TechStuff Classic: The Internet Kill Switch

Is there a kill switch for the Internet? Is that legal or ethical? Ben Bowlin joins the show to talk about it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and howda tech Are Yet It's time for a tech
Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published on May two

(00:26):
thousand fifteen. It is called the Internet kill Switch, and
I have a special guest, co host Ben Bolan. Hope
you enjoy. Hey, can remember to turn off the Internet
before you go out tonight, right, like before you leave
the room, turn off the Internet. That's it's not like that.
It's not I T crowd where you've got a little box, right,

(00:49):
this jen is the Internet. It's not that it's not
that good. But I thank you for your your kindness. Um. So,
the so the kill switch is, in general, it's a
concept that a party, most often a government, but not
necessarily because we'll talk about an example in the United

(01:11):
States that did not involve directly a government agency. But
usually it's a government elects to restrict or perhaps completely
eliminate access to the Internet in response to something. Right, Yes,
So this differs a little bit from filtering. Yeah, because

(01:33):
filtering is sort of a passive continual process that uh,
you know, if it goes well in most countries but
not all, uh, you won't really learn about it, just
won't be able to get to a certain website. So
a great example of that is China with a great
firewall of China, right, and they call it a firewall,
but really it's a web filter, and it's the whole

(01:55):
idea is that it filters out things that the Chinese
government finds objects noble and does not wish the Chinese
citizenship to have access to. And uh and in that case,
that is an ongoing situation, and we're going to talk
a little bit about that, and a little bit about
a few others as well as the more, um you know,
kind of temporary but all but equally terrifying uses of

(02:19):
shutting down Internet access for one reason or another. And
generally speaking, the justifications for this fall under various versions
of national security, but there are frequently, and I would argue, uh,
in most cases, justifiably criticisms of that approach that perhaps

(02:44):
there are other motivations at play besides trying to protect security,
even if they're not intended. They may be, they may
there may be undertones of that absolutely, absolutely because public
safety would be another uh sort of umbrella term. And
I don't want to be too cynical with this, but

(03:06):
I think we can all be honest, ladies and gentlemen
when we say that national security has an increasingly vague
definition depending upon which state uses the phrase. Yeah, I
would argue that almost every state that uses the phrase
national security keeps it purposefully vague because you well, I mean,
for one thing, it's impossible to anticipate everything, So I

(03:29):
can feel some sympathy that in that respect, and the
idea that if it's my job to ensure the protection
of a nation's people, I don't know how much sleep
I'm getting, but but then you know, it is entirely possible,
because we've seen it time and again to air too
far on the side of uh, you know, of of

(03:51):
trying to protect people. And I would also argue that
eliminating a massive means of communication does far worse to
endanger people than uh than not doing that, like that,
that you're not really promoting public safety by cutting off communication. Yeah,
I really wanted to get your thoughts on this, because
you're our tech expert or a texpert. That's way easier

(04:15):
to say it just so everyone knows. Our producer hopefully
cut out the four times I tried to say tech expert, Yeah,
we're not gonna if I had bloopers on this show,
that those would go at the end of this episode.
But I don't do that, all right, So the reason
that I want to hear about this is because it
sounds like almost this villainous James Bond type of thing.

(04:39):
You know, I'm going to shut down the Internet unless
you give me one billion dollars. But but you raised
a fantastic point um, which is that this has not
only been an idea that's that's a little older than
a lot of people might think. Sure, but it's by
no means and uncom thing. It's their precedents for this, right. Oh,

(05:02):
there's so many. So we're gonna start with nations other
than our own. But don't worry, we will get to
the United States because that, you know, I think in particular,
you're talking about a country that prides itself on certain
principles and it's very difficult to uh to to take

(05:23):
this idea and have it mesh with those principles. Right. So,
but before we get to that, let's talk about some
other countries where at least from the perspective of of
our position, we would say it's pretty cut and dry
that this is a draconian approach. So again, this is
from the perspective of two Americans. So we're sitting we're

(05:45):
sitting in a pretty big seat of privilege here. But
North Korea is the first example I was going to
point out, and North Korea that is, if you want
to talk about a nation that is very much concerned
with the control of access to the Internet, it's hard
to find a better representative than North Korea because, first

(06:09):
of all, uh, let me, let me go through what
you have to be able to do in order to
have access to the Internet in North Korea. Alright, alright,
walk me through it. Okay, So yours is in the
North Korea and you're hoping at one point to connect
to the Internet. Well, first, you have to obtain a
license to own a personal computer. It's like having a
license to own a weapon. You have to You can't
you can't go out and buy a computer on your own.

(06:30):
You have to get permission to own a computer first. Secondly,
you have to be lucky enough to be able to
buy one. Because the only state sanctioned source for computers
is a company called Morning Panda, which is owned by
the government. Um. If however, there's a caveat here, if
you're somehow fortunate enough to be one of the elite

(06:51):
in North Korea, you can skirt around this and you
could actually buy an unsanctioned computer, like an like an
Apple computer, like a top of the line computer that
has essentially smuggled in for you. So these are the
rules for the average joke This is these are the
rules for fort of the population of North Korea. So
if you're in that point zero zero one, then you're you.

