One of the original purposes of the Internet was to allow communication to continue, even when major centers were disrupted (as would happen in war, especially if nukes were involved). That's why if some sites are down, the Internet will route around them and carry on.

I don't see how it would be feasible to try to block popular sites. Yes, in the US you could order them to shut down, or block their access to the Internet during an emergency. However, you couldn't do that with the rest of the world. You wouldn't be able to block sites in other countries. You probably couldn't even successfully block most US sites, since people could use proxies and other means to access them.

I think this is just one more boneheaded idea from some bureaucrats who don't have a good grasp of what the Internet is all about. I mean, we can't even block spam, which is over 90% of all e-mail traffic now.

Sounds to me like its this H1N1 thing is part of a bigger agenda to carry thru some dubious new laws to keep people from the truth. It's no wonder there's a national emergency right now, Obama will soon have a "valid" reason to restrict internet use and the flow of information.
Lets just remember that whatever happens, it was all planned years ahead and its our reaction to the situation that will determine the future. Let's not be fooled again and waste trillions of dollars on endless wars and kill millions of innocent lives because of lies and greed and corruption.

This is just stupid. What do they do on Saturday when almost everyone is off work?

You must first think like this community organizer to know his next move. My

opinion only, if a severe emergency is declared not H1N1, the clamps will be put

on the existing internet.


I believe in the future the government will start their own controlled internet

communications highway in direct competition with the private sector and

eventually regulate the present internet out of business. Free Speech LOL ^Y^

Theoretically speaking all it would take to 'block' a site is to filter any DNS requests going outside of of the US, then modify the routing tables on the root DNS servers within the US to not resolve say youtube.com or cnn.com. The only hitch in this would be anybody who runs a DNS server in their home would still be able to access sites that nobody else in the US could because their DNS server didn't take marching orders from the modified ones. This same technique could quite easily be used in other countries however its probably easiest to pull off in the US based on the network topology and how we connect to the rest of the world.

Speaking of CONTROL:

TEN STEPS TO CREATING MARTIAL LAW

1.Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy(9/11)
2.Create a gulag(HR 645;Concentration camps)
3.Develop a thug caste(Civilian army)
4.Set up an internal surveillance system(Off the charts!)
5.Harass citizen's groups(DHS Domestic Terrorists List)
6.Engage in arbitrary detention and release(?)
7.Target key individuals(Rush Limbaugh,FOX news)
8.CONTROL THE PRESS(and internet,access to info)
9.Dissent=Treason(Okay when Democrats did it)
10.Suspend the Rule of Law(Constitution?What Constitution?!)

The fact that we are now in a state of "National Emergency",we should expect anything,at any time. Definetly not a good time for America!

I did not enjoy reading that article
they best not fack around with the internet or people might actually rise up and get mad

this just sounds like fishy fishy bullcrap

so uhh this h1n1 flu is SO BAD we have to cut off your phone, internet, power, and water; not to mention access to your bank

...
get your shot and it will all come back though I promise sheepies


[edit on 27-10-2009 by knightsof0ld]

Because the key securities exchanges and clearing organizations generally use proprietary networks that bypass the public Internet, their ability to execute and process trades should not be affected by any congestion," the GAO report reads.

Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth.

Geez..a little elitist / classist don't you think?

We know,or some of us think that this is going to happen at some point/time in the future.What are we doing..sitiing around talking,blogging about it,or making plans.Because we need to have a plan.

Just as a family has a plan in the event of a house fire,ie:how to get out,where to meet up,those of us that are planning have an idea of what we are going to do and where in the event of losing our rights.

It's simply a matter now of how many,how much more we are going to put up with before we say TSHAS HITTHE FAN,and we're not going to put up with it anymore.

Timing is important though,because I'm just paranoid enough to believe that is what they are waiting for.For me a quiet approach is going to be the way to go.

Maybe this is'nt the time,but I think we will all know when it is.I hope so--I'm counting on it

Originally posted by Helig
Theoretically speaking all it would take to 'block' a site is to filter any DNS requests going outside of of the US, then modify the routing tables on the root DNS servers within the US to not resolve say youtube.com or cnn.com. The only hitch in this would be anybody who runs a DNS server in their home would still be able to access sites that nobody else in the US could because their DNS server didn't take marching orders from the modified ones. This same technique could quite easily be used in other countries however its probably easiest to pull off in the US based on the network topology and how we connect to the rest of the world.

If you block DNS requests you can simply use the IP address to get to your destination. Routing tables don't resolve, they route packets based on a series of routing decisions/algorithms. A home DNS would offer a short lived cache however once the TTL(time to live) expires on the zone records subsequent lookups to the root servers may be needed to determine authoratative lookups, resolvers would eventually fail.

That said the better way, imo, would be to throttle traffic levels similar to what many ISPs do today to combat p2p traffic. If general web surfing is the problem and given that its asymmetric you could easily shape the traffic so that "most" people are happy.

Either way given the track record of the DHS and government in general I wouldn't worry too much, blind leading the blind.

brill