kill switch – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "kill switch"

UK's New 'Digital Economy' Law Somehow Now Gives Police The Power To Remotely Kill Phone Service

from the sidestepping-debate-with-last-minute-additions dept

The UK’s long-gestating Digital Economy Act has finally gone into force. The law is mainly interested in porn and pirates — two issues most of the UK public is far less interested in having subjected to intrusive regulation.

But just keeping an eye on who is or isn’t availing themselves of porn/torrents isn’t the only intrusive aspect of the Act. As Joseph Cox of Motherboard points out, an amendment to the law grants some pretty scary new powers to UK law enforcement, allowing them to kill citizens’ means of communication.

[L]aw enforcement agencies can remotely disable or restrict a mobile phone if it is suspected of being used for drug dealing or related to it, and in some cases regardless of whether a crime has actually been committed, according to legal commentators.

Law enforcement isn’t being given a kill switch. But it’s being given the next best thing. With a court order, police can approach service providers and have them restrict or cut off service. The only thing law enforcement will have to provide is a vague theory the targeted phones may be involved in criminal activity.

Orders can apply if the user is “facilitating the commission by the user or another person of a drug dealing offense,” or “conduct of the user that is likely to facilitate the commission by the user or another person of a drug dealing offence (whether or not an offence is committed).”

Nice touch there, with the “whether or not an offence is committed.” A person may not know someone they communicate with is involved in criminal activity, but they’re at risk of having their phone service interrupted (possibly indefinitely) nonetheless.

The only way this part of the Act [PDF] could be considered “narrowed” or “tailored” is its limitation to alleged drug-related crimes. That narrowness is immediately removed once you realize how things like buying gardening supplies or driving around with too many air fresheners is considered evidence of drug trafficking.

So, UK police will be doing even more “pre-crime” work, robbing people of their ability to converse with others or keep up with the world around them using nothing more than a target being in the same social circle as criminal suspects currently under investigation.

Filed Under: crimes, digital economy, kill switch, mobile phones, uk

DailyDirt: GMO, GMO, Wherefore Art Thou, GMO?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Genetically modifying animals and plants is a growing concern — with some people totally against the idea. And there are now a variety of biotech tools that make defining GMOs a bit less clear-cut for the general public. Taking a gene from a sea animal and putting into a pig sounds extremely unnatural, but does simply removing a gene sound as bad? Or what if farmers used traditional breeding techniques to get to a particular genetic end goal that was discovered by less “natural” genetic experimentation?

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: biotech, crispr, genetically modified organism, gmo, jurassic park, kill switch, roundup ready
Companies: monsanto

Bad Idea: California Legislature Passes Bill To Mandate Mobile Phone Kill Switches

from the very-bad-idea dept

We’ve explained a few times now why the idea of mandatory kill switches for mobile phones is a really bad idea and a slippery slope to abuse. So, of course, the California legislature has passed a bill mandating it, introduced by California State Senator Mark Leno and sponsored by SF District Attorney George Gascon. While end users could “opt-out,” how many people do you think will actually make that decision?

The reasoning behind this bill seems sound: a kill switch makes stealing phones less valuable, thereby decreasing phone theft. But, the mandate is dangerous for a number of reasons. If individuals want to use a kill switch there are plenty of third party apps they can get to do that themselves. But much scarier is how such kill switches will undoubtedly be abused. Having a single technology that can brick a ton of phones will be a very tempting target for hackers. And, it will probably be even more tempting for law enforcement for a variety of reasons. Someone videotaped the police doing something bad? Instead of having to go confiscate the phone, why not just brick it from afar? This seems like yet another bill pushed with good intentions that risks some very dangerous consequences.

Filed Under: california, kill switch, law enforcement, mobile phones, slippery slope, stolen phones

Cell Phone Kill Switches Are A Slippery Slope For Abusive Governments

from the you're-not-helping dept

Fri, Feb 21st 2014 01:31pm - Karl Bode

Last Spring, wireless carriers and the government jointly announced that they’d be collaborating on building a new nationwide database to track stolen phones (specifically the IMEI number). The goal was to reduce the time that stolen phones remain useful, thereby drying up the market for stolen phones and reducing the ability of criminals to use the devices to dodge surveillance. The move came after AT&T was sued for not doing enough to thwart cellphone theft, the lawsuit alleging AT&T was intentionally lax on anti-theft practices because stolen phone re-activations were too profitable. After regulator pressure, AT&T launched new stolen device blocking tools and re-vamped their website with security tips.

Law enforcement has complained that none of these efforts have done much to stop cell theft and resale, in large part because phones stolen here are simply taken overseas and used there. This in turn prompted a push for new “kill switch” legislation in both New York and most recently San Francisco, in addition to a new bill proposed by Senator Amy Klobuchar we discussed last month. While perhaps well-intentioned, all of the bills have one thing in common: they forget that if you can kill your phone remotely, so then can governments, hackers, and anybody else.

