US in panic over Russia's ICQ purchase

[helix2301]

I have read about the button and the ICQ purchase I was not aware anyone used ICQ anymore not sure what happened that service just kind of faded away. Does anyone know what happened to it besides AOL buying it?

 

[Kharn]

The kill button is a fallacy, even if the US tried to do this they would only be able to cut it's self off from the network, it is designed to be robust even if whole sections go dark it's only dark for that section, not everything is based in the USA. Sure this is a big chunk of the internet but it would not kill it totally and what it would do for international trade makes having such a switch some what laughable.

I have seen people use ICQ in digital crime but I have seen more hotmail and yahoo addresses used for that than ICQ. And yes it is still quite a common program outside of the USA I have seen it more on the continent than in the UK but it is still quite used, but this is just in my mind a paper thin argument.

 

[PP Mguire]

Its not meant to cut the internet world wide, its meant to cut all networking traffic inside the US (i suppose besides governmental networks). I guess this is supposed to be a "smart" way of blocking crime communications during some sort of international threat.

Either if its real or not, its dumb and would be reversed almost instantly after it was put into action. Im sure hackers and 4chan would not like the internet being taken down.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Reversed almost instantly? lol no WAY. Assuming all the major ISPs would have to comply, it'd be pretty much impossible to reverse it without their help, let alone reversing it instantly

 

[Poizen22]

id like to see how the economy would take a hit if it even whent down for 1 day....
because really i dont think it would be preaty

 

[PP Mguire]

Reversed almost instantly? lol no WAY. Assuming all the major ISPs would have to comply, it'd be pretty much impossible to reverse it without their help, let alone reversing it instantly

You know what i meant

id like to see how the economy would take a hit if it even whent down for 1 day....
because really i dont think it would be preaty

Considering most Americans use the internet for everyday use, not it would not be pretty at all.

 

[KSoD]

Okay did anyone really read that article? This line right here:

which was approved by a key Senate committee yesterday and now moves to the floor.

Says a whole lot in just a few words. This bill has NOT passed. It was moved onto the next step. It is at the House of Representatives now. So it still has to pass by them in order to even get to the next step. After the House it has to go to another committee to be passed yet again and then go back to the Senate to be passed a 2nd time by the original people that first passed it. Only after all of that does it then go to the President for him to sign off on it and pass it into Law.

So there is still plenty more steps in order for this to become real. So right now it is still a fallacy.

Considering that a lot of USA's economy, not to mention stock market, activity comes from the internet, i highly doubt that such a bill will ever make it into law. For starters things like the Stock Market will lobby to get this thing stopped. Not to mention big businesses that get their stock traded via the internet.

So to get all worked up about this "Red Button" is obserd. This is almost like the USA trying to control the internet.

As for this ICQ business. Meh. I have an ICQ but havent even signed on to the account is so many years.

 

[PP Mguire]

Its Obamas plan for the government to regulate the internet so if he wants it bad enough it will be passed, just like his retarded health crap forcing us Americans to pay for health insurance.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Yea, I dislike the health care ********, if I don't want health care, I don't want it, it's just something else for the gov to taxe and allow prices to go up, just like car insurance when it became mandatory, the prices on that sky rocketed -.-

 

[Harper]

LOL! ICQ.

I remember having a really low number on that. Was using it a alot when it first came out. Sort of died off around the 2000 mark when client started getting too bloated. Then I used it for a brief while in 2003 only to have it hacked afterwards. And I was not really that upset about it getting hacked.