Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jay Ashworth]

 Original Message -
> What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air -- let's
> say email as a base service, since it is -- do you have the gear laying 
> around,
> and how long would it take?

Focus on this part, BTW, folks; let's ignore the politics behind the
shutdown.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Joe Provo]

On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 10:43:09PM -0500, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your ranking
> manager to "shut down the Internet".

legal paperwork or pound sand.  [very small hurdle, pathetic how many
LEOs seek to avoid it]  The rest of it waits for that.

-- 
 RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Ryan Wilkins]

On Feb 3, 2011, at 10:10 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

>  Original Message -
>> What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air -- let's
>> say email as a base service, since it is -- do you have the gear laying 
>> around,
>> and how long would it take?
> 
> Focus on this part, BTW, folks; let's ignore the politics behind the
> shutdown.  :-)
> 

So if I get what you're saying, I could have something operational from scratch 
in a few hours.  I've got a variety of Cisco routers and switches, Linux and 
Mac OS X boxes in various shapes and sizes, and a five CPE + one AP 5 GHz 
Mikrotik RouterOS-based radio system, 802.11b/g wireless AP, 800' of Cat 5e 
cable, connectors, and crimpers.  The radios, if well placed, could allow me to 
connect up several strategic locations, or perhaps use them to connect to other 
sources of Internet access, if available.  If it really came down to it, I 
could probably gather enough satellite communications gear from the office to 
allow me to stand up satellite Internet to someone.  Of course, the trick would 
be to talk to that "someone" to coordinate connectivity over the satellite 
which may be hard to do given the communications outage you described.  I 
wouldn't be so worried about transmitting to the satellite, in this case I'd 
just transmit without authorization, but someone needs to be receiving my 
transmission and vice versa for this to be useful.  At a minimum, I could 
enable communications between my neighbors.

Regards,
Ryan Wilkins

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Mark Newton]

On 04/02/2011, at 2:13 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

> An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your ranking
> manager to "shut down the Internet".

Turn off the room lights, salute, and shout, "Mission Accomplished."
The FBI dude with the gun won't know the difference.

  - mark

--
Mark Newton   Email:  new...@internode.com.au (W)
Network Engineer  Email:  new...@atdot.dotat.org  (H)
Internode Pty Ltd Desk:   +61-8-82282999
"Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton"  Mobile: +61-416-202-223

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Paul Ferguson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mark Newton 
wrote:

>
> On 04/02/2011, at 2:13 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>
>> An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your
>> ranking manager to "shut down the Internet".
>
> Turn off the room lights, salute, and shout, "Mission Accomplished."
> The FBI dude with the gun won't know the difference.
>

No. The correct answer is that in the U.S., if the Agent in question has a
valid subpoena or N.S.L., you must comply. If he doesn't, then you do not
have to comply.

I cannot answer for any other jurisdiction.

Also, make sure you have staff attorneys well-versed in Internet law --
you'll need them either way.

- - ferg

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-- 
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Matthew Moyle-Croft]

On 04/02/2011, at 3:43 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:


Also, make sure you have staff attorneys well-versed in Internet law --
you'll need them either way.


The Internet has it's own law now?

MMC

--
Matthew Moyle-Croft
Peering Manager and Team Lead - Commercial and DSLAMs
Internode /Agile
Level 5, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: m...@internode.com.auWeb: 
http://www.on.net
Direct: +61-8-8228-2909  Mobile: +61-419-900-366
Reception: +61-8-8228-2999Fax: +61-8-8235-6909

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Mark Newton]

On 04/02/2011, at 3:43 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mark Newton 
> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 04/02/2011, at 2:13 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>> 
>>> An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your
>>> ranking manager to "shut down the Internet".
>> 
>> Turn off the room lights, salute, and shout, "Mission Accomplished."
>> The FBI dude with the gun won't know the difference.
>> 
> 
> No. The correct answer is that in the U.S., if the Agent in question has a
> valid subpoena or N.S.L., you must comply.

Subpoenas and NSLs are used to gather information, not to shut down
telcos.  They're just an enforceable request for records.

Considering that politicians in the US have suggested that they need
"kill switch" legislation passed before they can do it, and further
considering that "kill switch" legislation doesn't currently exist,
what lawful means do you anticipate an FBI special agent to rely on
in making such a request?

I'm not actually in the US.  In a question arising from the Egypt
demonstrations earlier this week, Australia's Communications Minister
said he didn't think the law as written at the moment provided the
government with the lawful ability to shut down telecommunications
services.
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/02/03/no-internet-kill-switch-for-australia-says-conroy/


  - mark

--
Mark Newton   Email:  new...@internode.com.au (W)
Network Engineer  Email:  new...@atdot.dotat.org  (H)
Internode Pty Ltd Desk:   +61-8-82282999
"Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton"  Mobile: +61-416-202-223

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Paul Ferguson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Matthew Moyle-Croft 
wrote:

>
> On 04/02/2011, at 3:43 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>
> Also, make sure you have staff attorneys well-versed in Internet law --
> you'll need them either way.
>
>
> The Internet has it's own law now?

The Internet is not immune to the law, as you should well know. In fact,
the Internet seems to be a legal "proving ground" these days, so word to
the wise.

- - ferg

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-- 
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Paul Ferguson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Mark Newton 
wrote:

>
> On 04/02/2011, at 3:43 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mark Newton 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 04/02/2011, at 2:13 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>>>
 An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your
 ranking manager to "shut down the Internet".
>>>
>>> Turn off the room lights, salute, and shout, "Mission Accomplished."
>>> The FBI dude with the gun won't know the difference.
>>>
>>
>> No. The correct answer is that in the U.S., if the Agent in question has
>> a valid subpoena or N.S.L., you must comply.
>
> Subpoenas and NSLs are used to gather information, not to shut down
> telcos.  They're just an enforceable request for records.
>
> Considering that politicians in the US have suggested that they need
> "kill switch" legislation passed before they can do it, and further
> considering that "kill switch" legislation doesn't currently exist,
> what lawful means do you anticipate an FBI special agent to rely on
> in making such a request?
>
> I'm not actually in the US.  In a question arising from the Egypt
> demonstrations earlier this week, Australia's Communications Minister
> said he didn't think the law as written at the moment provided the
> government with the lawful ability to shut down telecommunications
> services.
> http://delimiter.com.au/2011/02/03/no-internet-kill-switch-for-australia-
> says-conroy/
>

I share your sentiment.

One of the best commentaries I have read lately on this issue was earlier
today:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/ive-changed-my-mind-america-must-never
- -allow-an-internet-kill-switch-heres-why/9982

Worth a quick read.

- - ferg

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-- 
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[George Bonser]

> No. The correct answer is that in the U.S., if the Agent in question
> has a
> valid subpoena or N.S.L., you must comply. If he doesn't, then you do
> not
> have to comply.
> 
> I cannot answer for any other jurisdiction.
> 
> Also, make sure you have staff attorneys well-versed in Internet law
--
> you'll need them either way.
> 
> - - ferg

The federal government clearly has the authority to manage
communications across the border of the country and between states but
it would be questionable if the federal government has the authority to
manage any communications completely within a state.  Do they have the
authority to tell me to turn down a connection that terminates within
the same state that I am in?  