Those concerns are part of the reason cell carriers oppose kill switch legislation (again, that and they profit off of re-activations and new plans), and the worries shouldn’t be taken lightly. There’s a long, long list of examples where remote or artificial termination technology (Monsanto’s wonderful scientific advancements are the first to come to mind) isn’t a particularly great idea. Information Week tries to hash through some of these to illustrate the dangers of the concept and its contribution to a broader surveillance state, where the control over your personal devices could become an illusion and institutionalized control becomes a threat:

“Mandatory phone kill switches will hasten the arrival of the Surveillance of Everything, an unavoidable consequence of the so-called Internet of Things. Using technology to extend the reach of property rights make as much sense for other objects as it does for phones. But in so doing, individual property rights mingle with social mores and government prerogatives. Nothing is truly yours on someone else’s network….Consider a recent Google patent application, “System and Method for Controlling Mobile Device Operation,” which describes research to help in “correcting occasional human error,” such as when phones have not been silenced in a movie theater.

The thing about kill switches is that they’re a manifestation of digital rights management. In the hands of individuals, perhaps they’re a good idea. But they won’t remain in the hands of individuals. They will be used by companies, organizations, and governments, too. And even when people believe they have control of their kill switches, authorities and hackers can be expected to prove otherwise.”

Granted governments could still shut down the BART network on protesters (one of the first examples the author gives) or kill Internet access in Egypt without necessarily needing a kill switch. A gifted hacker might also be able to remotely brick your current phone. But why would you want to make it any easier? There’s countless other ways to combat cell phone theft that doesn’t involve making an entire industry considerably less secure.

Filed Under: bart, egypt, kill switch, wireless
Companies: at&t

Really Bad Idea: Senator Klobuchar Wants To Mandate A 'Kill Switch' In All Mobile Phones

from the could-she-please-hire-a-technologist? dept

We hadn’t heard much from Senator Amy Klobuchar recently, but every time she gets anywhere near legislation involving technology, you should run screaming for the hills (or, rather, call your own Senators to tell them to block whatever awful plan she’s come up with). It’s amazing that one Senator can get technology so wrong. Klobuchar, famously, backed the companion bill to PIPA, called S.978 in the previous Congress, which would have made unauthorized streaming of content into a felony, putting all sorts of perfectly reasonable YouTube users at risk of possible criminal charges, and possibly jailtime. In 2012, she tried to introduce the “Cloud Computing Act of 2012” which would have modified the CFAA to apply criminal enforcement to cloud computing as well. However, legal experts described the bill as a complete disaster, with one saying that her “definition of cloud computing service is incoherent.”

Her latest move is to propose a bill that would mandate a kill switch in all mobile phones that could be activated remotely. The idea, here, is that this would allow those who had their phones stolen to disable them, rendering them (sorta) useless. It seems that, as with the other bills discussed above, Senator Klobuchar introduces these with the best of intentions, but with no clue about how technology works, or the likely “unintended” consequences of such things.

First, putting such a kill switch into all phones almost guarantees that it will be misused and abused in some form — whether by government officials looking to cut off communications (as has been done at the tower level) or by malicious hackers looking to kill a ton of phones. The kill switch is just too tempting a target. Second, the actual benefit of this is likely to be limited. Phones will still get stolen and people will figure out how to hack their way around the kill switch within hours of it existing. Third, there’s simply no reason for a law here. There are numerous software products that allow individuals to effectively do this on their own if they so desire. Mandating it, and adding fines to mobile operators who don’t offer such a thing seems totally unnecessary.

So, even if we assume the best, and believe that, with all of these laws, Senator Klobuchar has the best of intentions, could she please hire someone who understands basic technology before writing any more bad laws that will cause harm?

Filed Under: amy klobuchar, kill switch, mobile phones

Turns Out Egypt Did Have An Internet Kill Switch

from the flip-the-switch dept

After Egypt shut off internet access a few weeks back, most of the analysis of how it was done suggested in basically involved calling all of the country’s ISPs and ordering them to shut down access. Yet, a new report claims it really was more of a “kill switch” scenario, in that the majority of the shut-off came from flipping a single switch in the Ramses exchange — a key data center in Cairo. That didn’t stop everything, so the rest was accomplished with a few phone calls — but it was that switch flip that did most of the work.

The same report notes, as we predicted, that the economic impact of the shutdown were pretty big:

The presentation suggests the weeklong shutdown had severe effects on Egypt?s economy, in the short term from loss of commerce, and in the long term from a likely plummet in tourism, and an exodus of call centers from Egypt.

The presentation concludes that the ministry?s course of action in obeying the orders may have some positive effects in the future: ?Itʼs unlikely that Egyptʼs communications ministry will ever be asked to flip that switch again.?

Well, hopefully it also makes other countries aware of the negative impacts of killing off internet access.