(07:14):
You can ignore these other rules. Uh. But third is
that you would need to connect to that to a network, uh,
which is not the Internet. It's called the intra neet
or it's their internet called Kwangmyong which means bright Star.
So that's an intranet. It's internally based in North Korea

(07:36):
without connection to the outside Internet. But it looks kind
of like the Internet, particularly the Internet of the late nineties. UM.
It's running on Microsoft software that had been pirated from
Japanese sources. So it's it's all like the servers are
all internal servers, not connecting outside um. But in order
to do that, you need to be probably either in

(07:58):
a major city or in a university. Those are the
only places to have Internet connectivity. And if you aren't
in either of those two places, you're probably out of luck,
because internal travel in North Korea is not permitted without
a special dispensation. Yeah, so in other words, if you're
not there already, you may be stuck. All right, So
we've got all that taken care of. Now, let's say

(08:19):
that you are one of the elite, and you you
you merit certain consideration because of whatever whatever your position
happens to me, maybe you're maybe you're like ahead of
a propaganda or something along those lines. If you are
one of those very few people, you can access the
actual Internet with two other caveats. Well, first, first of all,

(08:43):
here's how few there are, right, So there's twenty five
million people living in North Korea. North Korea has one thousand,
twenty four I P addresses. In the United States, where
we have more than three million people, we have more
than a billion IP addresses. So that tells you that
we're talking about a tiny number of people. And the

(09:07):
the line leading into North Korea comes from China. So
your feed of the Internet is also behind the firewall. Yeah,
so you are one of the few people who can
access it. You're accessing it through a line that has
passed through China. You might there may be a couple
of satellite sources of of access which would not be

(09:30):
limited to the Chinese firewall. But uh yeah, and from
what I've heard, or at least from what people have
been able to suss out, the access is super slow. Yeah,
I've heard that too. Um, we're talking about the dial
up sound effect. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there have been
like cyber cafes, some of them are still using dial
up modems. So it's not it's not a cable or

(09:55):
or fiber optics system or anything like that. So that
that's an extreme example. And of course, obviously if the
North Korean government had decided that this is not a um,
not something they want anyone to have access to, it
would be relatively easy to shut it down because there's
just that one entry. Yeah, other than I guess mobile
phones that are smuggled in maybe yeah, but even then

(10:17):
you could as uh you know, as a government shut
down the cellular systems. So in that case, it's kind
of a scorched earth policy. But you can do it
so anyway. That's that's probably the most extreme case, apart
from maybe countries that are so they're in such a
developing stage as far as the internet is concerned, that
they haven't laid out an infrastructure fully yet. Those cases

(10:40):
it may be a little different. I'm looking mostly at
at countries that have had the opportunity to role out
in Yeah, so that that's an extreme example, but it
also shows how easily that could happen in that in
that state, in the DPRK or North Korea, just to
cut off that just that one point. Uh yeah. Now,

(11:00):
whereas China is another great example that we've already talked
about the firewall. So the Internet in China is is
largely censored. Um, there are ways for citizens who are
savvy to get around that, although it's not a safe
thing to do necessarily something yeah, and you can um

(11:22):
yeah and lots of proxies, Yeah you can. You can
potentially get around some of that, although the danger of
doing so is not is not insignificant. We'll be back
with more of this classic episode of tech stuff after
this quick break. China has also been known to use regionalized,

(11:48):
localized kill switches in provinces where there is unrest. So,
in other words, shutting down the the infrastructure that allows
for communication across the Internet, but only in localized areas.
We're not talking like a countrywide blackout, So this would
be like maybe unrest and Tibet leads to US shut down. Yes,

(12:13):
those are good examples. Yeah, exactly. It's the sort of
thing where if the government wants to impede the ability
of any protesters or voices of opposition, they can shut
down the communication lines, uh and then uh kind of
kind of squash that that way, or at least at
least decrease their impact. There are other examples. I mean

(12:34):
in Egypt in two thousand eleven, there was a pretty
infamous result of of the the president or the outgoing
president of Egypt shutting down the various services or sharing
on access to various services as a means of trying
to to squash protests in opposition. Syria two thousand twelve.

(12:58):
Now this one's interesting. You know, I don't know much
about this one, all right, So this one's right up
your alley, Ben, This is the stuff they don't want
you to know. Episode So Syria two thousand twelve. Syria
is in the middle of a civil war. Internet access
in Syria blacks out. It's knocked offline, so like it's

(13:21):
like the entire country just suddenly disappears from online. It's
goes black. Both sides accused the other side of sabotaging
the system so that no one could use the Internet. However,
according to one Mr Snowdon, neither side was responsible, and

(13:44):
in fact it was the n s A which was
attempting to infiltrate Syrian web servers to insert malware for
surveillance purposes and accidentally knocked their servers offline. And then
we're given just enough authority to hide their tracks rather
than actually help Syria get back online. Wow, so that's

(14:09):
a that's even more that's the states are so much higher.
I'm sorry I'm stuttering, but this is mind boggling to me.
This is a state shutting down another countries internet, not
not on purpose, but that's kind of not important. Really,
that's kind of the scariest part. Yeah, it's actually really
like because then you start thinking, like, not only do

