What will you do when DU goes offline?

[donhakman]

Former CIA Director George J. Tenet yesterday called for new security measures to guard against attacks on the United States that use the Internet, which he called "a potential Achilles' heel."

"I know that these actions will be controversial in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability," he told an information-technology security conference in Washington, "but ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control."

The former CIA director said telecommunications - and specifically the Internet - are a back door through which terrorists and other enemies of the United States could attack the country, even though great strides have been made in securing the physical infrastructure.

The Internet "represents a potential Achilles' heel for our financial stability and physical security if the networks we are creating are not protected," Mr. Tenet said.

He said known adversaries, including "intelligence services, military organizations and non-state actors," are researching information attacks against the United States.

Within the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security has the lead role in protecting the Internet from terrorism. But the department's head of cyber-security recently quit amid reports that he had clashed with his superiors.

Mr. Tenet, who retired in July as director of the CIA after seven years, warned that al Qaeda remains a sophisticated group, even though its first-tier leadership largely has been destroyed.

It is "undoubtedly mapping vulnerabilities and weaknesses in our telecommunications networks," he said.

Mr. Tenet pointed out that the modernization of key industries in the United States is making them more vulnerable by connecting them with an Internet that is open to attack.

The way the Internet was built might be part of the problem, he said. Its open architecture allows Web surfing, but that openness makes the system vulnerable, Mr. Tenet said.

Mr. Tenet called for industry to lead the way by "establishing and enforcing" security standards. Products need to be delivered to government and private-sector customers "with a new level of security and risk management already built in."

The national press, including United Press International (UPI), were excluded from yesterday's event, at Mr. Tenet's request, organizers said.

.....................


The machinery to disassemble the internet and replace it with a new approved version is already complete.

It is now a matter of when - not if - it goes into effect.

What will you do when the day comes?

DH

[skylarmae]

1. what are our options?

I'm trying to 'remain calm' at the very thought! We need options.

For those of us who are tech idiots, please options, options, options.

[ladjf]

2. It might not be good strategy to reveal alternate ideas here

and now. But, there will be ways to communicate, but not as freely or as conveniently as now.

[donhakman]

5. Architects of the internet were largely children of the 60's

The deconstructionists have every ability to delete communication.

Once it is gone, it is gone except for for obscure text messaging, but the days of surfing will be confined to officail sites only.

For the most part I already feel as though I am on every DU ignore list as this forum has become increasingly cliqueified.

[JNelson6563]

17. Lots of non-clique members here

I am one of them. :toast:

Julie

[McKenzie]

3. this is bloody frightening

the internet scares the shit out of the power elite because it makes it difficult to suppress the truth. Just think about the discussion boards like this one for a start. Disinfo, Mother Jones, etc etc etc. They're kidding themselves if they think they can hack-proof the internet. This is just a bloody excuse to try shutting off free communication. Got a link to this?

I'd kick this post up. I'm gonna have a trawl of the newsgroups.

"As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed the internet deserves the highest protection from governmental interference."

Judge Dazell

[Dr Ron]

4. There was discussion before the internet (but it was a lot slower)

How many of you were old enough to have written for "underground" publications, which were what we had before the internet? While I'd hate to resort to that (especially as the mail might not be secure if the web is not longer available) it sure would be a lot easier with today's word processors and laser printers.

[flying_blind]

6. If "they" wanna monitor every keystroke you make, it is Done Now

Get over it

and stop the spammers and the adware and the fraudsters

big brother has ALREADY mastered watching your asses

[flying_blind]

7. read up

http://www.epic.org/crypto/scarfo/murch_aff.pdf

[pretzel4gore]

8. like monitoring the drops of water

out in lake superior....let them spend their time and energy on this.....every subversive language post is a blow for freedom (lol)

[m berst]

33. the Gestapo did this

The Gestapo was notoriously inefficient at actually figuring out who was doing what, but the threat was enough to terrorize people. Although the Gestapo couldn't monitor everything that people did, it could monitor anything that people did, and that had the desired shilling effect on all behavior and communications.