Filed Under: egypt, internet, kill switch

Probably Not The Best Time To Introduce Legislation That Can Be Described As Having An 'Internet Kill Switch'

from the that's-not-going-to-fly dept

We’ve already discussed how, contrary to the claims of some, there really isn’t an attempt to create “an internet kill switch” in the US. There is a (admittedly bad) proposal concerning how the US would respond in the event of some sort of “cyber attack.” The proposal itself would allow the government to mandate how certain “critical infrastructure” pieces of the internet should respond in the event of such an attack. What isn’t explained is why such a legal mandate is really needed. If you’re running the Hoover Dam, say, (and stupidly have important infrastructure connected to the internet) and the feds point out a way to avoid or minimize an ongoing hack attack, are you really going to say no?

That said, since the bill has falsely been described as having an internet kill switch, it seems like particularly bad timing to re-introduce it now, just after Egypt actually did pull out its own version of an internet kill switch.

While it may be a good thing that this bill gets killed off no matter what (since it is a bad piece of legislation), I’m a bit worried by how quickly everyone has jumped on this “internet kill switch” claim to describe it. What happened in Egypt is important to pay attention to and to learn from, but it doesn’t mean that we should immediately jump to the conclusion that that’s what the US is trying to do. There are serious problems with the bill, and we should discuss those, rather than just calling it an internet kill switch, when that’s not what’s in the bill.

Filed Under: internet, kill switch, politics, regulations

If You Ask The Question In A Certain Way, 61% Of Americans Say They Support An Internet Kill Switch

from the but-you-gotta-read-the-question dept

Slashdot points us to a story claiming that 61% of Americans “support an internet kill switch.” Of course, this is a topic that’s been hotly debated lately, with some attempt at passing laws that aren’t really a “kill switch,” but merely a coordinated way to reroute internet traffic in the event of some sort of “attack” (broadly defined) from a particular country.

That 61% number certainly sounded pretty high, and I was doubly skeptical when I read that the study came from Unisys, a security company who clearly stands to profit from greater “worries” about the still apparently bogus concept of “cyberwar.” And, of course, people always point out that you can get a survey to say pretty much anything you want, depending on how you ask the question. So I went digging to see if I could find exactly what question Unisys (and its partner Lieberman Research Group) used to get this result. It took a bit of searching, but here’s the question:

If there were clear evidence of a malicious cyber-security attack by a foreign government against our military, civilian government, electrical grid, financial systems, or other critical infrastructure, should the President have the authority to take control of or effectively shut down portions of the Internet to mitigate a crisis?

First of all, that’s a big, big “if” right at the beginning there. Second, all of this assumes that an attack on the military, the government, the electrical grid, the financial system or other “critical infrastructure” could actually come via the internet. This isn’t a reason to support an internet kill switch. It’s a reason to get people to ask more reasonable questions, rather than broadbased scary questions, without highlighting the corresponding concerns, civil liberties issues and other worries. If you make any question “scary” enough, you can get people to agree with you, but that hardly means that people would actually want such a kill switch if they understood (a) the likelihood of such an attack, (b) what such a “kill switch” would actually mean, and (c) what alternatives there are.

In other words, this is pure propaganda from Unisys, rather than any bit of meaningful data.

Filed Under: kill switch, surveys
Companies: unisys

Ex-CIA Chief Says US Gov't Should Be Able To Shut Down The Internet

from the um,-no dept

We’ve talked about all the hype over a supposed “kill switch” for the internet in recent cybersecurity legislation was misleading. There simply was no such thing in the proposed law — but apparently some government spymasters would like it to be true. Michael Hayden, who was the head of the CIA until recently, is out claiming that the President really should have the ability to shut down the internet because “cyberterrorism” is such a big threat. While he does say that the bar should be “really high” before such a kill switch could be used, he still doesn’t justify why it would ever make sense. Of course, this is the same guy who once denied that the 4th Amendment said “probable cause,” so he has a history of stretching things.

Separately, since FUDing up “cyberwar” claims seems to have become quite profitable for former gov’t spooks (now often working for private sector “security” companies looking to create moral panics and fears to drum up business), I wondered what Hayden is up to these days. And… what do you know… it appears that Hayden is now working for the Chertoff Group, the “security firm” founded by former head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. It seems like that sort of conflict of interest would be rather pertinent to any press coverage of what Hayden has to say, but for whatever reason, Reuters chose to leave that out of its story….

Filed Under: internet, kill switch, michael hayden

There Is No 'Internet Kill Switch' Legislation… And Pretending There Is Distracts From The Real Debate

from the overhyped-analysis dept

In mid-June, we noted that due to all the questionable cyberwar hype, Senator Joe Lieberman had introduced a “cybersecurity” bill. We had plenty of issues with that bill, but still found it odd a week or so later, when we started getting all sorts of submissions from people saying that Lieberman was trying to implement an “internet kill switch.” As bad as the bill appears to be, there isn’t an internet kill switch in the bill, and so we wrote another post pointing that out.

However, it appears that the meme of an “internet kill switch” — which apparently was first put forth by Declan McCullough — has pretty much taken over the debate on the bill. And some are noting that this is problematic, as there are lots of real issues to be discussed around the bill, and focusing on the bogus “internet kill switch” makes it less likely those other, real, issues will get as much attention.

Filed Under: internet, kill switch, legislation