(14:30):
you have amazing power, but you're operating on a three
Stooges level. You know, your job is to install this
one thing, and you've you've not You've burned the building
down around you, right, and like there's one wall standing
and it's got the thing you're supposed to install on it,
but the rest of the building is gone. The last
thing standing is the door, and the new door knob
right exactly. That's it. And uh, you know, this is

(14:55):
obviously not the same sort of thing as the kill
switches we're talking about in other cases, because again, that
was not the intention at the time. And this is
again according to Snowden, who gave an interview with Wired
and talked about this. So you know, I haven't actually
read any documents that directly link an say to this

(15:15):
event in Syria, but according to Snowden, that is what happened.
So so that is something I should stress. Yeah, So
that that's a great example. Another one Russia two thousand fourteen,
so very recent. Uh, there was a news story in
which it was reported that quote, Russian internet service providers

(15:36):
will be required to install equipment that would make it
possible to shut off Russia's access to the global Internet
in the event of an emergency. And uh, Dmitri Peskov,
who was Press secretary to a certain Vladimir Putin said
that there was no intention to isolate Russian users from

(15:56):
the global Internet. Uh. He playing to the inter Fact
news agency that the discussions will focus on the ways
to protect it from possible external actions, so essentially means
of protecting Russia from cyber attacks. Okay, whether from hacker
groups or from bash. There's there's also a possibility here

(16:19):
that might be that that might be apropos for this situation,
which is uh, financial catastrophes which you're shutting down an
Internet connection is a great way to shut down regular trade.
I'm sure it's also a criminal act. Yeah, well, and
the way I think of it is and this also
ties back. I'm sure we'll stress this again at the

(16:40):
end of the episode, that's shutting down the Internet. The
Internet we depend so heavily on it, not just for communications,
but for uh, for for trade, you know, for finances,
that doing doing something as drastic as shutting it down
would be disastrous. Even if you could argue that it

(17:02):
was justifiable, and even if it was for a short
amount of time, the consequences of that action would be
so tremendous as to probably in hindsight say that was
probably that was not the right thing to do. There's
a way, yeah, but well we'll talk more about that.
So so those are some of the other countries we talk.

(17:23):
There's also there's ongoing issues with Burundi um where there
have been some discussions about using various means to shut
down the ability for people to use Twitter and other
social media sites. But there are a lot of different
examples that there were examples during the incidents with Russia

(17:44):
and the Ukraine. I mean, there's just tons of different
examples around the world. And meanwhile, here in the United States,
we often think of ourselves, we Americans often think of
ourselves as sort of the the paragons of free speech
and our country value that's what our country was founded on,
one of the principles we were founded on. In that therefore,

(18:04):
you know, we have a really good foundation for fair
means of communication. Yeah, but the right to a free speech,
like I don't agree with you, but I will defend
to the death. So it sounds like, you know, we
would never mess around with that sort of thing. However, Yeah,

(18:28):
we've got a nice long history of actually putting it
into policy that we can totally that by we, I
mean the president can totally mess with things. I mean
this goes all the way back to the age of
the telegraph where the president, I think it was like
nineteen eighteen, where the president was was given the authority
in times of war and other major catastrophes, be able

(18:50):
to direct the use of the telegraph systems, so that
essentially superseding any other use of them and saying either
they need to be dedicated specifically for whatever, or shutdown
so that they can't be used for anything else. So yeah,
So that's that's a startling thing because we know that
this is the Communications Act, right, Well, that would be

(19:12):
the ninet that's the next one. The next one is
the Communications Act, which goes even further, right, Yeah, which
is says, uh, this was by f DR, I believe, right,
and this is control over the media. Uh. This this
gives like electronic communication in any end all forms. Yeah.

(19:33):
And this is one where there was argument for a
long time about whether or not the Internet falls under
this particular category. It's kind of in a parallel argument
to net neutrality. Yes, whether you can qualify the Internet
as a utility or another you know, a regulated uh

(19:54):
entity kind of like the the telephone industry, that sort
of stuff. Um, and it's it's related but not identical
to that. Obviously, there there are differences, big differences between
the two. But um. Nevertheless, some people say that this
Act gives the President the the explicit means to be

(20:15):
able to direct any kind of mass communication within the
United States for whatever purpose. If we're talking about a
time of war or other major event that threatens national security, right,
and it's also illegal for anyone to not help. Yes,
that's that's one of the that's one of the scary things.

