Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pullett. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor at how stuff works dot com and as usual,
Speaker 1: sitting across from me is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Change
Speaker 1: the scheme, al to the mood, electrify the boys and girls,
Speaker 1: if you'd be so kind, all right, then I have
Speaker 1: to say he's got the presentation down at least I
Speaker 1: think so. Thank you. You can't see it, so there
Speaker 1: was a lot of arm gestures in there that was
Speaker 1: there's a little there's a little flailing, um. But I
Speaker 1: was not. I was not all lit up for that
Speaker 1: particular quote. So if you know where that quote comes from,
Speaker 1: you know why I said that. But we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about something actually a little serious, actually quite a bit
Speaker 1: serious today, um, something that has been in the news
Speaker 1: recently at the time of the recording of this podcast,
Speaker 1: which is very early February two eleven, and that is
Speaker 1: the idea of an Internet kill switch, some sort of
Speaker 1: ability for a person or government or organization to shut
Speaker 1: down the Internet or at least are access to the
Speaker 1: Internet right now. What spurred this was the events in
Speaker 1: Egypt that are going on. As Jonathan and I are
Speaker 1: actually recording this. Um, I'm sure by the time you
Speaker 1: are will be listening to this, the the fallout will
Speaker 1: still be uh relevant to what's going on. Sure, but
Speaker 1: one of the things if you are not paying attention
Speaker 1: to current events in the world right now, you may
Speaker 1: be unaware that there have been in late January and
Speaker 1: early February two thousand eleven, series of protests by people
Speaker 1: who have have been asking the Egyptian president Hostni Mubarak
Speaker 1: to step down from office. Um. He he has as
Speaker 1: of this point been in office for more than thirty years,
Speaker 1: I believe, took office after the president Onwar Sadat was assassinated,
Speaker 1: which I remember from my grade school days. Um so um.
Speaker 1: You know, he may be saying, what does this have
Speaker 1: to do with technology? Well, in an order in order
Speaker 1: to prevent uh the ability of people who are protesting
Speaker 1: the governments really really protesting and asking Mubarak to step
Speaker 1: down from organizing using Internet based tools such as social
Speaker 1: networking sites Twitter, Facebook, etcetera. Um, the Egyptian government basically
Speaker 1: shut off access to the internet, um two people within
Speaker 1: the country. Now there was one network that stayed up
Speaker 1: a little longer um than the rest I believe it
Speaker 1: was the NOR group was able to uh provide Internet
Speaker 1: access a little bit after that, but they eventually went
Speaker 1: dark as well, and the the the Internet was down
Speaker 1: for about five days within within Egypt. UM. And UH.
Speaker 1: The reason this is uh, the reason this is valid
Speaker 1: to many of us who are listening in the United States. UM,
Speaker 1: it had been proposed I guess really two thousand ten,
Speaker 1: the possibility that to prevent uh cyber attacks on certain
Speaker 1: infrastructure electronic infrastructure in the United States, that the President
Speaker 1: of the United States would be given the ability to
Speaker 1: shut down parts of the Internet within the company the country. Theoretically.
Speaker 1: Now the question is can that really be done? Right?
Speaker 1: So let's let's clear up a couple of things, because
Speaker 1: obviously the case in Egypt got a lot of people
Speaker 1: worried because the thought was, well, what if our government,
Speaker 1: what if the United States government? Of course, Chris and
Speaker 1: I are in the United States, so that's why when
Speaker 1: I say our government, I'm talking about them. Uh. What
Speaker 1: if what if the government for some reason wanted to
Speaker 1: try and suppress civilian communication. Uh, would this give them
Speaker 1: give the government the power, specifically the president, the power
Speaker 1: to to make communication lines go dark? And it You know,
Speaker 1: it's a scary thought because so much of what we
Speaker 1: do now depends upon the Internet in one way or another.
