4 ms·

I think a lot of discussion I have seen online has overlooked the importance of the phased array antennas, which are too large to make Starlink practical for so

by csb6 7y ago

I think a lot of discussion I have seen online has overlooked the importance of the phased array antennas, which are too large to make Starlink practical for someone using a phone or laptop on the go. However, it would be very convenient for people needing Internet service at home. I have also heard people (not in this thread) talk about Starlink as a way to bypass censorship in places like China, but this is almost certainly not possible. What authoritarian regime would allow the sale of the Starlink antennas in their country and the local downlinks needed to have good latency? This is a fascinating project, but I hope we don't end up treating it as a panacea to all issues of information freedom.

anovikov 7y ago
There are no technical means needed to bypass internet censorship in China. People are using the free internet there perfectly, using obfs4. Problem is that there is no way to express their opinion freely on the internet because: - Expression of opinion almost always lets you being identified even if your IP address can't be seen. - Most people won't support your opinion - because they are paid trolls (a large fraction of app posts, because a comparatively small - 'only' hundreds of thousands - trolls post in insane quantities) and because many online spaces are shaped by trolls and by people who are too afraid of expressing their opinion freely. Internet is simply not seen as a place appropriate for sensitive discussions in China and this will not change if people will be able to access all blocked resources, or reliably hide their locations.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  > There are no technical means needed to bypass internet censorship in China. Individuals bypassing technical restrictions is very different from having a commercial operation. Without the mandated censorship and monitoring, Starlink's entire business is completely illegal in China, so the entire thing (from setup to service to support) would have to be run underground, they'd have to accept payment in Bitcoin, no SpaceX executive could ever travel to China, and Tesla would probably have to get out too. It's not gonna happen. There is no chance, none whatsoever, that Starlink ever does business in China unless it goes through the same filters as everyone else, even though from a purely technical perspective it theoretically could.
- __sy__ 7y ago
  > People are using the free internet there perfectly, using obfs4 This is not entirely true. It's been getting tougher and tougher to get past TGF, even with obfuscation.
- ColanR 7y ago
  > Most people won't support your opinion - because they are paid trolls (a large fraction of app posts, because a comparatively small - 'only' hundreds of thousands - trolls post in insane quantities) and because many online spaces are shaped by trolls and by people who are too afraid of expressing their opinion freely. I wonder if that situation is exclusively true in China, or if similar situations exist where it is covert, rather than overt.

by csb6 7y ago

anovikov 7y ago

There are no technical means needed to bypass internet censorship in China. People are using the free internet there perfectly, using obfs4. Problem is that there is no way to express their opinion freely on the internet because: - Expression of opinion almost always lets you being identified even if your IP address can't be seen. - Most people won't support your opinion - because they are paid trolls (a large fraction of app posts, because a comparatively small - 'only' hundreds of thousands - trolls post in insane quantities) and because many online spaces are shaped by trolls and by people who are too afraid of expressing their opinion freely. Internet is simply not seen as a place appropriate for sensitive discussions in China and this will not change if people will be able to access all blocked resources, or reliably hide their locations.

Analemma_ 7y ago
> There are no technical means needed to bypass internet censorship in China. Individuals bypassing technical restrictions is very different from having a commercial operation. Without the mandated censorship and monitoring, Starlink's entire business is completely illegal in China, so the entire thing (from setup to service to support) would have to be run underground, they'd have to accept payment in Bitcoin, no SpaceX executive could ever travel to China, and Tesla would probably have to get out too. It's not gonna happen. There is no chance, none whatsoever, that Starlink ever does business in China unless it goes through the same filters as everyone else, even though from a purely technical perspective it theoretically could.
__sy__ 7y ago
> People are using the free internet there perfectly, using obfs4 This is not entirely true. It's been getting tougher and tougher to get past TGF, even with obfuscation.
ColanR 7y ago
> Most people won't support your opinion - because they are paid trolls (a large fraction of app posts, because a comparatively small - 'only' hundreds of thousands - trolls post in insane quantities) and because many online spaces are shaped by trolls and by people who are too afraid of expressing their opinion freely. I wonder if that situation is exclusively true in China, or if similar situations exist where it is covert, rather than overt.