Sure, they would have the authority to tell me to turn down any
international tunnels I might have running or a point-to-point that
crosses state lines but I doubt they have the authority to tell me to
turn down a cross-connect terminating in the same building.  That would
be the jurisdiction of state authority, not federal.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Paul Ferguson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 10:07 PM, George Bonser  wrote:

>
> The federal government clearly has the authority to manage
> communications across the border of the country and between states but
> it would be questionable if the federal government has the authority to
> manage any communications completely within a state.  Do they have the
> authority to tell me to turn down a connection that terminates within
> the same state that I am in?
>
> Sure, they would have the authority to tell me to turn down any
> international tunnels I might have running or a point-to-point that
> crosses state lines but I doubt they have the authority to tell me to
> turn down a cross-connect terminating in the same building.  That would
> be the jurisdiction of state authority, not federal.
>

I am making no argument to the contrary.

But I should caution you that there are forces at work currently which are
making motions to federalize this authority.

I think we all should be deeply concerned -- some of this
pandering/politicizing/scar-mongering can have ill effects.

- - ferg

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-- 
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Martin Millnert]

Paul,

a key piece in the article is on the second page:
"In fact, a lot of what the bill provides for are a very good ideas.
The bill sets out the concept that cyberspace is a strategic asset for
the United States and needs to be protected like any other strategic
asset. This is good.

The bill also acknowledges that we’re likely to come under severe
attack and need to have a way to respond. We also need to have a
single point of authority to make sure we respond in a coordinated
way, instead of having all of America’s security forces working at
cross-purposes. That single point of authority is the President. This
makes sense."


In all seriousness here, I wonder how the Egyptian law was worded,
that allowed them to legally (let's assume so) send out propaganda
text messages through all mobile operators (force operators to
comply), and even shut down the Internet (force operators to comply).

It is fully possible that the law says something very similar to that
above, that when the state is under stress or attack (by its own storm
troopers...), the state is allowed to step in to take protective
measures, all in the good interest of the state, authorized by their
single point of authority.

This is a dangerous design, specifically as it assumes that the state
under all circumstances is good which most observers will note,
especially now, that states cannot be assumed to be, forever and
always.

Essentially, I'm not seeing the upside in assuming any state will
always be good, forever and always.  And it boils down to what's been
discussed earlier: centralizing control of the Internet, whether
political or technical, makes it less robust to failures and more
prone to abuse/attack, as the value of a single point or target
increases.


This sub-thread is a bit off-topic, and to the thread starter I only
suggest you look into the Egypt situation/operations a bit, but I
guess that's where you got your inspiration for the question anyway.
:)

Cheers,
Martin

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 12:32 AM, Paul Ferguson  wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Mark Newton 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 04/02/2011, at 3:43 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mark Newton 
>>> wrote:
>>>

 On 04/02/2011, at 2:13 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

> An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your
> ranking manager to "shut down the Internet".

 Turn off the room lights, salute, and shout, "Mission Accomplished."
 The FBI dude with the gun won't know the difference.

>>>
>>> No. The correct answer is that in the U.S., if the Agent in question has
>>> a valid subpoena or N.S.L., you must comply.
>>
>> Subpoenas and NSLs are used to gather information, not to shut down
>> telcos.  They're just an enforceable request for records.
>>
>> Considering that politicians in the US have suggested that they need
>> "kill switch" legislation passed before they can do it, and further
>> considering that "kill switch" legislation doesn't currently exist,
>> what lawful means do you anticipate an FBI special agent to rely on
>> in making such a request?
>>
>> I'm not actually in the US.  In a question arising from the Egypt
>> demonstrations earlier this week, Australia's Communications Minister
>> said he didn't think the law as written at the moment provided the
>> government with the lawful ability to shut down telecommunications
>> services.
>> http://delimiter.com.au/2011/02/03/no-internet-kill-switch-for-australia-
>> says-conroy/
>>
>
> I share your sentiment.
>
> One of the best commentaries I have read lately on this issue was earlier
> today:
>
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/ive-changed-my-mind-america-must-never
> - -allow-an-internet-kill-switch-heres-why/9982
>
> Worth a quick read.
>
> - - ferg
>
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
> Version: PGP Desktop 9.5.3 (Build 5003)
>
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> =O3vq
> -END PGP SIGNATURE-
>
> --
> "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
>  Engineering Architecture for the Internet
>  fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
>  ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
>
>

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Paul Ferguson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
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On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 10:34 PM, Martin Millnert 
wrote:

>
> Essentially, I'm not seeing the upside in assuming any state will
> always be good, forever and always.  And it boils down to what's been
> discussed earlier: centralizing control of the Internet, whether
> political or technical, makes it less robust to failures and more
> prone to abuse/attack, as the value of a single point or target
> increases.
>

In this, we completely agree.

And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can control
the flow of information, when push comes to shove.

This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.

As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.

- - ferg

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-- 
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[JC Dill]

 On 03/02/11 10:38 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:


And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can control
the flow of information, when push comes to shove.

This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.

As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.


In the US, by accident (surely not by design) we are lucky that our 
network of networks does not have the convenient 4 chokepoints that the 
Egyptian network had, making it easy for the government to shut off the 
entier internet by putting pressure on just 4 companies.


Where we *really* need to be fighting this battle is in the laws and 
policies that are producing a duopoly in much of the US where consumers 
have 2 choices, the ILEC for DSL or their local cableco for Cable 
Internet.  As theses companies push smaller competing ISPs out of 
business, and as they consolidate (e.g. Cablecos buying each other up, 
resulting in fewer and fewer cablecos over time), we head down the 
direction of Egypt, where pressure on just a few companies CAN shut down 
the entire internet.  Otherwise we end up with a few companies that will 
play Visa and PayPal and roll over and play dead when a government 
official says "Wikileaks is bad" - and equally easily will shut down 
their entire networks for "national security".


If you *really* believe that the TSA is effective, you would be in favor 
of an Internet Kill Switch.  If you understand that this is really 
security theater, and despite all the inconvenience we aren't really any 
safer, then you should equally be very concerned that someone ever has 
the power to order that the internet be "shut down" for our safety.


jc

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Hank Nussbacher]

On Thu, 3 Feb 2011, Ryan Wilkins wrote:


 Original Message -

What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air -- let's
say email as a base service, since it is -- do you have the gear laying around,
and how long would it take?


Focus on this part, BTW, folks; let's ignore the politics behind the
shutdown.  :-)


1.  I always keep a printed copy of all email and cellphone contacts that
   I normally would have access to online.

2.  Critical is contacting your users.  Normally your company has its
   mailing list but that is now down.  You could set up a new list via
   Google groups or Yahoogroups or even your own Mailman on a VPS, but
   what about the list of users?  Always keep an updated exported list of
   your users on a DoK so you can rebuild later.

3.  Website: as above, keep a duplicate copy of your basic HTML pages on
   some DoK that you can take with you.  Have the user+pswd to your
   registrar so you can repoint your DNS to some new site you now setup up
   with the new updated info about your downtime.

-Hank

RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[George Bonser]

> 
> 3.  Website: as above, keep a duplicate copy of your basic HTML pages
> on
> some DoK that you can take with you.  Have the user+pswd to your
> registrar so you can repoint your DNS to some new site you now
> setup up
> with the new updated info about your downtime.
> 
> -Hank

Having a DNS server and MX host outside the borders of the country would
help as well.

I believe that any "attack" is likely to come from within, not from an
external source.  It would seem most likely to me that some malware
would be spread around ahead of time that does nothing to bother the
host until it is time for it to act.  At that point, cutting off
international links will have little/no impact and would possibly be the
entire goal of the event.  Shutting down the Internet would be "mission
accomplished".  

The government should be, in my opinion, focusing its efforts on how it
can best facilitate a coordination of efforts to A: profile the traffic
so it can be blocked B: locate infected nodes so they can be
disconnected or disinfected.

