No Internet “kill Switch” For Australia 152
An anonymous reader writes "Well, it looks as though at least some Governments have a backbone. Egypt switched off its internet to stop protests over the past few days, and the US Government is considering legislation that will give the President 'kill switch' powers over the internet as well. But in Australia, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy — best known for his attempt to filter the country's internet for child pornography and the country's flagship national fibre broadband rollout, says such a scenario couldn't occur."
Weather (Score:4, Funny)
With the weather they have I don't think they need one.
Re:Weather (Score:5, Informative)
Funnily enough a lot of people on the coast where the cyclone hit are reporting fair 3G coverage and usable internet access. Its probably less vulnerable than power because it is either buried cables or wireless. Queensland is tropical and the weather there is often quite wild. The teletext service used to (maybe still does) operate out of channel 7 in Brisbane and it was always going down due to massive electrical storms.
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I take your point but back in my traffic signaling days I had a lot of sites flood and we got through it. The phone cables in Melbourne are called the secondary storm water system by the techs who see the pits and pipes flood regularly. I have seen the concrete floor in a computer room with 10cm of water over it. You just had to lift a tile and there it was. We had 250VAC in cables tacked to the concrete but the wet stuff stayed out and the systems stayed up. The floods in FNQ [wikipedia.org] are coastal anyway. Associated
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I guess if it rises high enough it'll find something that's not "hardened". But anyway, with all the shit you've had recently I think you only need an earthquake to compete the set.
Then there's the cricket...
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Here in Melbourne we are getting the southern fringes of the Queensland cyclone. We went out for Pizza an hour ago and the weather was exactly what we would expect in Malaysia. 29 degrees C, 90% humidity. Just as we finished up we got a tropical downpour. Gutters overflowing, minor flooding all over the place. I got soaked running 20 metres or so to the car. The water tank in my garage filled to overflowing in a couple of minutes. Welcome to the greenhouse....
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The towers are built to "cyclone proof" standards, and many of the towers are on backup generators. Coverage is expected to get worse before it gets better because the backups only last 8-12 hrs. But I think those backup generators will be pretty high up on the emergency service todo list.
Ten years ago when I was in vic roads we were giving up our UHF channel space and using cellular phones. Keeping cellphones working will be as important as keeping ambulances on the road I reckon.
Short on popularity (Score:3, Insightful)
The current Government barely made it back in to office at the last election. They need every cheap shot they can think of to boost their popularity ratings. I assume the algorithm in use here is that Conroy scans the Daily(tm) on his iPad(tm) at the start of the week, picks a bit of news relevant to his constituency which looks bad, and composes a speech saying he won't do that. Repeat next week and so on.
Re:Short on popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
Conroy was asked the question by a journalist, it wasnt a press release or something.
Judge for yourself here is the clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Gn4SjNY3U [youtube.com]
If you wish to be fair, how about a critical response to the oppositions approach to the Internet.
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If you wish to be fair, how about a critical response to the oppositions approach to the Internet.
Its a fair question.
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Ok, let's be fair. Journalist asks question. Politician standard program:
1. Calculate support gained when answering pro: In this case, nil. Who'd be interested in the government shutting down the internet?
2. Calculate support gained when answering contra: In this case, slim. A few geeks would like it.
Slim > nil, hence answer is "No kill switch in Aussieland".
Politicians could be replaced with a pretty small script, thinking about it...
They'll have an NBN switch anyway. (Score:2)
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Pretty small script yea, but the backend needs a supercomputer to number crunch the "calculate support gained when ..."
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You mean, like, we already have now?
You don't think any politician makes a statement without being briefed first how this would affect his votes, do you?
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I wasnt actually being serious. So no, i dont think politicians have supercomputers calculating what makes them popular.
A politician with any chance of success has to be able to instinctively know the right choice.
If a politician cant do impromptu stuff like talk-back radio, live tv, face pesky reporters etc then they have no chance.
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That's why politicians are master in the "yes, no, black, white" game. Know that one? Where, no matter what, you may never say those four words. Watch your average politician closely, they'll NEVER say those four words unless it's from a scripted source.
Impromptu talk for a politician usually means "talk a lot, but don't make any statement".
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This is because nobody told him that fiber lands in less than 10 points around Australia.
Not that it is any different in other places. There are not that many areas around the coast of a coastal nation which are geologically stable and have no fishermen. Most have to actually legislate them and and mark the relevant zones as no-anchor/no-fishing.