Speaker 1: It may not even directly depend on it, but indirectly
Speaker 1: it will. And so people have gotten really sensitive about
Speaker 1: the subject. Uh. The government, for its part, has said
Speaker 1: that a lot of the fear is based upon misinterpretations
Speaker 1: of the The proposed act, which is called the Protecting
Speaker 1: Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. It was introduced by
Speaker 1: Joseph Lieberman. Yes, and it was introduced originally in June
Speaker 1: of It has since undergone revisions which somewhat define some
Speaker 1: of the terms to a greater extent because the original
Speaker 1: act had some loose language that definitely had people scared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But like Chris was saying, that the intent of the Act,
Speaker 1: at least as it is worded, is not to you
Speaker 1: be able to manipulate the Internet in order to hamper
Speaker 1: communication among citizens or to infringe upon First Amendment rights.
Speaker 1: It is, as he was saying, to protect our infrastructure
Speaker 1: in the case of a cyber attack, right. I think
Speaker 1: people have interpreted that to mean that, uh, citizens living
Speaker 1: within the United States would not be able to access
Speaker 1: the Internet at all anymore. And I think the if
Speaker 1: I have read the Act correctly, what the uh the
Speaker 1: intent is actually to shut down links to certain infrastructure
Speaker 1: items from the Internet. So wouldn't keep people off the Internet.
Speaker 1: It would say, if you had an electric you know,
Speaker 1: electric station that were connected to the Internet, it would
Speaker 1: shut access off between the electric and the electric generating
Speaker 1: station and the Internet so that it could not be reached.
Speaker 1: UM that way, now, I mean, that's that's the way
Speaker 1: I've I've read it as a matter of fact. Um. UH.
Speaker 1: Senator Lieberman and ranking Member Susan Collins and Senator Tom
Speaker 1: Carper actually released a statement on February first about, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, drawing the parallel between the situation in Egypt
Speaker 1: and this act, and they denounced the the Mubart government's
Speaker 1: actions in shutting down all Internet communications in Egypt UM
Speaker 1: and attempted to clarify on that and for for instance,
Speaker 1: they mentioned that the Communications Act of four UM does
Speaker 1: give the president some control over radio communications providers, wire providers,
Speaker 1: the wire people don't use it that way. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that Their point was that the that act um Act
Speaker 1: was would give the president such broad powers as to
Speaker 1: in effect allow the president to do what we're talking
Speaker 1: about right now is control or shut down sections of
Speaker 1: the Internet, um under certain situations and so communications channels, right,
Speaker 1: and and part of that depends upon you interpreting the
Speaker 1: Act to extend to Internet communication. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: not as clearly when the when it was written in
Speaker 1: it was not about the Internet, right, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was about telegraphs and telephone lines mainly. UM. The to
Speaker 1: to to extend it to the Internet now would require
Speaker 1: a little bit of interpretation, and I'm sure you would
Speaker 1: have people challenging saying this goes beyond the intent of
Speaker 1: the original Act. But intent and letter sometimes get a
Speaker 1: little muddied in these situations. So Lieberman's point was that
Speaker 1: the the Asset Act was really to to define the
Speaker 1: limitations and the specific situations in which the president could
Speaker 1: use this power, as opposed to one which was much
Speaker 1: more broad. Yes, specifically the bill, at least according to
Speaker 1: the statement in the clarification that was speaking of just
Speaker 1: a moment ago um. They they issued a series of clarifications,
Speaker 1: one being that it supposed to be the most critical
Speaker 1: assets available to the Internet, including infrastructure to run the
Speaker 1: country and the economy. Also, it has to be I'm
Speaker 1: sering no, no, I was gonna say, I actually have
Speaker 1: the definition for that because it comes from the US
Speaker 1: Patriot Act. The critical infrastructure is defined in this UH way.