The source of the attack is not likely going to be network
infrastructure but instead the millions of end user devices out there.  

Questions like: who is monitoring traffic and noting traffic profiles of
malware and developing some mechanism for distributing those traffic
profiles to network operators so they can be blocked or otherwise acted
on?

How can that distribution channel be made "robust" in the face of a
general public network breakdown?

Is there a need for some sort of an operational "order wire" network
that interconnects network operators as sort of an "out of band"
communications path for handling emergency coordination among operators?

What would be the connectivity requirements for such a network?

The government could be a lot of help in keeping the network up in the
face of attack rather than simply shutting it off.  The emphasis should
be on keeping it working, not how to most efficiently shut it down.

 

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Brandon Butterworth]

> An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your ranking
> manager to "shut down the Internet".

a) you give them the crystals and warn that in isolation they can
   be unstable so drive slow

or

b) you give them the internet to take away
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRmxXp62O8g

or

c) you point to egypt and tell them the kill switch is there, just
   turn it to a higher setting than their government used

> What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air

Are you crazy, they'll then know where else to visit. This is a trap.

brandon

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Barry Greene]

> The Internet is not immune to the law, as you should well know. In fact,
> the Internet seems to be a legal "proving ground" these days, so word to
> the wise.

And, the US National Communication Service (http://www.ncs.gov/index.html) 
"technically" has the ability to order all US telecommunications providers to 
disconnect for the express purpose of maintaining the integrity of the US 
Telecommunications system. If the NCS does not have implicit authority, a 
Executive order would grant it. 

So beware, most of the "US Internet Kill Switch" talk in Washington DC is 
politics from people who have not read that can be done now using existing 
authorities. 

RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Hayden Katzenellenbogen]

Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
nuclear strikes)

Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take out
a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few choke
points? 

-Original Message-
From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 11:39 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

  On 03/02/11 10:38 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>
> And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can
control
> the flow of information, when push comes to shove.
>
> This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.
>
> As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.

In the US, by accident (surely not by design) we are lucky that our 
network of networks does not have the convenient 4 chokepoints that the 
Egyptian network had, making it easy for the government to shut off the 
entier internet by putting pressure on just 4 companies.

Where we *really* need to be fighting this battle is in the laws and 
policies that are producing a duopoly in much of the US where consumers 
have 2 choices, the ILEC for DSL or their local cableco for Cable 
Internet.  As theses companies push smaller competing ISPs out of 
business, and as they consolidate (e.g. Cablecos buying each other up, 
resulting in fewer and fewer cablecos over time), we head down the 
direction of Egypt, where pressure on just a few companies CAN shut down

the entire internet.  Otherwise we end up with a few companies that will

play Visa and PayPal and roll over and play dead when a government 
official says "Wikileaks is bad" - and equally easily will shut down 
their entire networks for "national security".

If you *really* believe that the TSA is effective, you would be in favor

of an Internet Kill Switch.  If you understand that this is really 
security theater, and despite all the inconvenience we aren't really any

safer, then you should equally be very concerned that someone ever has 
the power to order that the internet be "shut down" for our safety.

jc

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[bmanning]

 the protocols ability to "route around" failures is an attribute of packet
based protocols.  it has little to do with legal compliance of an order to 
cease and desist forwarding packets.  end of the day, i guess it boils
down to the question of -civil disobedience- 

 if the law is unjust, do you comply because it is the law, or do you protest,
at the risk of punishment/death?  hardly a wire-protocol question - no?

--bill

On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 01:49:09PM -0800, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:
> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
> nuclear strikes)
> 
> Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take out
> a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few choke
> points? 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 11:39 PM
> To: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch
> 
>   On 03/02/11 10:38 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
> >
> > And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can
> control
> > the flow of information, when push comes to shove.
> >
> > This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.
> >
> > As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.
> 
> In the US, by accident (surely not by design) we are lucky that our 
> network of networks does not have the convenient 4 chokepoints that the 
> Egyptian network had, making it easy for the government to shut off the 
> entier internet by putting pressure on just 4 companies.
> 
> Where we *really* need to be fighting this battle is in the laws and 
> policies that are producing a duopoly in much of the US where consumers 
> have 2 choices, the ILEC for DSL or their local cableco for Cable 
> Internet.  As theses companies push smaller competing ISPs out of 
> business, and as they consolidate (e.g. Cablecos buying each other up, 
> resulting in fewer and fewer cablecos over time), we head down the 
> direction of Egypt, where pressure on just a few companies CAN shut down
> 
> the entire internet.  Otherwise we end up with a few companies that will
> 
> play Visa and PayPal and roll over and play dead when a government 
> official says "Wikileaks is bad" - and equally easily will shut down 
> their entire networks for "national security".
> 
> If you *really* believe that the TSA is effective, you would be in favor
> 
> of an Internet Kill Switch.  If you understand that this is really 
> security theater, and despite all the inconvenience we aren't really any
> 
> safer, then you should equally be very concerned that someone ever has 
> the power to order that the internet be "shut down" for our safety.
> 
> jc
> 
> 
> 

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Matthew Petach]

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen
 wrote:
> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
> nuclear strikes)
>
> Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take out
> a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few choke
> points?

As has been noted previously, it's all about your frame of
reference.  If the US is removed from the Internet, it does not
mean the Internet stops working; from the perspective of the
rest of the world, the Internet is still there.

likewise, when Egypt shut down the internet (from their perspective),
it was essentially a complete shutdown, from their viewpoint; nothing
on the internet was reachable.  This did not mean the Internet shut
down; for most of the rest of the world, they barely noticed Egypt was
gone.

The Internet itself will continue to function, no matter what silliness the
US political system attempts to engage in; from the perspective of those
in the US, it may appear that "the Internet" is unable to survive such an
attack; but from the perspective of the rest of the world, it really will be
localized damage in the US, and not at all a case of the Internet being
shut down.

Matt

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Randy Bush]

> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction.

no.  fable

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Matthew Moyle-Croft]

On 05/02/2011, at 8:57 AM, Matthew Petach wrote:

As has been noted previously, it's all about your frame of
reference.  If the US is removed from the Internet, it does not
mean the Internet stops working; from the perspective of the
rest of the world, the Internet is still there.

I suspect you'll find it would be pretty crippled if the US was removed.

Given the majority of my country's (Australia) internet connectivity is to the 
USA (English language speakers looking for English language content) we'd 
probably find that we were left with very limited connectivity.   Quite a 
number of Australian ISPs would have no international connectivity at all.   
We'd have limited capacity to Europe as the Westward paths are thin and 
expensive and it's mostly via the USA.

This is one of the risks the world, now relying on the "Interwebz" for 
communication runs.The heavy centralisation of the core of the internet 
(ie. really "Tier1" defines connectivity inside the USA only and is vague for 
the rest of the world) as well as Asia especially having very poor intra-Asia 
connectivity for various reasons.  (ie.  A number of Asian carriers optimise 
for connectivity to the USA and have silly views about "regional tier 1" that 
means they peer poorly within Asia.  This leads to a lack of local 
connectivity.   If the USA went "dark" then we'd lose connectivity to them).

So, really, this is a call to the rest of the world to start thinking about the 
benefits of more regional connectivity and connectivity between Asia and Europe 
avoiding the USA so that any "kill switch" implemented doesn't cause the world 
to have any more problems than it needs to face.

MMC

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Ken Chase]

On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 02:27:32PM -0800, Matthew Petach said:
  >The Internet itself will continue to function, no matter what silliness the
  >US political system attempts to engage in; from the perspective of those
  >in the US, it may appear that "the Internet" is unable to survive such an
  >attack; but from the perspective of the rest of the world, it really will be
  >localized damage in the US, and not at all a case of the Internet being
  >shut down.