Re:won't do that (Score:2)
Meatloaf can help.
"I would do anything for gain, but I won't do that".
Internet kill workaround (Score:1)
Then I need to be planning a way to get around it when it gets shut down
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Wi-Fi "bucket chain" from Canada or Mexico.
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Amateur satellites or maybe high altitude balloon or UAV based links. Pirate cellular services from aircraft, packet switched TCP/IP for the satellite services. Maybe you could build an ad-hoc store and forward messaging system with weather balloons. Each unit collects data and dumps it when contacted from the ground. Units can replicate data when they contact each other. Data is lost when they crash.
Use a CDMA like protocol to pack data into frequencies below 50Mhz. Ionospheric propagation, particularly at
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Do you mean normal comsats? Don't you need some sort of key to use them?
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Re:Internet kill workaround (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes. Try RFC 1149 [ietf.org], otherwise known as IP over Avian Carriers [wikipedia.org] (IPoAC). You might need to substitute a more common discrete winged media though, say, bat or bumblebees. Just make sure you train them well (or use some strong pheromones), or you'll be getting massive packet loss.
(The RFC actually describes the sending of datagrams written on slips of paper strapped to the leg of the carrier pigeon. A more practical method would be to load the carrier with a flash drive containing gigabytes rather than bits of
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Meteor burst communications [wikipedia.org]
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Considering that they break up in the atmosphere, would that allow multicasting?
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The signal is going to scatter everywhere when it hits the meteor trail so I suppose the answer is yes. The main problem is that you need something like radar to detect the trails, and that exposes your station to attack from people with direction finding equipment.
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Re:Internet kill workaround (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are people letting the US govt away with this? An internet kill switch sounds an awful lot like a violation of free speech, especially if they're thinking of using it in the same way the Egyptian govt did. The constitution is starting to look like a bad joke.
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The constitution has already been reduced to a bad joke, get over it. The only thing left is the 2nd, and it's only 'cause it really doesn't matter whether you have a gun as long as the army has bigger ones and more.
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The constitution has already been reduced to a bad joke, get over it
I'm not American for one thing. I found the "land of the free, we're awesome" stuff quite tiresome even before it did start becoming a joke, but now it's worse. I don't want to get over the fact that such a previously vocal group is now letting the government shit all over them, but often still pretending like the US is number 1 in every way. I want people to get a grip.
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The constitution is starting to look like a bad joke.
I got news for you buddy, The constitution gets no respect from people in the congress that are supposedly representing us but taking payoffs from corporate or private interests. In fact the only people in this country that seem to believe in the constitution are the little guys like you and me that actually need some protection from the other group of assholes. What rock have you been living under anyway?
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National emergencies occur for more reasons than suppressing the population to keep a dictator in office for a 31st year. I'm sure if you thought about it you could come up with some reasons.
No, I really can't think of any good reasons that don't have other solutions.
What "national emergency" will arise such that the govt needs to shut down all internet access? It makes no sense. If they want to take all government sites offline while they shore up security (similar to shutting down airlines while there is a significant danger) that's fine, but why shut down everything else? If a bank is being hacked, shut down the bank's site. If the stock exchange is being hacked, shut down the stock exchange
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- Why are people letting the US govt away with this? An internet kill switch sounds an awful lot like a violation of free speech, especially if they're thinking of using it in the same way the Egyptian govt did.
National emergencies occur for more reasons than suppressing the population to keep a dictator in office for a 31st year. I'm sure if you thought about it you could come up with some reasons.
One that requires cutting off communications? I can think of lots of emergencies where enhanced communications would be necessary. None whatsoever that require cutting it off.
I'm sure nobody has ever threatened to invade Australia.
You mean, other than in 1942?
- The constitution is starting to look like a bad joke.
It's in fine shape. The US just had one of the biggest changes in the legislature in 70 years, and the massive power grab that is Obamacare is being defeated in court.
One strength of the American system is that defeated candidates voluntarily relinquish power, without violence or even histrionics. On the other hand, free speech and privacy have taken a big hit this last decade. Warrantless wiretaps are explicitly unconstitutional. An internet kill switch would also b
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The US government isn't planning one, the Obama administration claims it already has that authority. Here is part of Section 706 of the Communications act of 1934 (my emphasis):
KIll switch alternatives (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, I'll stick my head above the parapet, because I'm interested in getting opinions.