[pretzel4gore]

36. the german state police

or gestapo became one of the rudiments of nazi control in a simpler era when popular perceptions ran wild on rumour. most of which were nurtured by the nazis to advance their agenda...the same thing's true today, but there is hard evidence, not to mention basic logic, which the 'net has made available to 'us peasants' (one of the neocon's complaints, which is funny in a way, is the 'statecraft is the biz of statesmen' and the uninformed, powerless members of the public shouldn't talk about stuff they know nothing of......this was the way it was in olden days- wars happened cuz...well they happened and the boys all went off to take care of it....today, young recruits earnestly discuss rumsvelt, bush, cheney, powell's actions, as far as it affects them, and no one thinks that's crazy! You're right about the scary factor of the police statists, but in order to crush their 'enemy' they must also crush their friends, who might turn on them en mass (which is something them bullyboy cowards fear more then anything)...hell if i was arrested, i'd laff at them assholes wasting their time on lil ole me, and thinking there's less room now for someone who's doing real work! lol!

[McKenzie]

16. agreed on the monitoring bit

Echelon and Carnivore for example. you are absolutely correct there. But keystroke logging is only possible via a utility that is actually on the HDD. PGP or Kremlin is sufficient to stop the government monitoring software if the encryptation algorithms are strong enough, eg RSA, Blowfish.

regards

[flying_blind]

28. maybe, maybe not

http://www.keyghost.com/

and this is just what 'they' allow to be ecommed

[McKenzie]

29. thanks for the link

I consider myself to be a geek but I've not seen that one before. I'll ask about it on some newsgroups I post on.

thnx

[flying_blind]

30. plz report! thx, geek :) n/t

[msgadget]

9. A lot of us were online before the WWW and though it's

a fuzzy memory, communication was accomplished pre-Compuserve! I wouldn't be able to figure it out on my ownsome but one of you geniuses would, I'm pretty sure.

[Why Syzygy]

10. Outrageous!

So, since there were no press allowed, I guess they are a security risk also?

:wtf: Sounds like more mumbo-jumbo. Are we used to it yet?

[superconnected]

11. I actually am worried about these nuts

I keep mentioning my fundie boss but he's a prime example.

If his church told him to kill me because I'm liberal and I believe gays should be able to marry, I believe he would do it. I KNOW he would. He's that way. I'm christian, but it wouldn't matter.

I believe if they have the power they will censor internet, shut us all up, arrest us for things like being on a threat to america site like the DU, try us for posts, and execute us in the name of Protecting America or God.

What I keep seeing is insanity - ie. telling people democrats HATE America, combining church and state, highest officals speaking against homosexuals publicly, wanting to ban gay speech, wanting to take away our rights to "protect us", etc. etc. It really is insane and they are incharge.

So yeah, anything can happen at this point and it doesn't look good. I don't trust them. People weren't checking into Canada because they just didn't like that their candidate lost, they sensed nazi germany stirring in America. I believe they are right.

[Stephanie]

18. Wow, where are you?

What state are you in? And may I suggest you MOVE?

[CHIMO]

12. Interesting Article

Growing Up in the Weather Underground: A Father and Son Tell Their Story

AMY GOODMAN: Thai, we just have 30 seconds. I will give you the last word.

THAI JONES: Well I think the last word is that people look at the Weather Underground and say what did they accomplish? And obviously the answer is: not much, but you know, what they show us is that there's a point in which comfortable white Americans are willing to throw it over and take to the streets and when I started this project, it was hard to imagine that point, but now two years later, I think we are sort of headed down that road and five years from now, who knows? I mean we already had half a million people on the street of New York during the Republican convention. And that's more than ever was during the 1960's.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/1454204

[donhakman]

13. I listened to them live.

There always comes a point -

If you think fundies will have the discretion to stop before we get to that point you are sadly mistaken.

