overall sensitivity of residing in a techie city (I know, I used to live in Walnut Creek).

But given the country as a whole, we have a deteriorating infrastructure overall. At my house the best I can do is Uverse at 20 Mbps down and 1.5 up (DFW, TX).

 

[Fatbat]

The best I can do here in Spain is 3mb down and 30k up. Supposed to be 6mb down and 60k up but we've been waiting on the upgrade for nearly a year.

 

[HarveyJ]

The US may have the highest concentration and do most of the grunt work, but if it was cut off, the internet would continue to function. Merely at a slower rate.
Considering the speed at which net works on my phone as Vodafone won't release the patch to upgrade the modem on my HTC ("Oh, why not just get a newer model?" says the rep to me. Fuck you, I like my model, it has a keyboard and does what I want) handset, I'm pretty used to slow speeds on the go.
Having to sit through them for desktop computing means I just stop watching streaming videos and download shit I want to watch or play overnight instead.

Being the country that created of the internet doesn't mean the US is the country that controls it. It was designed specifically to work around large areas dropping out of it at a moments notice.

 

[mr doodles70]

Yea, here in Michigan, over residential cable, can easily do 20Mbps down, 6Mbps up, but thats quite a bit slower than what you can get in Japan... but try to download US content over there.

What happens when you do that? I'm moving to Tokyo in three days, and I like to download.

 

[kblessinggr]

The US may have the highest concentration and do most of the grunt work, but if it was cut off, the internet would continue to function. Merely at a slower rate.

Well it would also take a lot of US hosted services with it But yea The rest of the world would just adjust.

But think bout this... wouldn't you think the government already has some control over our internet, even if we didn't know it. I'm sure they do. A lot of things regarding terrorism/patriot act, etc at the very least allows them the complete ability to monitor communication coming in and leaving this country.

 

[jryan21]

This is all coming about because instead of keeping stuff secret, some of our network vulnerabilities are getting put out in the open in the hopes that it will get solved. If you thought FEMA sucked, that's nothing compared to what would happen if someone caused a major clusterfuck to the data that controls our infrastructure.

How did NSA and CENTCOM get compromised? Their people were finding USB drives (of unknown origin) in the bathrooms, cafeterias, etc, and bringing them into the offices and plugging them in. That's a relatively old trick which never should have happened in places that require some sort of clearance. I'm really surprised though that someone from the US govt would go on 60 Minutes and admit it:

Cyber War: Sabotaging the System - 60 Minutes - CBS News

And the guy in the video is right, the private utilities have known about vulnerabilities in their systems and lied to Congress about fixing them when they really haven't done shit. The bitter truth is that no one is going to initiate such a sweeping change until it's too late.

 

[johu]

I'm sure that through the Patriot Act & all the back-room wiretapping deals that were set up with the telco companies, that there's already a level of "control", or at least a high level of cooperation between providers and the government...

 

[efeezy]

allow the US government to take complete control over the internet?

Fuck that..Me and Al Gore are taking over the internet as we speak. Let's see you all deal with that.

 

[Sharksfan]

Saying it's "Obama" is more logical fallacies than I care to count....

Saying "the US Federal Gov'mint" is closer - and it all came down as part of 9/11 and GWB, Jr's blank check to enact anti-constitutional security practices.

That said - I dare say there are any number of ways you could screw up the infrastructure if you so chose. It wouldn't be that hard if you were the type to do that and had the resources.

But whoever does THAT is going to find themselves on the receiving end of a bunch of angry re-billing berry slingers, who have exceptional resources of their own

 

[popeye]

Saying it's "Obama" is more logical fallacies than I care to count....

Saying "the US Federal Gov'mint" is closer - and it all came down as part of 9/11 and GWB, Jr's blank check to enact anti-constitutional security practices.

That said - I dare say there are any number of ways you could screw up the infrastructure if you so chose. It wouldn't be that hard if you were the type to do that and had the resources.

But whoever does THAT is going to find themselves on the receiving end of a bunch of angry re-billing berry slingers, who have exceptional resources of their own

Please, I really get tired of the GWB bullshit. If BO is such a goddamn savior of the constitution, then where the fuck is he? Why hasn't he wiped out all the GWB programs that has "taken away" our constitutional rights?

And on topic. Yes once the government has control of the Internet and how we use it then we are fucked. Sure they may do this to "protect" it's integrity but sooner or later some government fuck is going to use it to limit our use, tax us or take away our some rights that we now enjoy.

Please don't be so naive to think otherwise.

 

[tainted]

How did NSA and CENTCOM get compromised?

I doubt the NSA was compromised, or anything critical on milnet for that matter. As for the US having the ability to take down a large chunk of the internet, they've always had that capability, along with the ability to impede internet and telecom access around the globe. What you people are missing are the underwater telecom cables that connect all the major regions of the world. Remember this? Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast - CNN.com Now imagine what you could do with a couple of dozen submarines, if you had the intent.