Hardly.

A lot of top level/very popular sites likely have no extra-US
redundancy.

However, shutting the internet down (you know, when they press the
magic button that makes my telebit trailblazer no longer able to do
UUCP) would instantly create a market for services more robust/localized/
culturally-customized than those that suddenly go missing on that day.
(wonder if anyone has contingency plans in the wings waiting for such
an event).

That's a pretty dumbass business decision, IMHO.

Will nevar evar happen. Political and economic suicide.

"internet presence vacuum" - there I coined it.

[ side question, how many of the root servers evaporate on that day? ]

[ additionally, when the usa is shutdown taking 80% of Canada with it,
  (truly, w'iz yr biyatches) do we declare a diplomatic emergency/act of war
   for american actions?  or do we just hang our heads in shame at our poor
   redundancy? ]

I suspect the 'internet kill switch' will be used in far more localized
situations, like containing single ISPs/cells/threat vectors, as required.
(Harkens back to GWB's rarely-mentioned theorizing end-run around Posse
Comitatus suggesting 'who else but the military to contain an epidemic
outbreak' without mention of threat authentication by independent civilian
bodies).

Popular uprising in city X tweeting out the new version of Rodney King? Good
night and good luck.

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase - k...@heavycomputing.ca skype:kenchase23 +1 416 897 6284 Toronto 
Canada
Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front 
St. W.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jay Ashworth]

- Original Message -
> From: bmann...@vacation.karoshi.com

> if the law is unjust, do you comply because it is the law, or do you
> protest, at the risk of punishment/death? hardly a wire-protocol question - 
> no?

Correct: a decision each person must make for themselves...

which is why it was *not* the topic of my inquiry.

I was just curious as to whether people had given any thought to *whether
and how* they could do it, if they decided it was necessary.

Cheers,
-- jra

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jay Ashworth]

- Original Message -
> From: "Ken Chase" 

> However, shutting the internet down (you know, when they press the
> magic button that makes my telebit trailblazer no longer able to do
> UUCP) would instantly create a market for services more robust/localized/
> culturally-customized than those that suddenly go missing on that day.
> (wonder if anyone has contingency plans in the wings waiting for such
> an event).

So, Ken.

Where *is* your Trailblazer?  Is it hooked up?  Have you tested it 
lately?

Do you have Taylor UUCP installed?  Configured?  Have peers?

Cheers,
-- jr ':-)' a

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jack Bates]

On 2/4/2011 8:25 PM, Ken Chase wrote:

However, shutting the internet down (you know, when they press the
magic button that makes my telebit trailblazer no longer able to do
UUCP) would instantly create a market for services more robust/localized/
culturally-customized than those that suddenly go missing on that day.
(wonder if anyone has contingency plans in the wings waiting for such
an event).


Eh, We'd all rub our eyes, see the light creeping under the door, and 
actually go and see what's going on outside. :)


Except the HAM operators. They don't need the Internet to stay inside.


Jack

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Ken Chase]

On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 09:34:09PM -0500, Jay Ashworth said:

  >Where *is* your Trailblazer?  Is it hooked up?  Have you tested it 
  >lately?
  >
  >Do you have Taylor UUCP installed?  Configured?  Have peers?

No, but i have old drives full of uucp maps around. I'd start with those. And
I'd use the terrestrial phone system to call up/figure out who's still out
there (im friends/colleagues or know how to reach many of the people who ran
my old peers). Once it became clear it was a long outtage, the effort required
to get all this going again would be worth it. I have the tools around to make
it happen, if I needed to, and I know several others who also do. (Maybe time
to keep a copy of uu*.deb around though..)

Oh whoops, except I have a dry copper loop in my house for my dsl.

Dang nabbit. Stupid advancing technology. (During an internet outtage I wonder
if new orders for POTS phone service would be quashed in the interest of
'public safety'... :)

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase - k...@heavycomputing.ca skype:kenchase23 +1 416 897 6284 Toronto 
Canada
Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front 
St. W.

RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[George Bonser]

> Dang nabbit. Stupid advancing technology. (During an internet outtage
I
> wonder
> if new orders for POTS phone service would be quashed in the interest
> of
> 'public safety'... :)
> 
> /kc
> --


UUCP works just fine over TCP/IP and works with Exim and Postfix (I have
used both with UUCP over TCP/IP) with regular ARPA style addresses (@
addressing).  Might be worthwhile to set up just to keep in practice.
Once served as an MX host for a local family that moved overseas for a
while and they had their own domain.  They would connect to the Internet
when they could, connect to me and pull the family's mail by UUCP over
TCP/IP.  That wasn't that long ago (less than 10 years ago).

It is actually a pretty decent way to collect email for an entire domain
when you have only intermittent connectivity.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Charles N Wyble]

On 2/3/2011 7:43 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

An armed FBI special agent shows up at your facility and tells your ranking
manager to "shut down the Internet".


Let's look at this from a different perspective. What level of 
impairment would the feds face if they ordered wide spread
net shut downs.  Do the feds have a big enough network of their own, 
that they can continue to
operate without the commercial nets being up?  I mean they would need to 
declare martial law and coordinate enforcement

activities. Can they do this all via satellite networks?

Also what's to stop the operations staff from saying "no way jose" and 
walking out?



Ok. Let's say they aren't dependent on the net being up. What would the 
scenario look like?


Presumably this would be at a major IX, colo etc? Like say One Wilshire 
or something?
They would show up with several agents, and probably some tech folks. 
One presumes they would have
an injunction or some other legal authority to order you to terminate 
connectivity. This would have to
be spelled out to the letter (terminate all IX traffic, drop all 
external sessions, take down core routers

etc).




What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air


Put what back on the air? Regional connectivity to let people coordinate 
a revolution? (I'm
dead serious by the way. If things have gotten to the point where the 
feds are shutting down

the net, it's time to follow our founding code:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it


Depending on the geography, one could establish some long distance links 
via 802.11/3.65ghz. Hopefully that gear is

already on stand by.



  -- let's say email
as a base service, since it is -- do you have the gear laying around, and how
long would it take?


Well I'm a huge data ownership guy and have been preaching to folks the 
importance of self hosting.
Lots of details are on my wiki at 
http://wiki.knownelement.com/index.php/Data_Ownership
So yes, I have the gear in service already doing my hosting. I also run 
a small neighborhood WISP.
I only offer net access via that WISP, but it would be trivial to stand 
up a neighborhood
xmpp/irc/mail/www server in that VLAN. Maybe I should do that now. Get 
people using it
before hand, so it's what they naturally turn to in time of 
distress/disaster. Hmmm



Do you have out-of-band communications (let's say phone numbers) for enough
remote contacts?


How much phone service would still work, if the feds hit all the major 
IX points and terminate
connectivity? I seem to recall much discussion about the all IP back 
bone of the various large
carriers (Qwest/ATT).  I guess calls in the same CO and maybe between 
regional CO's might work.


Think of this from a disaster preparedness perspective (ie a major 
earthquake or terrorist attack significantly damages One
Wilshire and/or various  IXes in the bay area).  AT&T has a very large 
CO right next to One Wilshire, with something like 1.5
million  lines terminated in the building. It wouldn't take that much 
work for the FBI to shut those places down if they

felt a significant need to.


Interesting thought exercise. Let's keep the conversation going guys/gals!