[Wind Dancer]

14. The corporate owned media ignored it.

Plus we never heard a word about the 1800 locked up in dangerous conditions at Pier 57 leased by the RNC. The media is a huge enemy, the art of illusion.

[Stephanie]

21. There is a lawsuit

I don't know who initiated it - maybe there is info at nyclu

[Wind Dancer]

26. Thanks for the info.

I was horrified that this could happen, along with countless other things I have witnessed in these past years. I will check out to see if there are any updates on the lawsuit.

[CHIMO]

27. RNC Protesters Filed Class Action Suit Against NYC

In New York a group of protesters and bystanders wrongfully arrested during the Republican National Convention filed a class action lawsuit against the city Monday on behalf of the almost 2,000 people detained during the convention. One of the chief attorneys in the case, Johnathan Moore said "During the Republican Convention, the Mayor and the Police Department suspended the Bill of Rights for those who chose to protest the foreign, military and domestic policies of the United States government."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/23/1456257

Hope this helps.

[Stephanie]

19. We did have half a million in NY

It was awesome. It was dangerous. And it was totally ignored.

[itzamirakul]

41. And I was proudly one of that...

half million marchers. Just as I was part of many protests in the 1960s. Yes, the mainstream media is hiding (not ignoring) this information from the heartland of America but we need to understand that those who OWN the media have discovered that they CAN lie to the public openly and not be censured for doing so. They can hide pertinent information, distort the truth and report only on those stories that they want the public to know.

I bring to your attention Rupert Murdoch, the man who owns the NY Post tabloid (a newspaper that is losing money as fast as your bathtub drains dirty water, yet it is kept alive just to espouse the lies from the right wing.) as well as FOX news. This man is a fairly recent immigrant to the United States, coming in from Australia. Yet he has managed, through his news outlets to help change American politics to the corrupt form of government that we have now. I blame this partly on the fact that he is NOT a native-born American and has no respect for what the founding fathers intended. (And before I get any nasty responses that I am anti-immigrant, let me hasten to add that one of my parents was an immigrant to this country.)

There will be attempts to censure the spread of info on the internet, but what keeps me from panicking is that there are so many young electronic geniuses out there who WILL FIND A WAY to get around those attempts.

[bvar22]

15. Before the InterNet...

...before CompUServe or Prodigy

there were the BBS (Bulletin Boards).

Anyone could host a BBS. They were dial up over local phone lines.

IIRC, my first modem connection was 2400 baud, and people at the first BBS I joined were commenting how blazingly fast things were since the upgrade from 1200 baud. Most of the early BBS I visited were driver libraries and troubleshooting tips.

Of course, if BigBrother can shut down the Net, he could shut down local BBS, ..unless you hosted a BBS from a moving van with a shortwave.......or Whack-a-Mole phone lines.....HMMM.





I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.
-- Steven Wright

[Stephanie]

20. Please explain to me how they would accomplish this?

I thought the beauty of the internet was that is was so dispersed - you could not possibly shut down all the servers.

How would they go about shutting it down, and how would we stop them?

[superconnected]

22. proxys on major routers

filtering internet traffic for flagged words and site requests not to get through is easy. They can give all ISP's a filter list, or go directly to the main gateways routing their lines.

In the 1990' in most cases it was the phone companies that owned the lines. I don't know who owns them now but I would guess it's still mainly the phone companies. Also satalites would be owned by major companies so all that would take is a few acts of congress to specify filters on the traffic they can route.

They could easy automate notifing gov agencys whenever someone accesses info or posts something anti gov with the filters.

[Stephanie]

23. Seriously? They really could do this?

I've always thought the internet was beyond borders. Could we access a European internet? What are the alternatives?

[Lu Kang]

25. Yes, it could be done

It would take a bloody lot of work, but it could be done. In fact, China does it right now. MANY sites are blocked by all Chinese ISPs by government regulation.

Your ISP can easily block certain content. (similar to how your works proxy server, for example, blocks you from non-company related web sites)

The quickest way would probably be act of congress - mandate all ISPs block content from X source or of X type under penalty of say, $500,000 a day for failing to do so. You'd see nationwide effective internet censorship overnight.