Speaker 1: It says the term critical infrastructure means systems and assets,
Speaker 1: whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States
Speaker 1: that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets
Speaker 1: would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security,
Speaker 1: national public health, or safety, or any combination of those matters. Now, UH,
Speaker 1: the the Asset Act that Lieberman introduced further defines it
Speaker 1: and actually adds in some stuff that made some people nervous,
Speaker 1: including UH information providers, which could essentially be I s
Speaker 1: s um he he went on in the state meant
Speaker 1: to say that it would require the president to if
Speaker 1: there was an ongoing or imminent attack that's a quote,
Speaker 1: um that could cause national or regional catastrophic events. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that would have to be going
Speaker 1: on for the President to use this power. And UH
Speaker 1: he or she the president UM in this case President Obama,
Speaker 1: but whomever after later on down the road, assuming this
Speaker 1: stays in in place, would have to use the least
Speaker 1: disruptive means feasible again a quote UM. They would have
Speaker 1: to notify Congress UM and wouldn't be able to be
Speaker 1: continued for more than a hundred twenty days without approval
Speaker 1: from Congress thirty day blocks up to a hundred twenty days,
Speaker 1: and then at that point you must have Congressional approval
Speaker 1: to continue it. And the bill also they, according to
Speaker 1: statement UH, specifically forbids actions that would violate the First
Speaker 1: Amendment and would not prevent in net traffic, email, and
Speaker 1: other forms of communication unless they're involved with critical infrastructure.
Speaker 1: So if you were you were I am ing a
Speaker 1: friend on you know, a social typical social network that
Speaker 1: would not be considered critical infrastructure, you should theoretically um
Speaker 1: be able to continue to do that. Yeah, you should
Speaker 1: still be able to use things like Facebook or Twitter
Speaker 1: to to organize groups and to you know, do whatever
Speaker 1: it is you want to do to have those those
Speaker 1: peaceable uh public gatherings, that kind of thing. The another
Speaker 1: element I remember reading about was that when we're telling
Speaker 1: critical infrastructure that The example they use was Hoover Dam. Yes, right, yes,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's what we're really talking about. What we're
Speaker 1: talking about critical infrastructure. We're talking about things like power grids,
Speaker 1: water supply, water supply, nuclear power plants, the military infrasture,
Speaker 1: military infrastructures, Yes, stuff that were it to be compromised,
Speaker 1: would mean a terrible, terrible outcome for the citizens in
Speaker 1: the United States of America. Right, I assume they o.
Speaker 1: Also when they mentioned economy, we're talking about things like
Speaker 1: Wall Street, the stock exchanges and things like that, they
Speaker 1: would want to be careful to protect that infrastructure as well.
Speaker 1: And if we apply a little critical thinking to this
Speaker 1: situation and really think about, you know, is is this
Speaker 1: is what the government is telling us? Is that really
Speaker 1: what they mean? Like, in other words, does it really
Speaker 1: you know? Because of course we should be skeptical, we
Speaker 1: should question our government, but not blindingly, right, we shouldn't
Speaker 1: just assume that what they're telling us is a fib
Speaker 1: but we should definitely look into it, look into it, right,
Speaker 1: And so part of the looking into it means, all, right, well,
Speaker 1: do what do I believe that the government would not
Speaker 1: abuse this power in such a way to somehow like
Speaker 1: let's say let's say the wiki leaks. Sure, let's say
Speaker 1: that the government is as, hey, you know what wiki
Speaker 1: leaks is, uh is creating a true danger to national security.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is now command all
Speaker 1: I s I s p s in the United States
Speaker 1: to block wiki leaks so that people in the United
Speaker 1: States can no longer access it. That's that's something that
Speaker 1: people were worried about. Well, under this Act, at least
Speaker 1: in theory, you would not be able to do that
Speaker 1: unless there were a real perceived threat, like an actual
Speaker 1: cybersecurity attack going on that involved wiki leaks in some way.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you would not be allowed to just tell all
Speaker 1: the ice pas to block it. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: an I s P couldn't choose to block it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they can because those are private companies. Right.
