As Egypt Goes Offline US Gets Internet 'Kill Switch' Bill Ready As Egypt's government attempts to crackdown on street protests by shutting down internet and mobile phone services, the US is preparing to reintroduce a bill that could be used to shut down the internet.The legislation, which would grant US President Barack Obama powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet, would soon be reintroduced to a senate committee, Wired.com reported.It was initially introduced last year but expired with a new Congress. Introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet. Last year, Lieberman argued the bill was necessary to "protect our people".

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LUCKILY FOR THE NATION LIEBERMAN HAS REALIZED THE HORRENDOUS DAMAGE HE HAS CAUSED AND IS FINALLY STEPPING DOWN. GO READ THE CONSTITUTION. THIS IDIOT WON'T BE MISSED!

How Egypt did (and how your government could) Shut Down The Internet

Like in Egypt, in Europe almost all interconnection happens in the capitals of the countries involved. Not so in the US: because the country is so large, and traffic volumes are so high, large networks may interconnect in as many as 20 cities. Numerous intercontinental sea cables land in the Boston, New York, Washington DC, Miami, Los Angeles, and Seattle regions. So in Egypt or many medium-sized countries, killing the connections between ISPs wouldn't be too hard. In the US, this would be quite difficult. Assuming someone in high places has an Internet kill switch, shutting down just the international connections would require a lot of manual work, or the preexistence of an infrastructure that can make this happen automatically through management protocols. Of course such a system would never be triggered by accident or by a disgruntled employee.The old story that the Internet was built as a military network to withstand nuclear attacks is pretty much an urban legend, but despite that, it's surprisingly hard to kill. It can be done, however, if you're a government and you try really, really hard.
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