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The only way to truly split the internet is to have extremely harsh violation provisions. Otherwise citizens can use satellite phones. Unless we consider China

The only way to truly split the internet is to have extremely harsh violation provisions. Otherwise citizens can use satellite phones. Unless we consider China to already be "split" from the rest of the internet, which it isn't for people with means, but is practically for the everyday person.

golergka 8y ago
> Otherwise citizens can use satellite phones. And how many actually will?
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  I think sometimes that tech guys say these things that are completely unrealistic because they themselves find the thing to be completely reasonable and acceptable. I feel like we don't really have a good understanding of how normal, non-tech centric, people work. I mean really, satellite phones? Unless we're planning on moving our entire terrestrial mobile data infrastructure to be satellite based, that's just not practical. To even suggest it is just the height of naiveté. If someone can already provide her family access to LCD Chinese culture, what benefit is there in her going that extra mile to get access to LCD Western culture? (Ignoring the fact that she's probably not even aware there is a difference between a cell phone and a satellite phone in terms of data access. And please, answer that question from the perspective of the average Chinese female secretary just trying to get her kid fed and put to bed every night. And try to answer honestly.)
- tlb 8y ago
  Not many, but it doesn’t take many to have an impact. A historical parallel is the use of shortwave receivers inside the USSR to receive Radio Free Europe. It was illegal to listen to, and the KGB jammed it sometimes, but people listened secretly anyway and it was an important conduit of information into an otherwise mostly closed society.
  - golergka 8y ago
    > it was an important conduit of information into an otherwise mostly closed society No it wasn't, really. Have you actually experienced this or are you retelling some long-read from New Yorker? Sorry if it reads as uncalled for personal attack, just that I and my family have much more first-hand experience with this, and while having western news was nice, it really didn't affect the political stability of the regime in any meaningful way. People are not rational. They don't make decisions based on information presented to them. They mostly just repeat whatever opinion they perceive to be popular, usually without even asking themselves if they believe it or not. Propaganda is not about making people think something. Propaganda is about making people think that most of other people think so.
    - tlb 8y ago
      My wife's family were dissidents in Czechoslovakia, and they've mentioned western shortwave broadcasts as being part of their political climate between 1968 and 1989. But that's a small sample size. For sure, a shortwave broadcast isn't going to change the majority opinion the way 24/7 propaganda can. But it can influence a few intellectuals, who in turn influence others. It's impossible to do a randomized controlled trial to measure its effectiveness.
JeremyBanks 8y ago
Hacker News is the best parody of itself.
- amyjess 8y ago
  I think this is 2018's version of "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  Can you explain this more? I'm not arguing with you, I just don't fully understand the context of the joke.
  - amyjess 8y ago
    There is an unfortunate tendency for people on HN to think that HN is a representative sample of the population. They assume that the whole world cares about the same things HNers cares about, shares the same hobbies, has the same interest in DIY and technical things. I'm not just calling HN out here. Every community has some kind of bubble effect where members of that community think they're a representative sample of the whole world. And, at times, that lack of self-awareness occasionally rises to such extreme levels that Poe's Law is invoked, and you can't tell the difference between someone caught deep in the bubble and someone taking the piss. Hence why HN can come off as a parody of itself sometimes. One example is suggesting that people in oppressive regimes will just switch to satellite phones because they want a free and open Internet that badly. Another, which I linked elsewhere in the thread, is somebody poo-poohing Dropbox when it launched because "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" [0]. Really, how much of Dropbox's demographic is even going to know what these technologies are much less are willing to take the time and effort to build such a setup themselves? Or, for an example outside of HN, Slashdot's CmdrTaco poo-poohing the iPod with "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." [1]. And, yes, there are HN parodies out there where you can see just what kind of content here gets parodied. [2] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 [1] https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 (and as a side not, I do like how HN now has a rule against casually dismissing people's work, because it does help address this problem)
jon-wood 8y ago
Not only is it unlikely that people will go out and buy a satellite phone, as soon as that becomes problematic the government will just outlaw the unlicensed sale of satellite phones to the public.