Let's assume for a second that the kill-switch proponents are acting from the best of motives. They are worried about the potential for a huge, effective, external Internet attack on critical infrastructure, that could do the worst things - cut power, stop water , turn all the traffic lights red - you've seen the movies.
They are concerned that it such an attack occurs the population will be screaming "Why didn't you plan, why don't you stop it, how come you can't turn external connections off, you bozos?".
So they are planning and worrying - as they should.
What is wrong, in principle with a killswitch, if the correct checks and balances are in place? What is a better solution?
Re:KIll switch alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Take responsibility for the security of the services you host on the internet?
Re:KIll switch alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
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Because that has been a model of success for preventing worms, spam, botnets, DDOSm and all the other old internet security problems? I guess the critical infrastructure is safe then, even in the event of direct attacks on it.
Re:KIll switch alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
because they are setting up an attack vector, where none existed, that could be used to bring down the internet.
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Obviously there would be no safeguards built in.
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which would probably be as safe as if they did put safe guards in
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Why do services such as power, water, and traffic lights have to be on-line? Wouldn't it make sense not to have any sensitive services connected to the Internet in the first place?
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Why do services such as power, water, and traffic lights have to be on-line? Wouldn't it make sense not to have any sensitive services connected to the Internet in the first place?
Well okay but consider that I have been involved in supporting air traffic control systems around the world. None of them are connected to the Internet but the people who manage them are absolutely reliant on the Internet to exchange information about the systems they manage.
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None of them are connected to the Internet but the people who manage them are absolutely reliant on the Internet to exchange information about the systems they manage.
In which case turning OFF the Internet would accomplish... what?
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None of them are connected to the Internet but the people who manage them are absolutely reliant on the Internet to exchange information about the systems they manage.
In which case turning OFF the Internet would accomplish... what?
It would make those people unable to keep the infrastructure they manage working correctly.
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That's reasonable, but a kill-switch would only hurt the communications, not help them.
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This is correct. But there are still other means of communication that could be used to work around the problem until the internet can be brought back. It would certainly lead to a few more traffic jams, but we're a far cry from the meltdown of civilization as we know it.
Not to mention, as has been said before, that shutting down the internet would not really help if the problem is that the internet has become unavailable.
economics (Score:2)
Power companies lower their prices by instantly selling excess, and instantly buying extra power rather than fire up backup natural gas generators that are less efficient (in the US). The communications links used for this would be too expensive to build as new stand alone links. They really should be through VPNs or better yet, hardware AES links or something.
Water has few if any excuses that I know of.
Traffic lights have the best ones. To manage city-wide traffic there has to be communication between p
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Power companies: Shutting down the internet would not solve their problem of buying/selling. They could still not buy/sell, because the resource used to do it has turned from crippled to unavailable. That does not improve anything. Quite the opposite.
Traffic lights: I know not a single traffic light system in any city I have had the honor of working for that relies on the internet to connect their traffic light systems. Either, if they really need to adjust them in real time, they have their own cables (sin
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I know a few solutions that even use a "real" network (networked computers controlling the traffic lights, either connected by cables or WiFi), but none of these solutions have any connection to the internet.
Technically, it would be possible to invade those networks and do a "hostile takeover". But you'd still have to be on site, it's nothing you could launch half a planet away. Also, the damage you could do is fairly limited, confined to a usually very small area (less than one town).
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You don't need to keep the commands to the lights secret; you just need to authenticate them. Each light having a copy of a single signing key and digital signatures on the messages will suffice.
Re:KIll switch alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Egypt shows that the killswitch can't be used for more than a week or so because business and Government both complain that they need it to do their work and keep things running. If it lasted a week in Egypt I reckon it would last a day in the US. At the same time people are good networkers and they know how to get the word out. An intranet can be a wifi card and a copy of mediawiki, though I am sure the solutions used in Egypt were pretty low tech. In short the kill switch does more damage than good. It can't be used for any length of time and it is pretty easy to work around. You may as well switch off the water and see how far you get.
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Actually, I think that the idea that the NSA doesn't already have one in place is pretty far-fetched. The real question, to me, is: what would cause them to actually use it?
A leak which they couldn't stop in time.
