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Maybe it is, but a. That's not the government's job. b. Once a new power is in place, it will be used, and not just for whatever the original intent was. We s

• jauer 16y ago
  Amen on B. As for A, it became the government's job when provider apathy with regard to infected clients and hosts with botnet controllers etc permitted a situation to arise where the means of a (supposed) attack for a foreign power is actually based within the US. At that point it stopped being a private security issue and became a national security issue. I don't like it, but the problem it addresses does exist. How would you separate policy from mechanism in this case?
  • Zak 16y ago
    Things that are critical to national security should be able to defend themselves from botnets (most likely by firewalling themselves from the public Internet). I think these threats are vastly overstated, mostly by people trying to get more power in to the hands of the government. As for shutting down hosts involved in a bot net, a court order can do that in an emergency already. Sure, it adds a delay, but it also adds oversight and separates policy from mechanism. The executive branch controls the policy, while the courts control the mechanism.