golergka 8y ago

> Otherwise citizens can use satellite phones. And how many actually will?

bilbo0s 8y ago
I think sometimes that tech guys say these things that are completely unrealistic because they themselves find the thing to be completely reasonable and acceptable. I feel like we don't really have a good understanding of how normal, non-tech centric, people work. I mean really, satellite phones? Unless we're planning on moving our entire terrestrial mobile data infrastructure to be satellite based, that's just not practical. To even suggest it is just the height of naiveté. If someone can already provide her family access to LCD Chinese culture, what benefit is there in her going that extra mile to get access to LCD Western culture? (Ignoring the fact that she's probably not even aware there is a difference between a cell phone and a satellite phone in terms of data access. And please, answer that question from the perspective of the average Chinese female secretary just trying to get her kid fed and put to bed every night. And try to answer honestly.)
tlb 8y ago
Not many, but it doesn’t take many to have an impact. A historical parallel is the use of shortwave receivers inside the USSR to receive Radio Free Europe. It was illegal to listen to, and the KGB jammed it sometimes, but people listened secretly anyway and it was an important conduit of information into an otherwise mostly closed society.
- golergka 8y ago
  > it was an important conduit of information into an otherwise mostly closed society No it wasn't, really. Have you actually experienced this or are you retelling some long-read from New Yorker? Sorry if it reads as uncalled for personal attack, just that I and my family have much more first-hand experience with this, and while having western news was nice, it really didn't affect the political stability of the regime in any meaningful way. People are not rational. They don't make decisions based on information presented to them. They mostly just repeat whatever opinion they perceive to be popular, usually without even asking themselves if they believe it or not. Propaganda is not about making people think something. Propaganda is about making people think that most of other people think so.
  - tlb 8y ago
    My wife's family were dissidents in Czechoslovakia, and they've mentioned western shortwave broadcasts as being part of their political climate between 1968 and 1989. But that's a small sample size. For sure, a shortwave broadcast isn't going to change the majority opinion the way 24/7 propaganda can. But it can influence a few intellectuals, who in turn influence others. It's impossible to do a randomized controlled trial to measure its effectiveness.

JeremyBanks 8y ago

Hacker News is the best parody of itself.

amyjess 8y ago
I think this is 2018's version of "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
Can you explain this more? I'm not arguing with you, I just don't fully understand the context of the joke.
- amyjess 8y ago
  There is an unfortunate tendency for people on HN to think that HN is a representative sample of the population. They assume that the whole world cares about the same things HNers cares about, shares the same hobbies, has the same interest in DIY and technical things. I'm not just calling HN out here. Every community has some kind of bubble effect where members of that community think they're a representative sample of the whole world. And, at times, that lack of self-awareness occasionally rises to such extreme levels that Poe's Law is invoked, and you can't tell the difference between someone caught deep in the bubble and someone taking the piss. Hence why HN can come off as a parody of itself sometimes. One example is suggesting that people in oppressive regimes will just switch to satellite phones because they want a free and open Internet that badly. Another, which I linked elsewhere in the thread, is somebody poo-poohing Dropbox when it launched because "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" [0]. Really, how much of Dropbox's demographic is even going to know what these technologies are much less are willing to take the time and effort to build such a setup themselves? Or, for an example outside of HN, Slashdot's CmdrTaco poo-poohing the iPod with "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." [1]. And, yes, there are HN parodies out there where you can see just what kind of content here gets parodied. [2] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 [1] https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 (and as a side not, I do like how HN now has a rule against casually dismissing people's work, because it does help address this problem)

jon-wood 8y ago

Not only is it unlikely that people will go out and buy a satellite phone, as soon as that becomes problematic the government will just outlaw the unlicensed sale of satellite phones to the public.