We Need a Secure Broadband

President Obama visited the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
on Thursday, Feb 10th and spoke at Marquette in the
Vandament Center. His purpose was to promote his program
hopeful of enhancing the availability of broadband accessibility
using WiFi as a vehicle in all of rural America

The President praised this country’s spirit for tackling major
and difficult programs to improve communications and
travel in the U.S.A. He began by citing the building of the
transcontinental railway in the mid 1800's, followed by the
CCC programs during the Great Depression, then he
continued with the building of the Interstate highway
system as proposed by Pres. Eisenhower.

(Editor's Note: At Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, formerly
belonging to The Pennsylvania Railroad, is a huge relief mural
entitled The Age of Transportation that begins with man
walking and ends with the airplane. It was a beautiful piece
of art originally commissioned for the Pennsy's Broad Street
Station but moved to 30th Street when station originally
housing the mural was demolished. It was completed in the
1920's or 1930's when the airplane was the latest mode known.)

He then made a comparison with Pres. Kennedy's " Ask not
what your country can do for you, ask rather what you can
do for your country" and explained the historical relationships
of our past endeavors as a nation to the program to make
broadband internet available to the sparsely populated rural
areas of the U.S.A. The once novel requirement that every
home in America should have telephone service available
now extends to the internet.

In a lighter mode the the President asked if their were any
Green Bay Packer fans in the house, and mentioned he was
happy to be among so manyYOOPERS.

Ben Smith was the only reporter from Iron County in
attendance.

Ben Smith

Editor’s Note: We are pleased to have been represented
at this historic event in Marquette by Ben Smith. More
recent events about the internet raise altogether new
challenges to our country with the government proposing
to give POTUS (President of the US) a kill switch to the
internet in the case of a national emergency.

Some years ago (maybe 15) your humble correspondent
and Glen Roberts investigated and wrote an article for
Glen’s publication "Full Disclosure" concerning the
government taking matters into its own hands by
prosecuting children (hackers) who managed to acquire
copies of telephone company practices instead of insisting
that telephone company providers better manage the
security of their online servers.

The same exact problem exists today, with the
government jumping in to secure essential services for
the citizens by wresting an ultimate control tool where
much better, and much safer, alternatives exist. They
cite matters such as power plant control that shouldn’t
be subject to hacking by foreign interests intending to
do our nation and our culture harm.

It is clear, and has been for several decades now, that
in order to maintain security over such matters, a
secondary “internet” must be established that is
connected to only such “trusted systems” (there’s an
entire world of research and discussion available on
that topic) as are of national interest and in deed of
protection from general access by the world at large.

Giving POTUS a kill switch is for a preventative
measure can be taken only once the horse is already
out of the barn. Consider that on 9/11 the terrorists
entire program was executed within a few hours, and
that grounding all aircraft in the US was too little too
late.

Granting POTUS a kill switch for the internet is more
of the same, but worse because it leads to a false sense
of security.

And what is worse yet is that there is no safety built
into the existing system of disseminating information
that promises security for a transmission that transfers
large amounts of money around the world, should the
entire US suddenly go off line during a significant
transfer. At the moment the internet goes dark, who
knows whether or not that transfer was successful. In
fact, who knows where that money actually is? Nobody.

There’s much more to this issue, and it will doubtless
be discussed in depth elsewhere.

But heads up, readers, turning off internet communications
isn’t anything like turning off the lights in your home. We
cannot transfer control of the internet to a single point
command where so many diverse interests are involved
with such repercussions as would fill volumes if cataloged
for discussion.

Who is responsible for my late payment if POTUS kills
the internet just as I am making an on-time payment to
a credit card, or a utility? What happens when my bank
has deducted the money for my account but the payee
never received it?

Bill Vajk