Speaker 1: One of the criticisms I've seen of this had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with, um the the potential violation of First
Speaker 1: Amendment rights. It had more to do with why is
Speaker 1: it the government telling private businesses how to protect themselves
Speaker 1: when private businesses are decades ahead of the government as
Speaker 1: far as cybersecurity is concerned, Which that that's a viable question.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the the the kind of extreme
Speaker 1: case that I've seen is saying, how can the lawyers
Speaker 1: and the politicians who are part of homeland security, who
Speaker 1: have no experience in I T security at all, how
Speaker 1: can they expect to improve our practices? When we do
Speaker 1: this for a living. This is how we build our business,
Speaker 1: this is how we provide our services. We know how
Speaker 1: to do this. How is someone else who has no
Speaker 1: experience in this going to help? That's a that's a
Speaker 1: legitimate question. You could ask, well, why does the president
Speaker 1: need this power in the first place? Because let's say
Speaker 1: that you are an engineer at Hoover Dawn and you
Speaker 1: detect that there is some sort of cyber intruder or
Speaker 1: a threat to the infrastructure, the computer infrastructure at Hoover down.
Speaker 1: There's a a good chance that engineer is going to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, we need to shut this down. We
Speaker 1: have to close off our our our ports portals to
Speaker 1: the outside world as far as the virtual port portals
Speaker 1: are concerned, and and take care of this problem. Why
Speaker 1: is there a need for a government intervention? And that's
Speaker 1: a good question to ask, you know, that's that's probably
Speaker 1: a more appropriate question to ask rather than is the
Speaker 1: government going to shut down Facebook, because that's less likely
Speaker 1: to happen. And I think that again, when you think
Speaker 1: about this critically, the government taking strides to say shut
Speaker 1: down the Internet. Let's let's take the most extreme case
Speaker 1: that the government for some reason has decided to shut
Speaker 1: down our access to the Internet so that no one
Speaker 1: in the United States can now get on any sort
Speaker 1: of Internet service. UM, there would be chaos and there
Speaker 1: would be there. You would not solve it problems that way, right, right,
Speaker 1: that would just create even more anger and distrust in
Speaker 1: the public. I don't I can't imagine any sane government
Speaker 1: official saying this is a good idea, because there's very
Speaker 1: little chance that a positive outcome will will happen as
Speaker 1: a result of it, right, And I think I think
Speaker 1: to some degree, we've seen that in what happened in Egypt. UM.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but people in Egypt found unique ways
Speaker 1: to continue getting their message across UM. I was doing
Speaker 1: some reading in preparation for the podcast about some of
Speaker 1: the things that they were doing. UM. You know, they
Speaker 1: were using. They were initially using the tools that that
Speaker 1: so many of us use, different messaging UM and social
Speaker 1: networking tools. But when the Internet blockage came down. UM.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I was reading on our
Speaker 1: recaled by Ellen or Mills who wrote that on in
Speaker 1: January twenty six, one of the c net writers and UM.
Speaker 1: She said that people were using you know, regular phones,
Speaker 1: fax machines, Ham radio. Remember we did our our podcast
Speaker 1: on on Ham Radio sometime ago. Now, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: even dial up modem usage started to go up again,
Speaker 1: so so people had had access to those tools. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't shut down the phone networks, just
Speaker 1: the Internet, at least I didn't read anything that indicated
Speaker 1: that they shut down the traditional phone networks. And in addition,
Speaker 1: Google on Twitter UM started a service for posting tweets
Speaker 1: without an Internet connection. Basically, uh speak to tweet allowed
Speaker 1: people to say what they wanted to say, and it
Speaker 1: would it would transfer it to a Twitter message with
Speaker 1: the hashtag Egypt added on to the end of it.
Speaker 1: So it you know, outside organizations were actually helping protesters
Speaker 1: get the word out. So I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: would be very difficult UM to shut it down completely.