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Just how critical is your "critical infrastructure" if you can render it unusable (i.e. take it offline), at a moments notice, and would prefer to do so as an alternative to it being destroyed?
The only difference between taking it offline and destroying it, is that it (might) take longer to bring back online afterwards, if it's destroyed.
It's like saying "enemy bombers are about to bomb our city" and responding: "to prevent this, we'll burn the city down!".
What you should have, as your counter-strategy, is
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Systems control is a mature field, I don't think the engineers who built such "critical" infrastruture would make it relaint on the internet without some sort of contingency.
Re:KIll switch alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Secure the infrastructure that you expose to the internet. Make sure that no evil-doers can get in. If there *is* an attack and it all goes horribly wrong disconnect the infrastructure. No need to pull down the entire network.
If you want to stop burglars you put a lock on your door, you don't dig up the street that they use to get to your door.
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What is wrong, in principle with a killswitch, if the correct checks and balances are in place?
Because the guy with his finger on the button is judge, jury, and executioner. Checks and balances are fine until the government grants themselves "special powers" and does whatever the hell it was going to do anyway.
But apart from that, no, nothing is wrong with it.
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What is wrong, in principle with a killswitch, if the correct checks and balances are in place? What is a better solution?
The correct checks and balances do not exist. The "kill switch" is to contact the ISP and ask them to stop routing traffic. If the ISP is not a common carrier and fails to do this immediately, hold them accountable for the traffic. If they are a common carrier then give them some time to get it dealt with. The legal system exists to handle this already.
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The correct checks and balances do not exist. The "kill switch" is to contact the ISP and ask them to stop routing traffic. If the ISP is not a common carrier and fails to do this immediately, hold them accountable for the traffic. If they are a common carrier then give them some time to get it dealt with. The legal system exists to handle this already.
The carriers in the US have already demonstrated the willingness to cooperate with even illegal government requests - and then showed that they have the lobbying muscle to get Congress to pass retro-active immunity and get the President to sign it.
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So in your scenario they plan for an attack. What's the worst an attack could do - I'd venture it's to shut the entire internet down. So at the first sign of attack they will skip straight to the worst-case scenario? Under what conditions would a full scale takedown be less destructive than an attack?
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First of all, forget everything you've seen in the movies. EVERY SINGLE THING.
NO single piece of critical infrastructure is accessible through the internet. Not a single one. If it is, unhook it. NOW! Not when the big DDoS strikes, do it now and find a solution around it. The internet is in its current state NOT a reliable, tamper and fail proof means of communication. Funny, that's what it was designed to be. Unfortunately, it evolved past this, has become commercial and it is by no means as resilient anym
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If nuclear plants have a connection to the internet, your problem is not an internet kill switch but this security hazard altogether.
NO security critical system should be allowed to be connected to a potentially hostile network (and I think I need not argue that the internet is way beyond "potentially"). That's basic common sense.
Have the CISO along with the CTO fired and replace them with people who can do their job.
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Because you can never ensure that the checks and balances will always be in place. Any power that can be abused will be abused, it's just a matter of time. NEVER assume that the government is acting from the best of motives.
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Dr Evil would have turned all the traffic lights GREEN.
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cut power, stop water , turn all the traffic lights red - you've seen the movies.
.....
So they are planning and worrying - as they should.
Look - the terrArtists want to turn off power. Quick! Lets use our emergency plan number one, turn it off ourself!
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Let's assume for a second that the kill-switch proponents are acting from the best of motives. They are worried about the potential for a huge, effective, external Internet attack on critical infrastructure, that could do the worst things - cut power, stop water , turn all the traffic lights red - you've seen the movies.
Yes we have, and so have the legislators. That's the problem.
The problem is working from the assumption that the "nightmare scenarios" in the movies are likely, or even possible.
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What is wrong, in principle with a killswitch, if the correct checks and balances are in place? What is a better solution?
Well to start with the term "Kill Switch" isn't defined at all, anywhere. Are we talking about some kind of automated system? Are we talking about adding a special government login to all the core internet routers so they can just shut them down? The Devil is in the details, and we have none right now.
We really don't need to implement any kind of technology solution. We already can easily shut down traffic to/from any ip space we want to. All it takes is a someone to say "do it" and the people with the right access to actually do it. If this "kill switch" is simply a pre-determined set of procedures, and a clear communication chain between the White House and the Tier1 internet providers, a few brief phone calls is all it would take to shut down any IP space within a few minutes.
