Not sure why you are downvoted. Some countries even use them during testing times so students don’t cheat or get distracted or whatever when taking tests. I’m not even kidding
Back when that bill I linked was introduced, the generally-accepted narriative was that “sure most governments can shut off the internet to their own countries, but the U.S. can shut off the internet for the whole world.” So, yes, other countries have internet kill switches, but if that’s (still) true, probably no country can more drastically hobble the worldwide internet as a whole.
The root DNS servers are in the U.S… The first internet backbone is in the U.S… In 2010, it seemed like the U.S. government did have the power to make virtually the entire internet grind to a rapid halt.
IIRC there was also language in the bill saying all kinds of bullshit things about how since the internet was started in the U.S. by a U.S. government agency, the U.S. “owned” the internet and thus… had every right to shut off the internet if they so chose or some shit.
Since I first saw your comment, I did a little googling. Not a ton, and the sources I’ve found so far aren’t all that reliable. But mostly the answers I’ve found say that the U.S.’ ability to shut down the internet to other parts of the world is more limited than I’d heard it was in 2010. I’m not sure if it was overstated back then or if things have changed since then (or if the sources I found are wrong and the U.S. government could pretty much destroy the whole internet if it chose to.) But hopefully it’s true that the U.S. doesn’t have that kind of power.
many countries have them. they are used to orchestrate media blackouts.
Not sure why you are downvoted. Some countries even use them during testing times so students don’t cheat or get distracted or whatever when taking tests. I’m not even kidding
https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/tracking-internet-shutdowns-in-2023
Back when that bill I linked was introduced, the generally-accepted narriative was that “sure most governments can shut off the internet to their own countries, but the U.S. can shut off the internet for the whole world.” So, yes, other countries have internet kill switches, but if that’s (still) true, probably no country can more drastically hobble the worldwide internet as a whole.
The root DNS servers are in the U.S… The first internet backbone is in the U.S… In 2010, it seemed like the U.S. government did have the power to make virtually the entire internet grind to a rapid halt.
IIRC there was also language in the bill saying all kinds of bullshit things about how since the internet was started in the U.S. by a U.S. government agency, the U.S. “owned” the internet and thus… had every right to shut off the internet if they so chose or some shit.
Since I first saw your comment, I did a little googling. Not a ton, and the sources I’ve found so far aren’t all that reliable. But mostly the answers I’ve found say that the U.S.’ ability to shut down the internet to other parts of the world is more limited than I’d heard it was in 2010. I’m not sure if it was overstated back then or if things have changed since then (or if the sources I found are wrong and the U.S. government could pretty much destroy the whole internet if it chose to.) But hopefully it’s true that the U.S. doesn’t have that kind of power.
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Originally, sure, but now of days its anycasted. And should we lose root servers, it’d be chaos for a while, but we’d survive.
i didn’t say it was a good thing. i think “media blackouts” is obviously negative enough.