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SFGate
"Stay calm: The Internet kill switch doesn't exist"
February 03 2011 at 05:23 PM

There's no denying that today's world depends on the Internet. And with the recent buzz about a potential "Internet kill switch" that would give the president power to shut down the Internet, people are starting to worry.

Don't. The Internet kill switch bill probably isn't as ominous as it sounds.

Congress indicated it will revisit a bill - popularly known as the "Internet kill switch" bill - causing outrage among some Americans. And in wake of the Egyptian government's order to shut down the country's Internet access, it's not surprising.

The proposal is meant to protect the country in the case of national emergency, such as a cyber attack with a computer virus, but cries of censorship are rising from Internet message boards.

Censorship and protection aside, there is no "kill switch" that would shut off all of America's Internet access; in fact, it's very unlikely that Obama could succeed in blocking the Internet even if he wanted to.

Internet shutdowns in large countries involve demanding all Internet service providers, such as Comcast, to either make changes to their router systems or turn them off completely, according to Computerworld. With the complicated network of Internet providers in America, blocking our Web access would be next to impossible.