(20:37):
And it also it also absolves any communications company of
any um legal proceedings to be pursued against it in
the wake of this. So, in other words, using modern examples,
if if the President of the United States goes to
A T and T and says shut it all down,
you know, Walter Peck style, and they flip the big

(21:00):
switch and all and all the A T and T
stuff goes offline, A T and T customers would not
be allowed to sue A T and T for that
because under this Act, A T and T is not
held responsible. They were they were following the rules as
laid out by the Act, and Uh, therefore they can't
be sued. Now, you might be able to bring some

(21:23):
sort of lawsuit against the government and try and have
the law changed, but you wouldn't, you know, under this
law you they would. They're like, listen, you know it
is the law that we were following. And again it's
four yeah. So uh. Meanwhile, so even if you, even
if you think the Internet is is um not beholden

(21:46):
to the same set of rules. Uh. In two thousand
and six that all became moot because that's when the
Department of Homeland Security adopted a policy that is called
Standing Operating Procedure through oh three or s o P
three oh three. And before we came in here, Ben
and I had had a brief little exchange where I said,

(22:07):
how terrifying is it to think of this as standard
operating procedure? Right? Yes? Yeah? And and furthermore, how terrified
is it to wonder about the other three hundreds something? Yeah?
And that's assuming there weren't more after three oh three? Right?
What else? Like, are we in violation of s OP

(22:29):
for nineteen or Something's just a small tangent. This reminds
me of when I was in London with my wife
and we saw a sign that said no busting in
the London underground, which will come back to in just
a second, but in the London underground. And I turned
to my wife and said, what is it? And she said,
I don't know. Are we doing it? Like I sure
hope not, because there's because it's apparently against the law

(22:51):
and we could get fined. So and obviously, I mean
for those who don't know, busking is is public performance
of various types of asking for money in return for
public performance. But at the time we had no idea.
So it's like that sort of thing, like are we
violating something? And and here's the deal. This particular standard
operating procedure was adopted pretty much in secrecy, right, Like

(23:14):
there's there's no there's no publicly available record of exactly
what what what sort of um situation has to be
in place in order for the Department of Homeland Security
to execute s OP three oh three, right or what
s sort of oversight? Yeah, yeah, there's there's no there's

(23:36):
no way for us to know because it's not published publicly. Uh,
and that that is a real issue of of some concern. Now, Um,
one thing I should say, said s OP three oh
three is not an Internet kill switch in the same
sense as you know, something that you would see in
North Korea or or whatever. It's UM, it's meant to

(23:59):
be localized, very much so, to the point where the
most of the language talks about using it to cut
off cellular service, mobile service, and wireless service within specific
areas like a tunnel or a bridge or maybe a municipality. Yeah, yeah, maybe.

(24:20):
And this, uh, this is strange because we know that
something like this has occurred right in San Francisco, right,
and before I talk about the San Francisco one, which
is extremely problematic. UM. The whole reason why this was

(24:40):
adopted in two thousand six stems from some attacks in
London that happened in two thousand five. We've got more
to say in this classic episode of tech stuff after
these quick messages. So in July of two thousand five,

(25:02):
there were the London underground bombings. On July seven, about
eight fifty in the morning in London time, UH, three
bombs in three different locations in the London London underground
system UH exploded within a minute of each other, like
within fifty seconds, all three had exploded. UH fifty two

(25:25):
civilians were well. There was a fourth one that exploded
an hour later on a double decker bus. So three
were on trains, one was on a double decker bus
and happened an hour later. Fifty two people were fifty
two civilians were killed. Uh seven people were injured, and
the four suicide bombers died as as well. I mean, um,

(25:47):
so the United States looked at this, and I also remember,
obviously this is also after nine eleven and two thousand one.
So the United States looks at this, and they the
Department of Homeland Security started looking into the possibility of
creating a system to shut down mobile and wireless service
in in the case that perhaps there was good reason

(26:10):
to suspect a coordinated terrorist attack on a system or
a municipality, the idea being that the bombers were using
cell phones to activate the bombs, to to detonate the bombs. Possible,
It is possible. I could not find anything official in
the investigation of the London attacks that definitively found that

(26:37):
the attackers use their mobile phones. It's just as possible,
or at least it is possible, maybe not just as possible.
It is possible that they all had their cell phones
on an alarm system to alert them of when they
needed to detonate, and then they used some of their
system because you know, if they're all using cell phones,
it's all it's all keyed into the satellites anyway, or

(27:00):
the cell the cell towers rather the cell tower service,
so um, you know, it's their time. Their clocks would
have all been synchronized already, so that's a possibility to
But assuming that they did use their mobile phones, then
the United States Department of Homeland Security was saying, well,
how can we create a system where we shut down

(27:20):
the ability for anyone to send a signal through these
wireless or mobile services, and that way we can prevent
any kind of attack of this nature from being carried
out the way it was intended. So that's kind of
the justification, or at least that's the justification that has
been alluded to by various parties involved. Now, yeah, you know,

(27:47):
you were alluding to something that happened in San Francisco,
So that's uh, that was around two thousand and eleven. Uh.
In two thousand eleven, a group named EPIC. You might
recognize that the Electronic Privacy Information Center began pursuing this

(28:09):
DHS well, for the sake of coolness, I'll call it
a kill switch. But I think you did an excellent
job showing how it is a little different. Because government
officials in San Francisco disabled the cell phone system during
a protest. Yeah, it's a protest that happened on the
Bay Area Rapid Transitor BART in San Francisco. And what

(28:31):
had happened was UM there there were protests that were
related to an incident in which a BART officer, so
a law enforcement officer working with BART or BART UM
had shot and killed a homeless man. And so there
the the BART operators essentially shut down cell service and

(28:54):
certain areas of the BART system. So think of like
cell tower repeaters that are in various areas, they shut
those down, they turned them off, killing cell service in
those areas. Uh. And the essentially they were doing so
to prevent the organization of spontaneous protests on the BART system.

