Internet kill switch

[3][better source needed][4][5] On January 27, 2011, during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the government of President Hosni Mubarak cut off access to the Internet by all four national ISPs, and all mobile phone networks.

[6][7] This version of a kill switch was effected by a government-ordered shutdown of the Egyptian-run portion of the Domain Name System, and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), making transmission of Internet traffic impossible for Egyptian ISPs.

[10] The mechanism came to attention when Internet monitoring group Turkey Blocks detected a nationwide slowdown affecting several social network services on the eve of a major offensive during the 2016 Turkish military intervention in Syria.

[11] Similar Internet restrictions had previously been implemented during national emergencies to control the flow of information in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, originally without any clear legal grounding.

Peter Gradwell, a trustee of the Nominet Trust, criticized the provisions in the Communications Act: The legislation also includes the requirement to make compensatory payments for loss or damage.

If the public were massing on the streets of London, I believe that many internet providers would be happy to argue the legitimacy of such a penalty in court.

During the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya access to the Internet was denied[12] in an effort to limit peer networking to facilitate organization.

This act was the basis of regulatory power for the executive branch of the government to control electronic communications in the United States.

Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63), signed in May 1998, established a structure under White House leadership to coordinate the activities of designated lead departments and agencies, in partnership with their counterparts from the private sector, to "eliminate any significant vulnerability to both physical and cyber attacks on our critical infrastructures, including especially our cyber systems".

[15] Particularly, they asked how the authorities would classify what is critical communications infrastructure (CCI) and what is not, and how the government would preserve the right of free speech in cybersecurity emergencies.

Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not require registration of a company as an Internet service provider (ISP), there are only estimates available based on publicly available data.

that the United States uses to regulate the information and data industry may have inadvertently made a true "Internet kill switch" impossible.

The lack of regulation allowed for building of a patch-work system (ISPs, Internet backbone) that is extremely complex and not fully known.

Two key policy issues[19] are whether or not the United States has the right constitutionally to restrict or cut off access to the Internet, and whether this might open end users to hackery.

The National Cybersecurity Center was set up to deal with these questions, to research threats and design and recommend prophylactic methods.