Now - in theory - you could use a proxy server to connect to other sites. (This is what the Chinese do to get by the government restrictions) However, that could be thwarted too with enough work.

[bvar22]

24. Thay could easily watch for liberal content.

WebSites exist on physical computers in known locations. Whenever BigBrother gets his feelings hurt, he can send the Gestapo to that location and seize the physical computers, all records, the owners and operators, and disappear everything.

When you try to log on the next day, nothing would be there. If they are really in a tizzy, they could run down almost everyone who logged on to that site in the last 6 months and disappear them too.




I saw a bank that said "24 Hour Banking", but I don't have that much time.
-- Steven Wright

[Wolf1728]

31. Monitoing all the traffic will be impossible

Nobody can stop the damned SPAM E-Mails that are being sent all over the place so how do they expect to monitor terrorist activity? I have a feeling some innocent folks will get wrongfuly targeted and all the while some damned terrorist(s) will be getting away with holy Hell.
Since we have a turnip-IQ President, is he going to announce which of the Internets will get monitored? LOL

[napi21]

32. I don't expect to see it EVER!

I watched a panel on c-span comprised of international journalists from several different news groups. Sorry, I didn't write down the names or exactly where they were from. The point was brought out that Zawari(sp) finds it VERY EASY to get his info out any time he wants to, and whatever he wants via the internet. Several months ago he was an unknown, and he managed to leap to the top of the terrorist pile by posting a beheading on the net, and following it up with additional posts whenever he wants to. They said he has even been able to post at the same time of the day (every week I think). Someone in the audience asked why no one has been able ot find him, since the authorities seem to be able to find almost everyone they're after just by going through the chain of links and ISP's. The response was that he only uses a land line, and apparently keeps changing providers, so he remains illusive.

I think this is just a scare tactic by Tenet.. I'm not worried the net as we know it is going to suffer major changes any time in my lifetime.
EDIT: The show I was talking about is being re-run on c-span2 NOW. It's called Al Qaeda's use of the media.

[Stinky The Clown]

34. This could actually go a whole other way .......

In fact, there was a post in LBN a day or three ago about the military buildinga "super internet" or some such phrasing. It would actually make more sense for "them" to buold that and leave this old, broken down, patched-together, information back road to we the people.

The new military internet could allow use by the establishment ... banks, the nuclear and power industry, etc. etc. etc.

I mean, why try to patch this one when they can build a whole new one that avoids the flaws this one has?

[Starlight]

35. It'll be done under the guise of "protecting children"

And who could oppose protecting children from pedophiles & other dangers of the internet?

[anarchy1999]

37. There are a number of us preparing for that day.

n/t

Contacts are available.

[OneTwentyoNine]

38. Yawn.....sky is falling,sky is falling....

What a crock of shit,yeah..I'm real worried. Hey wait,go ahead and try,maybe only then will 59 million Americans realize what a bunch of nut cases reside in DC.

I'm about as worried about this as the secret service patrolling the DU forums.

[Cooley Hurd]

40. The gov't DOES monitor DU...

It's been discussed here before - you know, "Agent Mike." :)

[OneTwentyoNine]

42. LOL,I know...I keep waiting for a knock on my door

Hello,I'm AGENT MIKE,have you been posting on DU?? Well,uh yes...since about December 2000. Handcuff him boys,he's one of those terrorist Lieberals!!


Gets on radio:
George,we've rounded up another terrorist off of DU,he'll be on his way to Gitmo by morning,only 49,999 to go....

[Cooley Hurd]

39. Fortunately, there are other, less-well-known message boards...

...that we can hook up on. When they yank the servers on one, we'll head to another. And, as far as I know, there's NO way they can "shut off" the internet. They can close down individual sites, but they can't stop us from finding others.

Cripes, just the fact that we're discussing this is frightening....:grr:

[Gin]

43. maybe Shrub's use of the word "internets" wasn't a mistake.

g