(29:15):
And they justified their decision by saying that they were
afraid that any kind of organized, organized protest would uh
bring the safety of other people into question, that it
would be too dangerous. Overcrowding was one of the things
that listed in their official response statement, right, and they

(29:36):
and also you'll see some differences in the language they're
choosing because EPIC and the protesters themselves, so this was
a this was going to be a peaceful protest, whereas
Bart says, this was going to be a disruptive activity,
right that it leads to unsafe conditions. So so essentially
you could say, well, what happened, and Bart pretty much

(29:59):
disabled continue doing what it's doing for the time being. Anyway, Uh,
there's nothing that came out of that as far as
you know, a like a slap on the wrist or anything.
It was. It was essentially considered justified. And uh, and
it's particularly worrisome because it was in response to a protest,

(30:19):
not some sort of terrorist attack, the actual citizens of
the United States protesting something. And again, the First Amendment
gives us rights of free speech and assembly and and
and you could argue that this is a violation of
those rights. Um. And so this was definitely one of
those things that has been continuing to play out, and

(30:40):
that really gave EPIC the the the need to go
after Department of Homeland Security to say, all right, listen,
we need to know what are what are the guidelines
for s Op three oh three, What in what case
is it legal for the United States government to shut

(31:03):
off wireless or cellular service within an area? What? We
don't even know what the guidelines are, right, because we
the people as corney as is to say, it's true,
the citizenry of the US, as well as people visiting,
because of course it affects them to never had the
chance to find out what this was, what what this
actually happening. I think a lot of people here in

(31:26):
this country did not know that it could even be
a thing. Yeah, I mean, there was no public debate,
There was no public revelation of this. It was essentially
one of those behind closed doors deals, uh, which sounds
it's probably gonna sound pretty familiar to folks because we've
talked a lot, You and I particularly have talked a
lot about, uh, a lot of a lot of things

(31:49):
that are done in the name of national security that
get very much obvious skated, and the people who are
behind the policies argue that the obfuscation is necessary to
preserve the national security. And meanwhile, people who find it
to be an infringement upon liberties are saying, so you're

(32:12):
telling me you can't even tell me what the what
the parameters are, because that in itself is somehow endangering people.
How can knowing when you are allowed to do this
be a danger to anyone? And in fact, that's the
that's the key to the current argument. Right. So EPIC
essentially sues the Department of Homeland Security. First, there's a

(32:35):
Freedom of Information Act request, which Department of Homeland Security
is no, I'm not gonna We're not gonna tell you
what or we're going to tell you so little that
it means nothing anyway. Yeah, And so there was a
series of lawsuits, or our court cases rather, and in
one the courts found in favor of EPIC, and they said, excellent, DHS,

(32:57):
you've gotta tell us, you gotta tell us by this
date what the guidelines are for you to be able
to use this. This, by the way, isn't about repealing
s O p. Three oh three. This is just telling
us when it is allowed, when the government is allowed
to use s O P. Three oh three. So, uh,
DHS appeals, like you said, and the d C. District

(33:18):
Court of Appeals found in favor of the Department of
Homeland Security. So now there's no longer this mandate that
the DHS has to give over all the guidelines, although
there was some time in April where it was going
to be said, Oh, the DHS is totally gonna talk
about at least give some information about when s OP

(33:40):
three oh three can be instituted and what it means,
what are the parameters, Hope springs eternal? Right, Yeah, still
haven't heard it yet. No, we still haven't. We still
haven't heard it. And it's it's fascinating because the things
that we don't know, it's kind of like a monster
in a Hitchcock film. The things that we don't know, uh,

(34:01):
may well be far more monstrous than what's actually going on.
You and I have talked a lot about how unnecessary
secrecy or obstucation breeds speculation and really crazy stuff. Yeah,
and it's and it ends up breeding distrust in in authority,
and that is not good either. So there comes a

(34:24):
point where you have to really weigh this and say,
all right, is it really I mean because because the
argument that the Department of Homeland Security has been making
is that the revelation of this information could potentially put
a human life at risk in danger, and the EPICS

(34:45):
response was how and the Department Homeland Security that saying
that would put a person's life in danger. So you're
saying so you're essentially saying you've got to get out
of jail free card here that if you play this
trumps everything else. That if you say that it could
potentially put some hypothetical person's life and danger, then you

(35:06):
have a way of getting out of any request for justification,
and that breeds even more contempt, right So it and
it could very well be that if there were some
disclosure of this information, we would say, I now understand
your justifications. Whether I agree with it or not as

(35:26):
another matter, but I understand them, and I understand how
you could argue that it would potentially put someone's life
in danger. But seems kind of I mean, without knowing.
It's impossible to say for sure, but it seems to me,
based upon my limited perspective, that's very difficult to justify.
I can't tell you when we can put this into

(35:46):
place because that could potentially put someone's life in danger,
because it's either going to be in place or it's
not going to be emblazing. This is not a matter
of degree so much as it is a matter of
pretty concrete facts. Yeah, Like, like, is you know, what
are you saying that that potential attacker would look at

(36:09):
the guidelines and say, all right, guys, as long as
we stay just within this, you can't shut down the communications.
Is that the argument? Which is weird? Right, because like, well,
so you can't even explain what the because I'm sure
it's vaguely worded everything is. So it can't be something

(36:30):
so specific that you know, a determined person could calculating
lee approach this in such a way where they almost
but don't quite trigger s Op three or three. Guys,
as long as we're there before seven thirty two, right, yeah,
because after that the switches all come on so really quickly.