Speaker 1: And in some cases too, I believe they were using
Speaker 1: mash networks UM, which I can't remember if we've ever
Speaker 1: mentioned that on the podcast, but we definitely need to
Speaker 1: do something on that because I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1: One laptop per child also uses mash networks. Um, they're
Speaker 1: sort of ad hoc UH networks, usually wireless networks, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. UM, and uh, they don't use the
Speaker 1: typical infrastructure on a lot of cases, places like well
Speaker 1: in places where they use the one laptop per child
Speaker 1: uh product. Um, we're talking about places that don't have
Speaker 1: that infrastructure in place. They don't have hard wired phone
Speaker 1: lines and cable connections. UM, so they use these local networks,
Speaker 1: local internet network networks that aren't actually connect to the Internet,
Speaker 1: but they are a small wireless network. UM. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have used internet in net case it. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean people would were communicating using those as well. So
Speaker 1: I don't think even if the government shut everything down,
Speaker 1: I don't think it would the traditional infrastructure. I don't
Speaker 1: think it would take long before people found new ways
Speaker 1: to get in touch with one another, especially considering the
Speaker 1: tools we've been given. And further another point, I would
Speaker 1: I would suggest that says the government would be very
Speaker 1: uh reticent to to take such an extreme action as
Speaker 1: to shut down the Internet. So you've already got the
Speaker 1: one case where you know you would infuriate your citizens
Speaker 1: and you don't really want to do that. There's really yeah,
Speaker 1: how would you make things better after that? Right, especially
Speaker 1: if ostensibly your goal is eventually to come out of
Speaker 1: this with a peaceful resolution, you would you would essentially
Speaker 1: end up losing the trust of the citizens and in
Speaker 1: a representative government, that means that your government is no
Speaker 1: longer valid if the citizens no longer trust in the
Speaker 1: government that represents them. Um. You know, assuming that you
Speaker 1: continue to be a democracy, that pretty much means you
Speaker 1: have guaranteed you are out the door, um as soon
Speaker 1: as possible, in fact, probably before even elections would roll around.
Speaker 1: So that's one part. But another part is the fact
Speaker 1: that so many businesses rely upon the Internet, particularly in
Speaker 1: the United States, but all around the world. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the Internet has made the world a you know,
Speaker 1: a global a true global economy. So you've got businesses
Speaker 1: that are centered in America that would be deeply affected.
Speaker 1: But you've got businesses in other countries as well that
Speaker 1: have interests in America, they have um, they have infrastructure
Speaker 1: in America that would be very much affected by the
Speaker 1: Internet being shut down within the borders of the United
Speaker 1: States of America. You're talking about losing billions of dollars
Speaker 1: worth of revenue and and doing intense economic damage. In fact,
Speaker 1: one might be able to argue that shutting down the
Speaker 1: Internet would cause more damage economically than if you had
Speaker 1: let the Internet stay up right like that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the guidelines to this act is that you
Speaker 1: would only invoke it if there were an imminent threat
Speaker 1: to national economic security. Well, if you were to shut
Speaker 1: down the whole Internet, you would create that threat. Actually,
Speaker 1: So that's the other reason I don't think it's very
Speaker 1: likely to happen in the United States. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't see this act UH put into place,
Speaker 1: or even take an advantage of It's just that I
Speaker 1: think we would be more likely to see it the
Speaker 1: way that we're told it's intended, right, so that if
Speaker 1: there were a concentrated attacks, say on the Pentagon, that
Speaker 1: the President would have the authority to tell Pentagon officials,
Speaker 1: all right, close off all routes to the Internet until
Speaker 1: we resolve this. Again, you could argue, why does this
Speaker 1: even need to be a presidential thing? But you could
Speaker 1: also argue, while there, what if you have some company
Speaker 1: that is or or some person, some organization there's in
Speaker 1: some way UH partnering with these attacks that you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not that they're the victim, but are rather
Speaker 1: a conspirator, you know, a co conspirator. Well, in that case,
Speaker 1: you do have to maybe rely on a higher authority