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jack Bates]

On 2/4/2011 11:13 AM, Charles N Wyble wrote:


How much phone service would still work, if the feds hit all the major 
IX points and terminate
connectivity? I seem to recall much discussion about the all IP back 
bone of the various large
carriers (Qwest/ATT).  I guess calls in the same CO and maybe between 
regional CO's might work.


Yeah, that's the problem. The Internet isn't the Internet. The data 
needs of public Internet have reached a level that it is actually 
cheaper to consider the networks we use to transport that data as our 
primary networks, and run everything else over it as bonus recovery 
revenue (and MPLS became really popular).


Most LECs are at least considering, if they haven't implemented, 
SIP/MGCP from DLC/ONT to local or region soft switches. In addition, 
long distance is increasingly running over pseudowire or SIP trunks.


Cell networks are definitely pushing hard to drop the old T1 circuits 
and cranking up 300mb+ circuits, which often causes the carriers of 
those circuits to backhaul the other cell companies who still require T1 
via pseudowire. They aren't being picky either. I about died laughing 
watching a small LEC setup some feeds for some cell towers. The circuits 
cross 4 different networks with at least 3 different types of transport 
configurations (gpon through a calix E7, which is pure L2 ethernet, 
Lucent DMX ethernet over sonet, and a high end Alacatel IP/MPLS network 
which I'm sure carries Internet traffic as well).



Jack

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Fred Baker]

On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:

> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
> nuclear strikes)

Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the observation.

> Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take out
> a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few choke
> points? 

You mean, like drop a couple of trade towers and take out three class five 
switches, causing communication outages throughout New England and New Jersey, 
and affecting places as far away as Chicago?

Nope. Couldn't happen.

More seriously, yes, one could in fact take out any connectivity one wants by 
withdrawing routes (which is reportedly what Egypt did), and if you hit enough 
interchange points that could get serious.

At the risk of sounding naive and pollyanna-ish, we have a few more of those 
interchange points in the US than they have in Egypt. In theory, yes. Making it 
actually happen could be quite an operation.

> -Original Message-
> From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 11:39 PM
> To: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch
> 
>  On 03/02/11 10:38 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>> 
>> And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can
> control
>> the flow of information, when push comes to shove.
>> 
>> This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.
>> 
>> As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.
> 
> In the US, by accident (surely not by design) we are lucky that our 
> network of networks does not have the convenient 4 chokepoints that the 
> Egyptian network had, making it easy for the government to shut off the 
> entier internet by putting pressure on just 4 companies.
> 
> Where we *really* need to be fighting this battle is in the laws and 
> policies that are producing a duopoly in much of the US where consumers 
> have 2 choices, the ILEC for DSL or their local cableco for Cable 
> Internet.  As theses companies push smaller competing ISPs out of 
> business, and as they consolidate (e.g. Cablecos buying each other up, 
> resulting in fewer and fewer cablecos over time), we head down the 
> direction of Egypt, where pressure on just a few companies CAN shut down
> 
> the entire internet.  Otherwise we end up with a few companies that will
> 
> play Visa and PayPal and roll over and play dead when a government 
> official says "Wikileaks is bad" - and equally easily will shut down 
> their entire networks for "national security".
> 
> If you *really* believe that the TSA is effective, you would be in favor
> 
> of an Internet Kill Switch.  If you understand that this is really 
> security theater, and despite all the inconvenience we aren't really any
> 
> safer, then you should equally be very concerned that someone ever has 
> the power to order that the internet be "shut down" for our safety.
> 
> jc
> 
> 
> 

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Dave CROCKER]

On 2/5/2011 6:43 AM, Fred Baker wrote:

On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:

Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
nuclear strikes)


Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the observation.



Maybe not quite an UL...

   

On the average, The Rand Corp is extremely careful about what it publishes, yet 
here it is, repeating the claim.


Back in the '70s, I always heard "survive hostile battlefield conditions" and 
never heard anyone talk about comms survival of a nuclear event, but I wasn't in 
any interesting conversations, such as in front of funding agencies...


d/
--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jay Ashworth]

- Original Message -
> From: "Fred Baker" 

> You mean, like drop a couple of trade towers and take out three class
> five switches, causing communication outages throughout New England
> and New Jersey, and affecting places as far away as Chicago?

3 class-5s?

I thought it was a 5E and a 4E.

I heard the 4E stayed online *past* 1400, talking to its fiber neighbors...

Cheers
-- jra

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Fred Baker]

On Feb 5, 2011, at 6:11 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> 
> 
> On 2/5/2011 6:43 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
>> On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:
>>> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
>>> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
>>> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
>>> nuclear strikes)
>> 
>> Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the 
>> observation.
> 
> 
> Maybe not quite an UL...
> 
>   
> 
> On the average, The Rand Corp is extremely careful about what it publishes, 
> yet here it is, repeating the claim.

But Len Kleinrock adamantly disputes it.

> Back in the '70s, I always heard "survive hostile battlefield conditions" and 
> never heard anyone talk about comms survival of a nuclear event, but I wasn't 
> in any interesting conversations, such as in front of funding agencies...

To survive an EMP, electronics needs some fancy circuitry. I've never worked 
with a bit of equipment that had it. It would therefore have to have been 
through path redundancy.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Fred Baker]

On Feb 5, 2011, at 7:00 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

> - Original Message -
>> From: "Fred Baker" 
> 
>> You mean, like drop a couple of trade towers and take out three class
>> five switches, causing communication outages throughout New England
>> and New Jersey, and affecting places as far away as Chicago?
> 
> 3 class-5s?
> 
> I thought it was a 5E and a 4E.

I may have it wrong. My source is a talk given along with 
renesys-030502-NRC-911.pdf to a NAE committee writing 
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309087023. The author told us that there 
were two class five switches in one of the towers and one in a neighboring 
building; the neighboring building was damaged by debris from the tower.

> I heard the 4E stayed online *past* 1400, talking to its fiber neighbors...
> 
> Cheers
> -- jra
> 

RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[George Bonser]

> 
> > Back in the '70s, I always heard "survive hostile battlefield
> conditions" and never heard anyone talk about comms survival of a
> nuclear event, but I wasn't in any interesting conversations, such as
> in front of funding agencies...
> 
> To survive an EMP, electronics needs some fancy circuitry. I've never
> worked with a bit of equipment that had it. It would therefore have to
> have been through path redundancy.

It was designed to be robust but it wasn't designed to survive nuclear
war. There WERE some networks that were designed to survive, though, so
maybe some have confused them.  I think what I hear seems to confuse
MILNET with MILSTAR where MILNET was the military portion of the
Internet (what has eventually evolved into NIPRNet) and MILSTAR which is
a satellite network designed to be nuclear survivable.  When it
absolutely positively has to get there.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[bmanning]

On Sat, Feb 05, 2011 at 08:29:44PM -0800, Fred Baker wrote:
> 
> On Feb 5, 2011, at 6:11 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > On 2/5/2011 6:43 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
> >> On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:
> >>> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
> >>> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
> >>> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
> >>> nuclear strikes)
> >> 
> >> Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the 
> >> observation.
> > 
> > 
> > Maybe not quite an UL...
> > 
> >   
> > 
> > On the average, The Rand Corp is extremely careful about what it publishes, 
> > yet here it is, repeating the claim.
> 
> But Len Kleinrock adamantly disputes it.
> 
> > Back in the '70s, I always heard "survive hostile battlefield conditions" 
> > and never heard anyone talk about comms survival of a nuclear event, but I 
> > wasn't in any interesting conversations, such as in front of funding 
> > agencies...
> 
> To survive an EMP, electronics needs some fancy circuitry. I've never worked 
> with a bit of equipment that had it. It would therefore have to have been 
> through path redundancy.


i suspect that the idea of survivalbility has everything to do 
w/ packet oriented communications vs circuit switching.
packets work best w/ path redundancy... :)

i've worked w/ EMP resistnt kit.  its not something a commercial
offering would ever have.  

