OVERKILL?: Legislation under review in the U.S. Senate seeks to better protect the country's critical infrastructure from cyber attack, but some accuse the government of wanting to give itself the equivalent of an Internet "kill switch".
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The Egyptian government's recent move to shut down the region's Internet service providers (ISPs) has prompted concern worldwide that surfing could be silenced by politicians or leaders in other countries, including the U.S. Adding to this fear of a so-called Internet "kill switch" are bills proposed in the past couple of years that seek to give the White House the authority to essentially disconnect the country's electrical utilities, telecommunications lines and other critical infrastructure from the Internet in the event of a major cyber attack.
The latest such bill, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, was introduced last June by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and revised in December by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It calls for the formation of a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would be responsible for protecting both federal computer networks and critical infrastructure owned by the private sector against cyber attacks.
Although the White House already has broad wartime powers, making aspects of the proposed act redundant, opposition to the bill has centered on its provision to give the federal government the authority to define what is meant by "critical infrastructure." According to the bill (pdf), the government can "take measures to protect any computer system whose destruction or disruption of reliable operation would cause national or regional catastrophic effects." This could include cutting off the system from the Internet. Owners of facilities labeled as critical infrastructure would be notified as soon as this designation is made. An owner could appeal this designation but, as the bill is currently written, the government would make the final decision to disconnect, which is not subject to judicial review.
The bill does not propose to disconnect the Internet itself, yet critics remain anxious. "We're troubled by the idea that the president could declare an emergency and shut down digital communications," Free Press Action Fund Campaign Director Timothy Karr said in a prepared statement posted to the organization's Web site. Although Lieberman and bill co-sponsors Susan Collins (R–Maine) and Tom Carper (D–Del.) have issued their own statement saying that they do not seek to "empower the president to deny U.S. citizens access to the Internet," Karr is unconvinced. The promises "that the bill won't give the president 'kill-switch' powers aren't very reassuring," according to Karr's statement. "The devil is always in the details, and here the details suggest that this is a dangerous bill that threatens our free speech rights."
Others opposed to the bill include Steve DelBianco, director of the trade group NetChoice, who told Reuters in September he objected specifically to the part of the bill that would bar companies designated as "critical" from fighting that designation in court.
To better understand Lieberman's bill and its potential impact, Scientific American spoke with James Lewis, senior fellow and director of the Center for Strategic & International Studies's Technology and Public Policy Program. Lewis took opponents of the bill to task for inventing the idea of an Internet kill switch, defended several changes the bill would make to White House cyber security oversight, and questioned whether government should let critical infrastructure owners determine how these systems are protected from cyber attacks.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Are you surprised by the Egyptian government's tactic of cutting off Internet access in an attempt to control anti-Mubarak protesters?
It's become part of what some governments have to do to maintain their political control. They're not the first; they won't be the last. Other countries have extensive monitoring of communications, and several restrict access to the Internet. Less democratic states worry about the political effects of the Internet—that it's going to create new opportunities for resistance, for organization and for protest, and undermine the legitimacy of the regime. We don't have those problems in the U.S. because dissent is sort of a normal part of our existence.
Lately there have been concerns that an Internet shutdown could happen in the U.S., particularly with regard to new legislation that seeks to give the government the right to require owners of critical infrastructure to implement certain cyber security measures. There have been several efforts over the past decade to find some way of better protecting critical infrastructure from cyber attack. What, if anything, is special about the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010?
It really tackles some of the key issues that have bedeviled U.S. cyber policy for 15 years. The central part is that voluntary action is no longer sufficient for national security and that the private sector cannot secure their networks against advanced opponents. We know the ability of any individual critical infrastructure owner to undertake cyber security will be uneven—some companies do a great job and some companies don't.
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10 Comments
Add CommentSurfing the net is not critical. To protect critical stuff, get the machines running it off the public internet. Disable optical and USB flash drive connections (and all other, older, ports) to the workstations hooking to the mainframes or server farms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince people are corruptable and spies/saboteurs can get into facilities, no complete protection is possible. But as long as machines are exposed to public access (internet, cd/dvds, usb drives, etc.) the amount of protection possible is only medium, a little better than that of a tech-savvy home computer user.
