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> What can we really do in 2019 to grant full, solid access to people in Vietnam (and North Korea, and everywhere)? Think outside the box. The government is m

> What can we really do in 2019 to grant full, solid access to people in Vietnam (and North Korea, and everywhere)? Think outside the box. The government is monitoring TCP/IP traffic to the ends of disappearing people and Facebook will sell anybody out for a buck, especially if it means getting or keeping a foothold in emerging markets. When the RIAA started suing Napster users, you didn't double down on your own Napster usage-- you GTFO and moved on to Kazaa or Limewire, services that weren't being monitored yet. Signal and Whatsapp are now in the same endgame. Same with pirate radio. You get complacent and stay in the same spot too long and the FCC will kick in your door. We need to acknowledge that the party is over and to stop trying to make an increasingly-centralized and highly-compromised internet the medium for all communications. It's lazy OPSEC and it's getting people killed. We got messages into and out of concentration camps and prisons without slapping a stamp on a letter and sending via the US or German Post. Concerning ourselves with getting people in the DPRK onto the most heavily-surveilled networks and services ever created is not good for their longevity. The best we can do is offer low-bandwidth, discreet connectivity via shortwave, mesh or satellite, using parts easily procurable in authoritarian regimes.

vertexFarm 8y ago
I've always thought this problem was interesting and it's one of the reasons it's a real shame that amateur radio doesn't allow encrypted communications. I get that you can still do it anyways if you're willing to skirt an unjust law in the name of a higher code of ethics, but it would be handy to have it be a normal occurrence and get some herd immunity out of it. Of course I'm also aware it's not nearly that simple, that if ham bands allowed lots of discrete encrypted communication they'd just get filled up with commercial and business users taking advantage of the privacy and snatching up free bandwidth. I'm not a genius by a long shot, but I have to wonder if there's some solution for this. Maybe some kind of open-source encrypted radio modem which operates in ham or underutilized radio bands that someone could design and put out on a torrent server for people in these situations to access and build. It would be highly illegal to possess one, but what about just designing it? People using it in desperate situations under authoritarian regimes would likely already be operating outside the law.

vertexFarm 8y ago

I've always thought this problem was interesting and it's one of the reasons it's a real shame that amateur radio doesn't allow encrypted communications. I get that you can still do it anyways if you're willing to skirt an unjust law in the name of a higher code of ethics, but it would be handy to have it be a normal occurrence and get some herd immunity out of it. Of course I'm also aware it's not nearly that simple, that if ham bands allowed lots of discrete encrypted communication they'd just get filled up with commercial and business users taking advantage of the privacy and snatching up free bandwidth. I'm not a genius by a long shot, but I have to wonder if there's some solution for this. Maybe some kind of open-source encrypted radio modem which operates in ham or underutilized radio bands that someone could design and put out on a torrent server for people in these situations to access and build. It would be highly illegal to possess one, but what about just designing it? People using it in desperate situations under authoritarian regimes would likely already be operating outside the law.