(36:52):
To talk about the whole kill switch idea, like we said,
it's not a physical switch, right, This is a policy
that the government has and they went to the telecom
companies and said, this is what our policy is. In
the case of enacting s Op three oh three, we
are going to ask you, the telecom companies, to shut

(37:12):
down your service. And the telecom companies have agreed to
do this. So, in other words, again not not a
button that the government pushes, but if the government puts
the call out to a specific municipality, let's say Dallas, Texas,
and they say to all the different carriers WI wireless
and cellular carriers, shut off your service for this duration. Then,

(37:36):
assuming that they've all agreed to do so, they'll all
do that individually. Now this is where it gets complicated
because for for cellular service, it's not too hard because
there's so many limited players. There's just a limited number
of players, right, So with a limited number of players,
the government doesn't have to make a thousand phone calls

(37:57):
to get this happen. When you get into to rest
real internet service providers, it gets a lot more complicated.
Even though most of us have access to you know,
a couple of major ones, Um, there are smaller ones,
smaller one and there there, and some of them are
cooperatives too. Yeah. So uh yeah, I could see that
you have to all of a sudden, those thousand calls

(38:19):
you talked about earlier are are coming into play. Yeah,
and from why I understand s Op three O three
does not cover landlines. So if you have a landline,
that's not going to get shut off. Uh, and it
probably would have some difficulties shutting down any kind of
of internet service that was not wireless or cellular. Although

(38:40):
I imagine that you know, some of the big players
may already have agreements, like you know, I can't even
I won't name them. But let's say that a major
internet service provider has that that could effectively silence at
least a large enough percentage of the population to get
through whatever the problem happened, the perceived problem happens to
be right. Yeah, and and again like another thing that

(39:02):
kill switch is not is a permanent kill switch. This
is just for a little this at least in the US. Um,
you said you had a great way of seeing it
when we were off there earlier. Um, you said, it's
not a literal switch. It is a policy. Yeah, and
it's and it's a policy that is meant to to

(39:23):
endure as long as that state of emergency does whatever
what however that is defined, which again we don't know
because we haven't been able to read s Op three
oh three. But um, you know it's it's it's meant
to be temporary. The problem is the Bart example is
very troubling because of it being in response to a protest.

(39:44):
Even if you can argue convincingly that no, it was
meant because we didn't want the overcrowding and endangerment of lives.
The at least, the perception is that you're trying to
stop people from actually expressing, uh, their their displeasure with authority.
And that's not what the United States is supposed to

(40:04):
be about. It's it's in fact antithetical to what are
our founding principles are supposed to be. And on top
of that, there's another sort of kill switch I want
to talk about very briefly. This one is one that's
installed directly into smartphones. So in California, in two thousand fourteen,
there was a law that was passed that requires uh

(40:28):
smartphone uh smartphones being sold in the state to have
some form of kill switch that would allow the remote
deactivation and wiping of that phone. Yeah. The thought being
that this is meant to help prevent, to help disincentivize
people from stealing smartphones, because the being that if you've

(40:50):
had your smartphone stolen, you can have it bricked so
that you don't have to worry about someone getting access
to your data. They can't use your phone anymore. And
the idea being that if this is, if this is mandated,
then stealing a smartphone makes no sense in California anyway,
because the chances are it's going to be turned into
a useless piece of plastic in your hands. Um. But

(41:12):
the fear is that it allows other entities remote access
to your phone, to turn it off, to wipe the stuff.
So that what if it were a case of, um,
you know, citywide riots, and there was the call to

(41:35):
all right, let's you know, we're not just shutting down
the system, we're wiping the phones, which sounds like it's
a truly ridiculous overstepping of bounds. But the point is
that organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have said this
opens the door to that possibility. Anytime you have the

(41:56):
opportunity for another entity to have some form of access
to your phone. That's a problem with security, it's a
problem with privacy. It's a problem with individual liberties. And
you're you are arguing for the safety of a system
as opposed to the safety of the person. That's a
very that's a very good distinction. I'm glad you made it,

(42:17):
because when we talked about some of this stuff, this
is just a brief tangent. You remember when, um, do
you remember when there was the big hubbub about having
uh having e books from Amazon? How Amazon can control
them remotely? Yeah, because they they had a particular copy
I can't remember what well, oh yeah, it was so

(42:39):
ironic copy of and then they remotely wiped that copy
from anyone who bought it, which which just sorry, how
many how many slightly paranoid people just locked themselves in
their house and started nailing up planks along the door.
And the only book I can think of that would
have been equally ironic would have been Fair Night. Yeah,

(43:02):
be virtually burning the book. So so this, of course,
this gives us, um, you know, this gives anybody concern,
and it's not it's not necessarily crazy or paranoid to
say that if this access occurs, I love that against
safety of the system over the safety of the individual.
But I bring the Amazon thing up because I wanted