I say the government needs the power to shut off the internet. Next time a certain country near the Sea of Japan gets decides to be bad they can slap em' in the face.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI say the government needs the power to shut off the internet. Next time a certain country near the Sea of Japan decides to be bad they can slap em' in the face.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe root vunerability in our countries infrastructure is due to the fact that software companies in the US have been able to do business with "shrink-wrap" license agreements which basically obsolve them of having their product work as they say it should; so actual security in these applications and products is an after thought. If we held companies to a higher standard (yes the cost of mission critical software would go up) then they would have to spell out how secure their product actually is and then stand behind that claim. Cutting off the internet to protect our key infrastructure systems at the expense of the free flow of information (regardless of whether it is friendly to the current government powers) is like shooting the dog because it has fleas when an anti-flea bath would do the trick!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Shutting off the internet from a company" can be the same as "shutting down the company". Now we are talking (I hope) only about "critical infrastructure" which (I can only assume) wouldn't include E-Bay and the sorts - who's existence depends on the internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut many of the common practices today place companies at risk if the plug was pulled - either by "us" or "them".
Every system that is "moved to the cloud", or outsourced to remote locations (to decrease costs) increases this network dependency. Internal communications depend on it (e-mail and phone). Business systems are centralized and accessed via communications link that effectively "go over the internet" - at least physically.
When networks were less reliable, much work was done to keep critical resources localized to minimize issues "when" (not if) the network stopped working. Today's networks are (seemingly) reliable enough for many companies to be betting the business on those connections remaining up.
This is hard enough of a problem to solve, but then you also throw in the fact that so many companies are multi-national, with networks and systems having global dependencies.
Don't fall for this New World Order stuff. The New World Order will initiate the cyber-attacks, then they will claim they need the power to control the internet to prevent the cyber-attacks that they themselves have initiated. The American public will be duped once again and we will give our government the power to control the internet. There goes our ability to communicate and our freedom of expression.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe New World Order will fail. The global awakening cannot be stopped.
I agree that the Federal government needs an ability to protect critical assets in case of an attack. However, just as there are strict limits on the situations where the military is allowed to control private property to protect the country, there should be clearly specified limits on the control of these critical assets. Also, there must be access to judicial remediation; to deny legal appeals would give too much power to the government. I believe Mr. Lewis' attitude toward the situation is highlighted by his statement "...we have to keep the Internet open and unstructured because that will empower innovation. People really believe that. People also believe in flying saucers, and these ideas are about equal." Excuse me?!?!? He believes the idea that believing in openness in communications fosters innovation is equivalent to believing in flying saucers?!?!? That's using an emotive argument to belittle anyone that disagrees with him. I believe experience has shown science and society flower with openness in communications. And is he considering that shutting down or disconnecting telecommunications won't affect the Internet? I suppose you'll still have access to your home network.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, yes, i agree the government needs some control, but it should require specific, transparent, high-threshold protocols to invoke and it should be subject to judicial review.
I recall three major episodes in our history during my own lifetime when instruments of our government were used to silence critics of government policy. The first was the painful experience of the McCarthy era that had intellectuals of every sort looking over their shoulders.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe second was the period when undercover agents from Hoover's office and elsewhere made mush of our civil liberties, when the Nixon crowd got so carried away that the very presidency itself was compromised, and when the Central Intelligence Agency busied itself with grossly illegal activity in Central America and elsewhere in the Iran/Contra scandal.
The third and most recent period is still with us and we find massive invasions of privacy, lavish use of heavily-armed civilian police, lawless behavior by mercenaries, exponential growth in the private prison industry, and what seems to be unbridled behavior by mega-corporations given their imprimatur by the conservatives on our Supreme Court and in our Congress.
One can go back in time to the Palmer raids after World War One, or still further back to the Alien and Sedition Laws in the early years of the Republic.
Why should we trust the faceless and not particularly competent operatives who now sniff around the digital discourse we enjoy in our millions?
Billions, potentially, as global networking finds its stride.
There's some really dangerous potential for brutish and cynical abuse of authority hanging out there in "What if" land and it's already the case that I can legally be "disappeared" for daring to make that statement in these United States.
We need a better handle on guarding our guards. The Romans forgot that and it didn't work out so well for them, did it!
FMarkus
We are the Illuminati and you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Individuality is irrelevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr maybe we just don't want Iran to trash our economy with a $500 scumware bundle.
This disconnect would have to be physical and is easily bypassed by one careless person with a wireless connection such as a cell phone. With the recent effort to replace the centralized domain name registry with a distributed registry that would be somewhat immune to centralized control, I find this idea more challenging than scary.
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