Speaker 1: than just the company head to take UH, to take
Speaker 1: take control of the situation and to to try and
Speaker 1: limit whatever harm could come of it. Um. It's still scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you see, we've seen this happen before, not
Speaker 1: just in Egypt, we also in Iran. We saw it
Speaker 1: um a couple of years ago where there were the
Speaker 1: Iranian protests. Also a lot of people were trying to
Speaker 1: um UH organized through Twitter and Facebook, and we saw
Speaker 1: that the Iranian government tried to UM confuse the issue
Speaker 1: as much as possible, or at least those are the allegations, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard for me to say, I don't
Speaker 1: I can't understand the language, so I have to rely
Speaker 1: upon the reports I'm seeing, and some of the reports
Speaker 1: were not necessarily the most unbiased, so it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to draw my conclusions. But that's based upon the
Speaker 1: information that I encountered. Yeah, it's um, it definitely shows
Speaker 1: how dependent we are on the Internet for all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. The the outcry over something like this would
Speaker 1: not have been nearly as serious in say, as it
Speaker 1: is now because so many people are are you know,
Speaker 1: used the Internet for communication, keeping up with friends and
Speaker 1: family um and uh and for commerce um that you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've come to expect that it's you know, I've
Speaker 1: actually heard the the the idea thrown out in the
Speaker 1: last few days that Internet access may be considered a
Speaker 1: human right, which is a wow, that's that's sort of
Speaker 1: a topic for another podcast really, but you know, I again,
Speaker 1: I don't think this would have even been considered a
Speaker 1: few years ago. And now the idea that you might
Speaker 1: have a right to access this you know, amazing communications
Speaker 1: tool that we all use now. Um. You know it's
Speaker 1: funny because I wouldn't have necessarily thought of that just
Speaker 1: a few years ago, but now so many people are
Speaker 1: relying on it that that it is a reasonable debate
Speaker 1: to have whether or not it's a um, a human
Speaker 1: right to have that kind of access. But these tools
Speaker 1: have also made it possible for protesters and demonstrators, whether
Speaker 1: they are peaceful or violent, organize in ways that they
Speaker 1: had haven't been before. So it's scary for governments too.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Iranian government had a hard time because
Speaker 1: the mobs or it wasn't it wasn't an Iran, it
Speaker 1: was where it was Belarus. That was even before that,
Speaker 1: where mobs would gather by text message they would say okay,
Speaker 1: be at the square at twelve oh seven. It was
Speaker 1: a flash mob. It was a flash mob. People would
Speaker 1: show up, they would start to protest, the authorities would
Speaker 1: come to crack them, crack down on them, and they
Speaker 1: would have already disseminated the location of the next gathering.
Speaker 1: So by the time that the authorities converged on the area,
Speaker 1: they were gone. The protesters had gone, They had converged
Speaker 1: on a new area, and they were they were able
Speaker 1: to stay one or maybe even five steps of the
Speaker 1: authorities by using these tools. It makes sense that a
Speaker 1: government would want to be able to do that in
Speaker 1: those instances. So that I think two is why it
Speaker 1: seems scary, because people go, yeah, you know what, they
Speaker 1: might want to do that, and what if they do
Speaker 1: it to me. I don't want that to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we've seen the president, which is what makes it scary.
Speaker 1: But you see, I could see the other side why
Speaker 1: they would want to. Certainly, it is definitely a scary threat.
Speaker 1: It's one of those that the more you think about,
Speaker 1: the more you realize it's less likely to have in
Speaker 1: the United States. Now, I will never say it's impossible. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's impossible anywhere it would be. It
Speaker 1: would be monumentally surprising to me if it did happen
Speaker 1: the United States, simply for the reasons I stated before,
Speaker 1: which is that I think essentially you would have to
Speaker 1: have a president who was saying, you know what we're
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm going to discard the entire American system
Speaker 1: of government for this to work, because otherwise, you're, like
Speaker 1: I said, you're gonna end up voting everyone out as
Speaker 1: soon as possible if you felt like you've been betrayed. Right, So,
Speaker 1: in a democracy, this kind of approach doesn't really work.
Speaker 1: If you want to read the bill, it's actually available online.