(43:23):
to get to a point. You had said it wasn't
just a state sponsored thing all the time. Yeah, yeah, No,
it's like, well, I mean, like looking at something like
bart you know or if you could you know that
that's a that's the transportation system in San Francisco. That
wasn't like the state of California. So I see what

(43:45):
you're saying. Yeah, so that was a problem. But okay, yeah,
you know that is scary. Yeah, because it's it's and
and apparently it's fine. We have to be nicer to
the market drivers. Man. Yeah, I uh, I mean, I'm
not saying that's why I to work, but I'm not
not saying no, I'm not I'm being ridiculous. But the

(44:06):
other thing I wanted to mention is that Ben and
I are of a very particular opinion obviously about this.
We are not coming at this from an unbiased point
of view. But I should also point out that the
United Nations is on our side of this argument. The UN,
or at least a group of experts within the United Nations,
So I shouldn't say the whole organization collectively have said this,

(44:29):
but uh, experts within the UN have come out to
say that the use of any sort of communications kill
switches a violation of human rights, even in a time
of war or or strife, that it is impermissible under
international human rights law. Really. Yeah, so that's first off,

(44:52):
I'm startled that that is not what I was expecting,
especially that kind of language, any of that language. But
I you know, Okay, I keep thinking about when we
did our Area fifty one podcast, right, and we had
I think one of the best uh we have. We

(45:13):
have one of the best cases where national security, as
vague as it may be, as a real and present thing,
it could have led to It could have maybe led
to a nuclear war at some point, you know, had
the secret snupping kept. But this is very this is
very different. Um. I just I want to be careful
to acknowledge both sides. Like, is is it possible that

(45:37):
there would be a situation where shutting off regional cells
systems or internet access is the best thing to do.
It's hard to imagine. I can't think of one because
because the again, the consequences of that are so severe,
and the immediate consequences involved panic, because now you no

(45:59):
longer have your We take it for granted that we
have these phones that allow us an incredible access to
the Internet and to various forms of communication, even if
most of us just use it for texting. We still
we take that for granted. So imagine that that has
been completely taken away. Imagine that it's during a time

(46:22):
of of unease for whatever you know. However, that's defined.
So if you are in the middle of that situation
and you know, one of your earliest UH impulses is
probably going to be to touch base with somebody else
to either find out what's going on or make sure
they're okay or both right, and then you have no

(46:45):
means of doing that because the system has been shut down,
and you don't even know if the system has been
shut down or if something else has happened to cause
it to not work. You can't know. There's no way
to know when you are in the middle of that
situation that would incite panic. Right, it seems like it

(47:06):
would make the situation worse. I can't imagine it making
it better. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this
tex Stuff classic episode right after we take this break.
If you're not aware of what is happening, it makes

(47:27):
it far more terrifying. If you are aware of what's
what is happening, it's going to very much change your
perception of authority if it wasn't already one of suspicion,
because now you're you're thinking your decision to shut this
down in order to potentially save people. First of all,

(47:49):
you can't without something horrible happening. You can't say that
you necessarily saved anyone. Right. This is the worst part
of the world here. The worst part of the world
is saying if it works. The reason why. The only
thing we have to show that it works is that
nothing awful happened, nothing happened, right, And if nothing awful happened,

(48:10):
then you have the question of, well, was it necessary
to do this drastic step to make sure nothing awful
happen or would nothing awful have happened anyway? Right? Yeah,
It's very, very difficult to prove that kind of thing.
And even if we were in some sort of hyper
hypothetical excuse me, hypothetical nonlinear time space where we could

(48:33):
see both both effects at once, it sounds like it
comes down to, um. You know, the only really compelling
explanation would be the idea of remote detonated bombs, the
original justification, and then giving that the idea being that
we're taking the trigger mechanism away, and that is you know,

(48:55):
it's it's an instantaneous decision, it's an emergency situation. We
are doing it so that we can save lives in
that instant It is not meant to be any kind
of ongoing situation is not meant to be a means
of silencing people. It's literally meant to save lives. I
can kind of understand that, but again, I mean why

(49:16):
can I could certainly understand the motivation, particularly in the
post nine eleven, post London bombing's world, but I'm not
entirely certain that that execution would prevent the misuse of
that system. As the Snowdon leaks have shown us, these

(49:36):
systems that were put in place, arguably for noble reasons,
have already been subjugated to incredible misuse. Right, Yeah, and
even at its best, you're not really removing the trigger.
You're trading an explosion for a possible riot, yeah, you know,
which which can have effects that maybe as devastating. And

(49:59):
really this is all I mean, the Snowden leaks, this
is all kind of round wound up together. This this
world we live in that is largely a response to
a horrible terrorist attack that took place in our past
and is now defining our present. So it's it's I
mean again, it's it's the sort of stuff you read

(50:21):
in those science fiction dystopias where you realize that the
horrible world that the characters live in probably did not
spontaneously turn into this totalitarian dystopia. It was something that
happened by degrees because of well meaning but misled people
putting in policies in place that ultimately did not do

