Sunday, November 17, 2013

Internet Kill Switch - Standard Operating Procedure 303 and IPAWS

Update 15 Jan. 2018:  I happened to be on the island of Molokai when the false ballistic missile alert was sent.  Immediately I was convinced it was a mistaken alert triggered by some failure to observe protocol.  Later I have learned how poorly such a critical control system was designed.

I believe that all these public warning systems are poorly designed and furthermore operated by inept personnel that rarely if ever have a real world function to perform.  Easy jobs occupied by slackers over a long enough period of time that the slackers have advanced to high positions of management.  Discipline is the bane of slackers.  Admiral Rickover would fire them all.

There is an opportunity for hackers to get into such a poor system to create havoc for fun and probable profit from the immediate panic.

The original post that follows is worth some second look to see what the situation is today with plans for central control of all major internet media and exactly how and when that control would be implemented by the masters of the system for the "public benefit" as defined by those that proclaim themselves to be the protecting custodians of the common good....by knowing what is best for us.

As a result I see potential enhancement of Fusion Center responsibility and  authority at the state level to compensate for ineptness is state management of crises situations.  More Federal level control riding on the back of increased public fear of attack.

End of Update.

Wikipedia describes the Internet Kill Switch here at this link.  It is officially called "Standard Operating Procedure 303" and is defined here at this link by the IT Law Wiki.

That makes me wonder what the first 302 SOPs are and what is the number of the last SOP?.....In the navy it was called kiss yourself good-bye in the event of a nuclear attack.

Perhaps there is some clue connected to 300 SOPs  to the nature of SOP 303 here.  It connects the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the Department of Commerce to a commercial contractor, SAI Global and the Law Enforcement Standards Office (OLES)

Wikipedia describes the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System here at this link.

This was reported in the New York Times, 13 Nov 2013:

"Homeland Security must disclose ‘Internet Kill Switch,’ court rules"


Coincident with the date of 11/11/13 was a great amount of speculation about an electric grid blackout.  Lot of conspiracy thinking related to it.

This is what intrigues me:  There is an apparent (to me) connection to killing the internet communication system with a switch but there absolutely must be another system that maintains or re-establishes a "sanitized" internet system for command an control.  That might logically be the intent of IPAWS?

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