--bill

RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Ryan Finnesey]

Does anyone know when they took down connectivity in Egypt did they also
bring down the MPLS networks global companies use?

Cheers
Ryan


-Original Message-
From: Fred Baker [mailto:f...@cisco.com] 
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 9:43 AM
To: Hayden Katzenellenbogen
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch


On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:

> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point 
> for the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that 
> would survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. 
> (strategic nuclear strikes)

Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the
observation.

> Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take 
> out a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few 
> choke points?

You mean, like drop a couple of trade towers and take out three class
five switches, causing communication outages throughout New England and
New Jersey, and affecting places as far away as Chicago?

Nope. Couldn't happen.

More seriously, yes, one could in fact take out any connectivity one
wants by withdrawing routes (which is reportedly what Egypt did), and if
you hit enough interchange points that could get serious.

At the risk of sounding naive and pollyanna-ish, we have a few more of
those interchange points in the US than they have in Egypt. In theory,
yes. Making it actually happen could be quite an operation.

> -Original Message-
> From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 11:39 PM
> To: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch
> 
>  On 03/02/11 10:38 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>> 
>> And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can
> control
>> the flow of information, when push comes to shove.
>> 
>> This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.
>> 
>> As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.
> 
> In the US, by accident (surely not by design) we are lucky that our 
> network of networks does not have the convenient 4 chokepoints that 
> the Egyptian network had, making it easy for the government to shut 
> off the entier internet by putting pressure on just 4 companies.
> 
> Where we *really* need to be fighting this battle is in the laws and 
> policies that are producing a duopoly in much of the US where 
> consumers have 2 choices, the ILEC for DSL or their local cableco for 
> Cable Internet.  As theses companies push smaller competing ISPs out 
> of business, and as they consolidate (e.g. Cablecos buying each other 
> up, resulting in fewer and fewer cablecos over time), we head down the

> direction of Egypt, where pressure on just a few companies CAN shut 
> down
> 
> the entire internet.  Otherwise we end up with a few companies that 
> will
> 
> play Visa and PayPal and roll over and play dead when a government 
> official says "Wikileaks is bad" - and equally easily will shut down 
> their entire networks for "national security".
> 
> If you *really* believe that the TSA is effective, you would be in 
> favor
> 
> of an Internet Kill Switch.  If you understand that this is really 
> security theater, and despite all the inconvenience we aren't really 
> any
> 
> safer, then you should equally be very concerned that someone ever has

> the power to order that the internet be "shut down" for our safety.
> 
> jc
> 
> 
> 

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Alastair Johnson]

No - at least some links were still up. I saw both IPVPNs and leased lines 
still working during the event.

aj


-Original Message-
From: "Ryan Finnesey" 
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 23:58:35 
To: Fred Baker; Hayden 
Katzenellenbogen
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: RE: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

Does anyone know when they took down connectivity in Egypt did they also
bring down the MPLS networks global companies use?

Cheers
Ryan


-Original Message-
From: Fred Baker [mailto:f...@cisco.com] 
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 9:43 AM
To: Hayden Katzenellenbogen
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch


On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:

> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point 
> for the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that 
> would survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. 
> (strategic nuclear strikes)

Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the
observation.

> Does it not bode ill for "national security" if any party could take 
> out a massive communication system by destroying/pressuring a few 
> choke points?

You mean, like drop a couple of trade towers and take out three class
five switches, causing communication outages throughout New England and
New Jersey, and affecting places as far away as Chicago?

Nope. Couldn't happen.

More seriously, yes, one could in fact take out any connectivity one
wants by withdrawing routes (which is reportedly what Egypt did), and if
you hit enough interchange points that could get serious.

At the risk of sounding naive and pollyanna-ish, we have a few more of
those interchange points in the US than they have in Egypt. In theory,
yes. Making it actually happen could be quite an operation.

> -Original Message-
> From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 11:39 PM
> To: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch
> 
>  On 03/02/11 10:38 PM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>> 
>> And as an aside, governments will always believe that that they can
> control
>> the flow of information, when push comes to shove.
>> 
>> This has always been a hazard, and will always continue to be so.
>> 
>> As technologists, we need to be cognizant of that fact.
> 
> In the US, by accident (surely not by design) we are lucky that our 
> network of networks does not have the convenient 4 chokepoints that 
> the Egyptian network had, making it easy for the government to shut 
> off the entier internet by putting pressure on just 4 companies.
> 
> Where we *really* need to be fighting this battle is in the laws and 
> policies that are producing a duopoly in much of the US where 
> consumers have 2 choices, the ILEC for DSL or their local cableco for 
> Cable Internet.  As theses companies push smaller competing ISPs out 
> of business, and as they consolidate (e.g. Cablecos buying each other 
> up, resulting in fewer and fewer cablecos over time), we head down the

> direction of Egypt, where pressure on just a few companies CAN shut 
> down
> 
> the entire internet.  Otherwise we end up with a few companies that 
> will
> 
> play Visa and PayPal and roll over and play dead when a government 
> official says "Wikileaks is bad" - and equally easily will shut down 
> their entire networks for "national security".
> 
> If you *really* believe that the TSA is effective, you would be in 
> favor
> 
> of an Internet Kill Switch.  If you understand that this is really 
> security theater, and despite all the inconvenience we aren't really 
> any
> 
> safer, then you should equally be very concerned that someone ever has

> the power to order that the internet be "shut down" for our safety.
> 
> jc
> 
> 
> 

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[isabel dias]

do you have a satellite dish? what are your dish pointing coordinates..we 
just need to find out what is going on the air interface  ...




From: Ryan Wilkins 
To: Jay Ashworth 
Cc: NANOG 
Sent: Fri, February 4, 2011 4:46:47 AM
Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch


On Feb 3, 2011, at 10:10 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

>  Original Message -
>> What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air -- let's
>> say email as a base service, since it is -- do you have the gear laying 
>around,
>> and how long would it take?
> 
> Focus on this part, BTW, folks; let's ignore the politics behind the
> shutdown.  :-)
> 

So if I get what you're saying, I could have something operational from scratch 
in a few hours.  I've got a variety of Cisco routers and switches, Linux and 
Mac 
OS X boxes in various shapes and sizes, and a five CPE + one AP 5 GHz Mikrotik 
RouterOS-based radio system, 802.11b/g wireless AP, 800' of Cat 5e cable, 
connectors, and crimpers.  The radios, if well placed, could allow me to 
connect 
up several strategic locations, or perhaps use them to connect to other sources 
of Internet access, if available.  If it really came down to it, I could 
probably gather enough satellite communications gear from the office to allow 
me 
to stand up satellite Internet to someone.  Of course, the trick would be to 
talk to that "someone" to coordinate connectivity over the satellite which may 
be hard to do given the communications outage you described.  I wouldn't be so 
worried about transmitting to the satellite, in this case I'd just transmit 
without authorization, but someone needs to be receiving my transmission and 
vice versa for this to be useful.  At a minimum, I could enable communications 
between my neighbors.

Regards,
Ryan Wilkins

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jay Ashworth]

- Original Message -
> From: "isabel dias" 

> do you have a satellite dish? what are your dish pointing
> coordinates..we
> just need to find out what is going on the air interface ...