Agree: we don't really need to implement the kill switch... but only because it is impossible to do it. And no, "block whatever IP" is not nearly enough when you speak of hundreds of thousands of IP addresses to be identified first, blocked afterwards, all in a short time.
To illustrate: create a stealth botnet inside the perimeter (say, inside US borders) and at a certain moment trigger the attack. The kill-switch will do what? Shutdown the perimeter***? That's useless, the botnet is inside the perimeter.
That's nice. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The only problem is people aren't pissed off enough to do the sensible thing. Why riot and protest, just equip enough snipers and snipe top ranking officials.
1. Dictators giving you the blues? Snipe away.
2. ?
3. Instant freedom.
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5.
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Dunno, byt the GP wording, it is more like
4. Instantly replaced by a even worse despot who...
5. is snipped away shortly after.
6. ???????
7. Civil war.
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However in a Australia, whilst it would be fairly easy to shut down the cell phone network, there is so many leaky holes out of the country for internet (much of international bandwidth is in the control of Universities etc for example) that I don't think the Government would be able to do it.
They can't even implement an internet filter that is their policy, let alone shut it off.
Only at the moment. (Score:1)
FFS - NBN is a kill switch (Score:2)
NBN rolled out with almost all traffic traveling over a backbone controlled by ine entity is a kill switch.
A single point of failure with one control system and a major control interface?
Who needs legislation when you control the router tables?
All the other isps will interconnect. That just leaves the very few submarine cables and satellites to manage.
A big Hi to the people at DSD.
code for "we are drafting legislation" (Score:2)
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Isnt this against the point of the internets (Score:1)
I speculate that this is a major reason behind tiered internet. the kill switch can shutdown only th
Are kill switches the most effective method? (Score:2)
A kill switch lets people know that it has been flipped. Things stop functioning entirely, and the net "routes around it".
Why not instead use a "congestion switch" to slow down traffic to a point where government created misinformation can be spread in real time to achieve whatever goals the government wants?
I'm surprised that people aren't pooling wifi (Score:1)
You think that by now some wifi router setups would be able to great local micro-inter nets with some data caching so local communities could hope over the local wifi grid.
Handy for publishing local papers on what colour pants your neighbour has and how often they do or don't wash them.
Could possibly do similar with parked or moving vehicles (though Doppler may be an issue, should be overcome-able).
big gaps could be crossed with two men and some flash lights stood on top of hills, or the phone network etc..
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As for an Australian internet kill switch - three backhoes would get just about everything at once because not much bandwidth i
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Interesting but confusing sig which I assume is about the insanity of order versus the superiority of anarchy. Read more books to get some idea of how to write that idea more clearly or get out more and get better ideas to avoid simply being a useful idiot for anyone that wraps themselves in the flag.
No kill switch? Ha. (Score:5, Informative)
This is the same government that wants to be able to blacklist any URL secretly.
The EFA AU said it best: http://www.efa.org.au/2011/02/03/conroy-not-fooling-anyone/ [efa.org.au]
Thanx Aussies (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOab8lYI2H8 [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obmP9UuOn-4 [youtube.com]
What use is a mouth.... (Score:2)
....if you are unable to speak?
Or put another way: what use is internet access if the site you want to visit is on the secret blacklist?
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Well I did my bit by putting him last on the Victorian senate voting slip.
Re:When can we get rid of this guy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly? The only way to get rid of unelected officials is constitutional reform. I really thought this was going to be the generation to do it, but it seems there's too many of us around who have fond memories of standing on the assembly ground to God Save The Queen.. and we can't talk about changing the constitution without talking about finally pulling our finger out and cutting the safety line to mother England. Or, ya know, we could petition the US to become their 52nd state - right after Israel.. I keed, I keed!
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a senator of a major political party, yes.. two words: proportional representation.
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As long as Conroy gets his face in the media he is pretty much guaranteed a seat in the senate.
What's all this about a "Backbone" (Score:2)
Get rid of him - by all means. You'll just get another tool, who slips Aussie passports to Israeli money-launderers and "intelligence" agents. Australia is severely compromised by supra-national, deep-state actors.
Backbone? These are cthonic molluscs.
Besides, MPLS is a backbone replacement technology. ;-)
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I agree, the bloke is an epic twat. But he's good at wasting large amounts of money, I'll give him that