Blocking internet access with a simple flip of the switch, called ‘kill switch’, is becoming a reality in many countries. Here’s why the move makes no sense
If you have been taught that the internet is free and cannot be controlled, you may want to think again. Late last week (January 28), the Egyptian government, with a single flip of a switch, blocked its slightly over 80 million citizens from accessing the internet or using a mobile phone.
Over 3,500 internet routes started vanishing almost simultaneously as the government attempted to stop the spread of protests against President Hosni Mubarak. Reports of internet access being partly restored started trickling in five days after the blockage, and only when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak pledged not to seek re-election after 30 years in power.
Meanwhile, around 22 per cent of Egypt’s population had to do without access to the internet for five days. Besides, the entire 80 million-odd population had no cellphones too for that period.
“Every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian internet service providers or ISPs for their internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world,” US-based security researcher, Renesys, had noted on the first day of the blackout, while terming the Egyptian government’s actions “unprecedented”.
Renesys also suggests there are huge associated economic costs. For one, the majority of internet connectivity between Europe and Asia actually passes through Egypt. The Gulf states, in particular, depend critically on the Egyptian fiberoptic corridor for their connectivity to world markets. Commodity traders, too, were nervous about the potential impacts on oil prices of any closure of the Suez Canal.
Internet censorship, though, is not new. It’s happened, and happens frequently, in countries like Burma, Cuba, China (which has blocked keyword searches of the word “Egypt” on the internet as well as on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter), Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and in limited ways in India too.
Ironically, however, on the very day the Egyptian government set out to block internet services in the country, Republican Senator Susan Collins floated the COICA Bill popularly called the ‘kill switch’ bill which, if approved, would give the US President similar powers. Critics are terming it as a violation of the First Amendment, and the move comes even as the US government is urging Egypt not to choke the internet.
The senators who favour the Bill reason that the move will help protect the US during cyberwars. Last June, the US government issued a release stating, inter alia, that “…The threat of a catastrophic cyber attack is real. It is not a matter of “if” an attack will happen; rather, it is a matter of “when.” This past March, the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms reported that the computer systems of the Executive Branch agencies and the Congress are now under cyber attack an average of 1.8 BILLION times per month.Additionally, cyber crime costs our national economy billions of dollars annually…”
The release termed the ‘kill switch’ as a “myth” rather than reality. “…Rather than granting a “kill switch,” (S. 3480) would make it far less likely for a President to use the broad authority he already has in current law to take over communications networks,” the release stated.
Critics, however, are not convinced. “…A third possible technical measure is sometimes referred to as the ―Internet Off- Switch, a version of which was proposed in the United States Senate in June 2010. In the very simplest sense, the Internet cannot really be switched off because it has no centre. On the other hand, at nation state level it is possible to envisage a situation where traffic passing through critical switches is, in an emergency, filtered and shaped…Localised Internet switch-off is likely to have significant unwanted consequences, ” caution Peter Sommer (London School of Economics) and Ian Brown (Oxford Internet Institute) as a contribution to the OECD project ―Future Global Shocks.
“The Internet is being taken – as a conquest – by changing the structure of the Internet’s mesh network. The first step is to setup choke points. This is accomplished by asserting control over all ISPs. Governments world-wide are passing laws that force local ISPs to monitor and record everything you do online. Then, if the police or the Feds want a record of your online activity, the ISP must provide it, and in many cases is forbidden (under pain of imprisonment) from letting you know that an inquiry was made,” argues Cryptohippie Inc in its report ‘The Taking Of The Internet’ published in 2010.
Meanwhile, given the mesh network design of the internet which makes centralised control difficult, netizens from around the world attempted to bypass Egypt’s security measures by using proxies like TOR (a network of virtual tunnels which offer anonymity and circumvent network filters), ham radio links and satellite communications.
Help also poured in from unexpected quarters. For instance, a blog post on Google’s official blog states that a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow (a company Google acquired recently) is helping people in Egypt connect with the globe to tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on some international phone numbers after which the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.
“We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there,” states the blog posted by Ujjwal Singh, CoFounder of SayNow and AbdelKarim Mardini, Product Manager, Middle East & North Africa.
This is certainly not the last of the internet blackouts. There are reports flowing in that there’s more trouble brewing in the middle-East. FoxNews is reporting that Syrians are gearing up for mass protests against the Assad dynasty that has ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 40 years. Shutting off internet access will not be able to blackout any such news, if history is anything to go by.