Well, either iDirect or SCPC...

Cheers,
-- jra

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Barry Shein]

On February 5, 2011 at 18:11 d...@dcrocker.net (Dave CROCKER) wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > On 2/5/2011 6:43 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
 > > On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:
 > >> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
 > >> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
 > >> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
 > >> nuclear strikes)
 > >
 > > Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the 
 > > observation.
 > 
 > 
 > Maybe not quite an UL...
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > On the average, The Rand Corp is extremely careful about what it publishes, 
 > yet 
 > here it is, repeating the claim.


I agree with Dave, I think this idea that it's an urban legend has now
become an urban legend.

If you focus it down very sharply like this:

 DARPA specified (or, perhaps, the project was sold to DARPA with
 a promise...) that the network being designed in the late 1960s
 should be resistant to a nuclear attack.

That's probably an urban legend, who knows, it's probably not all that
interesting.

But was it observed over and over from the early on that a packet
network, versus the then predominant technology of virtual (or even
real) circuit networks, would be resistant to damage of all sorts?

Yes.

Another early motivation which isn't often mentioned in these
discussions was the sharing of supercomputer resources.

Supercomputers generally cost tens of millions of dollars back then,
approaching $100 million if you took the infrastructure into account.
I worked on a $100M supercomputer proposal as it evolved into 50 tons
of chilled water on the roof to shoring up the roof to hold that much
water, to running a private gigawatt power line from the local utility
thru Boston...etc.

And the sort of people who needed access to those supercomputers were
spread across the country (and world of course.) It was becoming a
matter of whether to move the researchers, not very practical (how
many finite element analysis experts do you really need at one
university?), or buy each of them a supercomputer (kind of expensive),
or try to hook them up remotely.

At first dial-up seemed plausible but data visualization, graphical
access, became more and more important even in the late 1970s and
early 80s. Researchers were shipping large cartons of magtape so they
could use local computers to generate graphical results of their
computations. It was unwieldy to be kind.

The internet was a good answer to that problem, and that vision of
"high-speed" (for the era) remote access certainly factored into
proposals such as the JVNC-era proposals, NSFnet, etc.

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool & Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Dave CROCKER]

On 2/6/2011 10:47 AM, Barry Shein wrote:

If you focus it down very sharply like this:

  DARPA specified (or, perhaps, the project was sold to DARPA with
  a promise...) that the network being designed in the late 1960s
  should be resistant to a nuclear attack.

That's probably an urban legend, who knows, it's probably not all that
interesting.

But was it observed over and over from the early on that a packet
network, versus the then predominant technology of virtual (or even
real) circuit networks, would be resistant to damage of all sorts?

Yes.



Sorry, but I think the technical implications of a goal to survive 'hostile 
battlefield conditions' versus 'nuclear attack' are (small pun) massively 
different.  Hence I think the actual language used matters.


And the fact that the common language around the net during the '70s was the 
former and not the latter matters.  Which is why it would be helpful to get some 
credible documentation about use of the latter.


I'd expect the major difference in the two terms is the scale of the outage. A 
few square miles, versus possibly thousands.


To that end, I remember an anecdote about van Jacobson from the 1989 quake in 
California that might provide some insight about a large-scale outage:[1]


He was living in Berkeley but was visiting Stanford when the quake hit and he 
wanted to check that his girlfriend was safe.  Of course, the phone didn't work.[2]


Out of sheer frustration and the need to do /something/ he sent her an email.

He got a response within a few minutes.

Surprised that the net was still working (and working quite well), he did a 
traceroute from the Stanford system to the one his girlfriend was using.[3]


Not surprisingly, the path did not cross the San Francisco Bay, as it normally 
would have.  Instead it went down to Los Angeles, across the southern US, up the 
East Coast and back across the Northern U.S.


Although the outage was fairly small-scale, the scale of the re-routing suggests 
that a larger, 'regional' outage from something like a nuclear event would adapt 
readily.  (We can ignore the additional question of EMP effects, since that only 
affects the scale of the outage.)  And, of course, there have been other test 
cases since then...



d/

[1] This is anecdotal; I've never confirmed the story with him.

[2] That does not automatically indicate a system failure, given the switch to 
an emergency mode for the phone system that restricts access during major events 
like these.


[3] Van created traceroute. 

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

the authoritative and secondary servers for the "ميسر." zone were 
unreachable, a circumstance which existed a year ago for the .ht zone.


the authoritative and secondary servers for the ".eg" zone were 
mutually unreachable.


wireline dialtone was prevalent during the prefix withdrawal period.

suggestions for oob control, 56kb tech and (signed) zone transfer 
would be useful.


graceful conversion to a sparse 56kb and vsat connectivity regime may 
be a general form of robustness.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Ryan Wilkins]

On Feb 6, 2011, at 8:57 AM, isabel dias wrote:

> do you have a satellite dish? what are your dish pointing coordinates..we 
> just need to find out what is going on the air interface  ...


I don't personally have one but of of the companies that I contract to is in 
the satellite networks business.  It wouldn't take much to pack up a 1.2m 
antenna, LNB, BUC, iDirect router, cables, and be on the air.  The 3.8m would 
be a bit more difficult to pack up.  ;-)

As for pointing, pick a Ku-band satellite viewable from Chicago and I could be 
on it.  There's a bunch of them.  The iDirect 7350 router will do iDirect TDMA 
or SCPC.

Regards,
Ryan Wilkins

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Michael Coxe]

On 02-05-11 8:29 PM, Fred Baker wrote:


On Feb 5, 2011, at 6:11 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:




On 2/5/2011 6:43 AM, Fred Baker wrote:

On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:

Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key
point for the creation of the internet to create and
infrastructure that would survive in the case of all out war
and massive destruction. (strategic nuclear strikes)


Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the
observation.



Maybe not quite an UL...



On the average, The Rand Corp is extremely careful about what it
publishes, yet here it is, repeating the claim.


But Len Kleinrock adamantly disputes it.


Back in the '70s, I always heard "survive hostile battlefield
conditions" and never heard anyone talk about comms survival of a
nuclear event, but I wasn't in any interesting conversations, such
as in front of funding agencies...


To survive an EMP, electronics needs some fancy circuitry. I've never
worked with a bit of equipment that had it. It would therefore have
to have been through path redundancy.



For more specifics from Paul Baran himself, you may read his interview 
with Stewart Brand. Lots of good stuff circa late 50s - early 60s.


http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.03/baran_pr.html

one fun excerpt, re: asking the phone co to build a packet switch:


SB: How seriously did AT&T look at the proposal?

PB: The response was most interesting. The story I tell is of the time I 
went over to AT&T headquarters - one of many, many times - and there's a 
group of old graybeards. I start describing how this works. One stops me 
and says, "Wait a minute, son. Are you trying to tell us that you open 
the switch up in the middle of the conversation?" I say, "Yes." His 
eyeballs roll as he looks at his associates and shakes his head. We just 
weren't on the same wavelength.



Paul's memory is backed up by his meticulous records. I worked at Com21 
1997-2K and heard similar recounts from Paul over Com21 BBQ lunches at 
the company's Tasman site. I wished for a while he'd write a history but 
came to understand he's always been a doer not a historian.


Cheers,

 - Michael

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Lamar Owen]

On Saturday, February 05, 2011 11:29:44 pm Fred Baker wrote:
> To survive an EMP, electronics needs some fancy circuitry. I've never worked 
> with a bit of equipment that had it. It would therefore have to have been 
> through path redundancy.