(50:43):
what they were intended to do or did more than
what they were intended to do. So, um, you know,
I am totally in favor of learning more about s
Op three oh three and finding out what what actually
is allowed versus not allowed, and maybe get some more
information of how this bart use of turning off cell

(51:06):
systems was truly justified. That to me is still very problematic.
I mean, having been on Martha during some of the
worst busiest moments, I can understand a need to try
and do some crowd control, but I don't think that's
the right way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Also, also,
to be fair, I'd love to hear that stuff too,

(51:28):
because if we don't, we're speculating, which is fun, but
it's not. It's not. You know, you're not You're nowhere
closer necessarily to the truth. You could be going down
the wrong pathway you're assumed, you could be assuming the
absolute worst, and it could turn out that you are
completely off base. But if if you act upon those assumptions,

(51:48):
it doesn't really matter if you're off base or not.
You're still doing something that is probably pretty drastic and terrible.
So if we're speculating, then I think let's go big
and elder I was going. I was going with the
n w O. Not not the New World Order as
in the actual like like kind of like the the

(52:09):
the supposed New World Order that's controlling the whole world.
I'm talking about the w c W Wrestling faction, you know,
Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Hull Cogan the n w O.
Yeahl Hogan, I think, uh little known fact the inventor
of the SIMSIP. Yeah, yeah, it is a very little
known fact because because we made it up. Yeah you

(52:30):
heard it here first. But anyway, so you know, the
reason why I love to have this discussion and I
was very very happy to see your suggestion of it, Ben,
is because I think it does raise some very important
questions about one our dependence upon technology, and that's our

(52:50):
you know, become our primary means of communication, to a
point where sometimes you can make jokes about a couple
texting each other across from a table from one another,
you know, uh too. It raises the the question of
how do you balance security versus liberty, which has been
a question throughout the history of the world, not just

(53:12):
the United States. Um, and where's that balance? Some people
would argue that liberty is the most important, and some
people would argue, well, you know, you've got to really
consider security because we're in a much much more complicated
world now than we were two hundred years ago. That's
a valid point. And also just that it was good

(53:33):
to be able to sit down and talk about how
a kill switch is really an an agreement among multiple
parties and not not a big red button or a
physical switch as much fun slash, horror, horrific reality. That
would be right. I hope it's made by ACME. I
hope while Coyote has one. I think, you know, like,

(53:55):
if we were writing an SNL skit at this point,
we would just we would have the point where President
Obama had had switched it over to the clapper or
something like that, like I want to show you that
I'm gonna turn off all the Internet in Kansas, black clap,
and that's it. You know, Yeah, that would be uh,
that would be my SNL skit right there, which which
like five people would be like that's brilliant and everyone

(54:17):
else was like wow, I was really waiting until the
musical guests came on. That's how bad that sketch was.
So Lord, if you're listening, we have a couple of
sketches of our sleeve. Yeah. Sure, you're a big fan
of our shows. And then I realized, you know, I'm
absolutely certain that the competition to get sketches on the
air and the SNL writer's room is probably pretty low key, right, Yeah, yeah,

(54:39):
I think it's I mean just you just have to
like mail them. Yeah, so, uh so, yeah, call us,
we're available, We're in the book. Uh anything else you
wanted to say about about kill Switches SP three oh three?
I mean I realized that this also, this conversation has
also been filled with a lot of the triol on
my part. Well, it's a it is a it is

(55:02):
a troubling thing, and I really appreciate talking about it
because again, you are our texpert, and you're the person
I think who is most likely to have like you have.
You definitely are opinionated, but you take great pains to
separate what is what your opinion is uh, from what

(55:23):
the facts are, right, and I appreciate that I think
the listeners do to um. But I'm on the same
page with you here, man, because it is a troubling thing.
And oh M, full disclosure, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget
that Jonathan and I both work in an Internet related field,
so of course we want, we have, we have a

(55:45):
vested interest in this thing called the Internet still being
readily available. I mean, if it's not, then we're out
of a job. But I mean, you know, it's it
has become such a centralized point in our life that
it is. It is very difficult to imagine a worthy
justification of shutting it off, um, apart from the possibility

(56:05):
of preventing an immediate disaster from happening and having it
last a relatively short time, however short that might be.
It might it might be several hours, depending upon what's
going on and how to stop it. Um. But apart
from that extraordinary set of circumstances, which again we don't
know necessarily, is all that s op three oh three

(56:25):
covers um. Yeah, it's it's hard to it's hard to
even wrap my mind around when you would make that
call because again, the consequences are just so devastating. I mean,
if nothing else, you really invite the the real possibility
that voters are not going to be happy. So I mean,

(56:46):
if if you are, if you're serving in some you
know position where you are going to be re elected
or not re elected, making that call as a tough one, right,
you're going to take people off. And that was the
tech Stuff classic episode, the Internet kill Switch. I gotta
get Ben back on this show. Occasionally he has me

(57:07):
on Ridiculous History. If you don't know, I play his
arch nemesis, the Quizster on that show once in a while,
and um, you know, it's good to have your arch
nemesis pop on your own show once in a while.
Keeps you on your toes. So I should probably get
him back here at some point. If you have suggestions
for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
please reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for

(57:28):
the show is tech Stuff H s W. I'll talk
to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I
Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,