Speaker 1: Um it is four and ten pages long. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: first hundred pages of that have been struck through. I
Speaker 1: do think that, um, yeah, I think that in light
Speaker 1: of recent events in Egypt and some of the other
Speaker 1: countries in the Middle East, where I mean that the
Speaker 1: Tunisian UH protests I think have sort of helped uh
Speaker 1: some momentum in that regard. I think that it may
Speaker 1: cause people to give this bill another look, either you know,
Speaker 1: go through and revise it again or strike it down
Speaker 1: and start over from scratch. But UM, I I think
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where an actual real life
Speaker 1: event or series of events may add some perspective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to read it, it's uh, it's s
Speaker 1: period three for eight zero. That is the number associated
Speaker 1: with this particular act um and it's a it's long,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's and it's full of legal ease
Speaker 1: because I mean it's you know, you gotta remember, we
Speaker 1: got lawyers running this country, so that'll happen at any rate.
Speaker 1: But it's it's good to actually be aware of what's happening.
Speaker 1: And like Chris said, there have been a UM there's
Speaker 1: actually been a couple of documents that have come out
Speaker 1: trying to um clear up matters about this act and
Speaker 1: what is covered versus what isn't covered. Uh, you were
Speaker 1: talking about one that was released in February. Correct. Yes,
Speaker 1: the one I have it was actually released back in
Speaker 1: in June of it's called myth versus Reality exactly. They
Speaker 1: keep having to clear up a lot of the issues.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they use a lot of the same verbiage
Speaker 1: because it's the same questions over and over, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: and that I mean, it's a very emotionally charged topic,
Speaker 1: so it's understandable, yes, and yeah, whether whether or not
Speaker 1: you necessarily feel that having access to the Internet as
Speaker 1: a human right, you can. It's hard to deny that
Speaker 1: it's a seriously emotional issue. People want at least they
Speaker 1: want access to the internet, is not need access to
Speaker 1: the Internet. So it's definitely something that's going to concern people.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to add if I may, if you're
Speaker 1: looking for this UH, you'll have an easy time finding
Speaker 1: and if you go to the Library of Congress is
Speaker 1: UM website, you can also look for all kinds of
Speaker 1: UM legislation United States legislation. It's called Thomas UH in
Speaker 1: the spirit of Thomas Jefferson goes the the quote at
Speaker 1: the top of the page, but it's UM. You know,
Speaker 1: HTTP call and slash last. There's no WS here, so
Speaker 1: it's just Thomas th H O M A S dot
Speaker 1: l o C. That's Library of Congress dot gov, Thomas
Speaker 1: dot l oc, dot GOVN you can look up the
Speaker 1: status of different bills. You could see which legislators have
Speaker 1: introduced what legislation. It's actually a pretty interesting tool. It's
Speaker 1: very very useful. Uh. And it's an easy way to
Speaker 1: track this one down if you're interested in doing it.
Speaker 1: Eve unless the top five weekly pieces of legislation people
Speaker 1: you're looking up, and I would imagine that this one
Speaker 1: is one of them. Yeah, I'm sure we'll ranked pretty
Speaker 1: high up there. But this week, let's let's conclude just
Speaker 1: by saying, remember, according to the Act, this isn't about
Speaker 1: shutting off the Internet. It's about protecting various parts of
Speaker 1: the infrastructure from cyber attacks. Uh. It's debatable about whether
Speaker 1: or not that could be extended to the point that
Speaker 1: it would affect all Americans across the United States. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying that those worries are completely unfounded.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that I think it unlikely to see
Speaker 1: that scenario happen, right right, And I think now that
Speaker 1: it's become something more in the public eye, people are
Speaker 1: going to take note and you'll see people writing their
Speaker 1: legislators and saying, you know, what is going on with
Speaker 1: this bill. So I think it'll probably be in the
Speaker 1: news and we'll be seeing more clarification or movement on it.
Speaker 1: Thirty page version of the Act to read next time
Speaker 1: we talk about this, Yes, because that's the way we work.
Speaker 1: So if you guys have any opinions, I'm sure are
Speaker 1: a lot of you have opinions on this subject, I
Speaker 1: have no doubt. Please let us know. You can let
Speaker 1: us know on Facebook and Twitter are handled. There is
Speaker 1: tech Stuff h s W. Or you can send us
Speaker 1: an email. That address is tech stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and Chris and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again, assuming the government lets us really soon, all right.
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