Surviving EMP is similar to surviving several (dozen) direct lightning strikes, 
and requires the same sort of protection, both in terms of shielding and in 
terms of filtering, as well as the methods used for connections, etc.  There is 
plenty of documentation out there on how to do this, even with commercial 
stuff, if you look.

The biggest issue in EMP is power, however, since the grid in the affected area 
will likely be down.

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Josh Smith]

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Ryan Wilkins  wrote:
>
> On Feb 3, 2011, at 10:10 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>
>>  Original Message -
>>> What do you do when you get home to put it back on the air -- let's
>>> say email as a base service, since it is -- do you have the gear laying 
>>> around,
>>> and how long would it take?
>>
>> Focus on this part, BTW, folks; let's ignore the politics behind the
>> shutdown.  :-)
>>
>
> So if I get what you're saying, I could have something operational from 
> scratch in a few hours.  I've got a variety of Cisco routers and switches, 
> Linux and Mac OS X boxes in various shapes and sizes, and a five CPE + one AP 
> 5 GHz Mikrotik RouterOS-based radio system, 802.11b/g wireless AP, 800' of 
> Cat 5e cable, connectors, and crimpers.  The radios, if well placed, could 
> allow me to connect up several strategic locations, or perhaps use them to 
> connect to other sources of Internet access, if available.  If it really came 
> down to it, I could probably gather enough satellite communications gear from 
> the office to allow me to stand up satellite Internet to someone.  Of course, 
> the trick would be to talk to that "someone" to coordinate connectivity over 
> the satellite which may be hard to do given the communications outage you 
> described.  I wouldn't be so worried about transmitting to the satellite, in 
> this case I'd just transmit without authorization, but someone needs to be 
> receiving my transmission and vice versa for this to be useful.  At a 
> minimum, I could enable communications between my neighbors.
>
> Regards,
> Ryan Wilkins
>

I agree that setting up "local" connectivity between the folks in my
neighborhood wouldn't be too much of a challenge.  Getting anything
much beyond that up and running would be a stretch.

-- 
Josh Smith
KD8HRX
email/jabber:  juice...@gmail.com
phone:  304.237.9369(c)

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Ryan Wilkins]

On Feb 7, 2011, at 3:53 PM, Josh Smith wrote:

> I agree that setting up "local" connectivity between the folks in my
> neighborhood wouldn't be too much of a challenge.  Getting anything
> much beyond that up and running would be a stretch.

Yeah, but the more people communicating the better.  I don't know what all my 
neighbors are capable of doing.  Some of them may be capable of helping the 
cause in ways that I hadn't considered.

Regards,
Ryan Wilkins

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Nick Hilliard]

On 07/02/2011 21:53, Josh Smith wrote:

I agree that setting up "local" connectivity between the folks in my
neighborhood wouldn't be too much of a challenge.  Getting anything
much beyond that up and running would be a stretch.


I can't help noticing some irony in seeing one nanog thread about working 
around a supposed government internet kill switch by using wireless 
transmission kit, and another about the US Navy reputedly trashing 
connectivity in an entire country by, uh, jamming wireless transmission links.


Nick

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Jay Ashworth]

- Original Message -
> From: "Nick Hilliard" 

> Subject: Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch
> On 07/02/2011 21:53, Josh Smith wrote:
> > I agree that setting up "local" connectivity between the folks in my
> > neighborhood wouldn't be too much of a challenge. Getting anything
> > much beyond that up and running would be a stretch.
> 
> I can't help noticing some irony in seeing one nanog thread about
> working around a supposed government internet kill switch by using wireless
> transmission kit, and another about the US Navy reputedly trashing
> connectivity in an entire country by, uh, jamming wireless
> transmission links.

Irony != coincidence.

One is the government interrupting communications, and the other one 
is ... the government interrupting communications.

Oh look: those even came out in the same character positions.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Josh Smith]

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Ryan Wilkins  wrote:
>
> On Feb 7, 2011, at 3:53 PM, Josh Smith wrote:
>
>> I agree that setting up "local" connectivity between the folks in my
>> neighborhood wouldn't be too much of a challenge.  Getting anything
>> much beyond that up and running would be a stretch.
>
> Yeah, but the more people communicating the better.  I don't know what all my 
> neighbors are capable of doing.  Some of them may be capable of helping the 
> cause in ways that I hadn't considered.
>
> Regards,
> Ryan Wilkins
>
>

Ryan,
I agree the more people communicating the better.  I was just
commenting on what my own, and suspect many others on the list's
capabilities are.  While I would love to have access to a satellite
type of data service as a backup link its simply not in my budget and
even if it was I suspect any service available via satellite might
suffer from similar problems if the methods used to disrupt
connectivity in Egypt were employed here.

Thanks,
-- 
Josh Smith
KD8HRX
email/jabber:  juice...@gmail.com
phone:  304.237.9369(c)

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Valdis . Kletnieks]

On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:49:36 EST, Josh Smith said:

> even if it was I suspect any service available via satellite might
> suffer from similar problems if the methods used to disrupt
> connectivity in Egypt were employed here.

The real question isn't "If they shut you down, can you restart?".

The real question is "If they shut you down, can you restart in a way that
avoids them attempting a second shutdown with a bullet?"




pgpeyOgeFlsHE.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[andrew.wallace]

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 4:11 AM,   wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:49:36 EST, Josh Smith said:
>
>> even if it was I suspect any service available via satellite might
>> suffer from similar problems if the methods used to disrupt
>> connectivity in Egypt were employed here.
>
> The real question isn't "If they shut you down, can you restart?".
>
> The real question is "If they shut you down, can you restart in a way that
> avoids them attempting a second shutdown with a bullet?"
>
>
>

May I suggest -


A bunker built for Scottish Office staff in the event of a nuclear attack is up 
for sale.
The complex at Cultybraggan Camp near Comrie, Perthshire, was completed in 1990 
and is believed to be one of the most advanced 
structures of its kind.
It was built to house 150 people and protect them from nuclear, biological and 
electromagnetic attacks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-12311164

Andrew

Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

[Fernando Gont]

Hi, Dave,

On 06/02/2011 04:09 p.m., Dave CROCKER wrote:
> Sorry, but I think the technical implications of a goal to survive
> 'hostile battlefield conditions' versus 'nuclear attack' are (small pun)
> massively different.  Hence I think the actual language used matters.
> 
> And the fact that the common language around the net during the '70s was
> the former and not the latter matters.  Which is why it would be helpful
> to get some credible documentation about use of the latter.

How about:

Clark, D. 1988. "The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols".
Computer Communication Review, Vol. 18, No. 4, 1988.

?

Thanks,
-- 
Fernando Gont
e-mail: ferna...@gont.com.ar || fg...@acm.org
PGP Fingerprint: 7809 84F5 322E 45C7 F1C9 3945 96EE A9EF D076 FFF1

OT: (was Re: Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch)

[Karl Auer]

On Fri, 2011-02-04 at 14:27 -0800, Matthew Petach wrote:
> As has been noted previously, it's all about your frame of
> reference.  If the US is removed from the Internet, it does not
> mean the Internet stops working; from the perspective of the
> rest of the world, the Internet is still there.

Many years ago, there was a headline in the London Times:

   "Fog In Channel, Europe Cut Off"

Regards, K.

PS: Might be an apocryphal story :-)

-- 
~~~
Karl Auer (ka...@biplane.com.au)   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/   +61-428-957160 (mob)

GPG fingerprint: DA41 51B1 1481 16E1 F7E2 B2E9 3007 14ED 5736 F687
Old fingerprint: B386 7819 B227 2961 8301 C5A9 2EBC 754B CD97 0156


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