3 ms·

I’m most excited about the prospect of things like this delivering the truth via uncensored internet to places like China and North Korea. Am I naive to think

I’m most excited about the prospect of things like this delivering the truth via uncensored internet to places like China and North Korea. Am I naive to think there is no way they could stop this and that the real internet would be available world-wide?

lxmorj 7y ago
China could easily require filters on any receivers sold in China and ban the use of uncensored receivers.
shaklee3 7y ago
Yes, that's naive. You need landing rights in every single country you plan to put a signal down in. There's nothing special about starlink; plenty of other companies have satellites that could cover those countries, but are not allowed to due to landing rights. Here's some decent info: https://www.accesspartnership.com/navigating-through-the-regulatory-channels-a-to-do-list-for-satellite-service-operators-and-end-users/ https://www.accesspartnership.com/navigating-through-the-reg...
- gbear605 7y ago
  Landing rights aren’t particularly relevant for NK, since it’s not like they can fine or imprison SpaceX. China is more relevant since they could retaliate at other US owned property or at specifically Tesla.
  - shaklee3 7y ago
    Nk isn't even an issue since they won't let you buy the antenna. If you did, you'd likely go to jail.
    - baq 7y ago
      Black market exists, but NK isn’t far away from ASAT capability.
      - shaklee3 7y ago
        Black market for something that is clearly visible on your dwelling and can be seen by satellite is extremely risky. Black market for other things like movies make sense, because nobody knows you have them.
danw1979 7y ago
You'd need to flood those countries with cheap receiver hardware without it being intercepted by the government, and then provide connectivity to those receivers to local users over a decent size area - larger than your usual WiFi hotspot I reckon. If there existed a local tech community with the chops and determination to successfully distribute the open internet delivered through this cheap receiver hardware to local users - all in an environment of very limited privacy - I'd be really surprised. Maybe in China... not so much NK.

lxmorj 7y ago

China could easily require filters on any receivers sold in China and ban the use of uncensored receivers.

shaklee3 7y ago

Yes, that's naive. You need landing rights in every single country you plan to put a signal down in. There's nothing special about starlink; plenty of other companies have satellites that could cover those countries, but are not allowed to due to landing rights. Here's some decent info: https://www.accesspartnership.com/navigating-through-the-regulatory-channels-a-to-do-list-for-satellite-service-operators-and-end-users/ https://www.accesspartnership.com/navigating-through-the-reg...

gbear605 7y ago
Landing rights aren’t particularly relevant for NK, since it’s not like they can fine or imprison SpaceX. China is more relevant since they could retaliate at other US owned property or at specifically Tesla.
- shaklee3 7y ago
  Nk isn't even an issue since they won't let you buy the antenna. If you did, you'd likely go to jail.
  - baq 7y ago
    Black market exists, but NK isn’t far away from ASAT capability.
    - shaklee3 7y ago
      Black market for something that is clearly visible on your dwelling and can be seen by satellite is extremely risky. Black market for other things like movies make sense, because nobody knows you have them.

danw1979 7y ago

You'd need to flood those countries with cheap receiver hardware without it being intercepted by the government, and then provide connectivity to those receivers to local users over a decent size area - larger than your usual WiFi hotspot I reckon. If there existed a local tech community with the chops and determination to successfully distribute the open internet delivered through this cheap receiver hardware to local users - all in an environment of very limited privacy - I'd be really surprised. Maybe in China... not so much NK.