15 ms·

U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors

85 points by credo 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
siculars 15y ago
Money well spent. Anything we can do to increase communications outside of officially sanctioned methods within the borders of these regimes is a good thing in my book. The article is lite on exactly how communications within a geography link up with the rest of the larger internet but you need to forgive the poor reporters who are obviously in way over their heads technically. I give you nonsense exhibit A: "Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border." To the four cool dudes hanging out with briefcase gear on L street in DC: Pack those beasties with mesh wifi AND satellite uplinks. Make a few hundred and let uncle sam distribute them/pick up the bandwidth tab.
- cabalamat 15y ago
  > Money well spent. Anything we can do to increase communications outside of officially sanctioned methods within the borders of these regimes is a good thing in my book. I agree. I would also add that in my book, "these regimes" includes the USA, UK, EU, Australia, etc.
  - danking00 15y ago
    I'm not comfortable with the connotation that "regime" brings, but I had the same thought as you. This technology and equipment will find itself in the hands of Americans if the US government tries to shutdown the Internet Mubarak-style. However, I think the difference is that, in America, I could walk down to Best Buy and build a reasonably effective "alternative Internet" today, at low cost.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we're so slow in making progress in fighting against the genuinely oppressive regimes in the world -- because when we should be helping those who really suffer from oppressive regimes we're too busy complaining and finding false equivalence with our own. "Oh yeah, it's a big problem that the house across the street is on fire. But it's also at least three degrees warmer in here than I'd like! It's important that we go get some hoses for the people across the street. But it's also important that we stop my housemate from turning the thermostat up so high. Let me tell you more about my annoying housemate..."
    - pyre 15y ago
      More like we help the neighbor down the street, while ignoring the shoddy wiring in our own house. We save the neighbor's house, while our own lights on fire and burns down. There's no reason that we can't help others and ourselves at the same time.
      - true_religion 15y ago
        Actually there is... time and focus are limited resources. Meetings and discussions should be focused on one topic---say for instance stopping the abuses of power by a genuinely totalitarian government. If we want to talk about the encroachment on civil liberties in a social democracy, that is good and well but it should be held at a different time. Conversation about the former shouldn't suffer from interjections by proponents of discussing the later simply because its an issue that's "closer to home".
    - cabalamat 15y ago
      You have misunderstood my meaning, which suggests I could have phrased my comment better. Of course I believe that Western countries are less repressive than the likes of North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, etc. The internet offers people an unprecendented ability to communicate with each other. This is causing big social changes, and big social changes always create winners and losers, so that some people who are currently powerful, but who these changes will make less powerful. For example, repressive regimes, or the copyright industry. The attitude of the USA and other Western countries is inconsistent. They welcome the changes the internet is bringing when it hurts incumbents they don't like (e.g. repressive regimes except those ones allied to the West), and want to stop they changes when it hurts incumbents they like (e.g. major political donors such as the MAFIAA). So on the one hand they're trying to make the internet more locked-down, and on the other hand they're trying to make it more free. It's obvious that they won't succeed in doing both, and it's also obvious that they are going to be more successful at doing anything if they have a clear goal of what they want to achieve. My view is that the national interests of Western countries lie in making the internet as free as possible. Yes there will be costs -- e.g. Wikileaks will embarrass Western leaders from time to time, and file sharing will hurt political donors. But these are harms to the leaders of Western countries, not to their populations.
Groxx 15y ago
I like this, but it feels hypocritical after the recent domain seizures and bullshit internet and digital media laws, and past censoring / banning of documents. It's OK to break other nations' walls, but not your own, apparently.
- yid 15y ago
  In fairness, media pirates and revolutionary elements have never been prompt about paying their lobbyists.
- Estragon 15y ago
  It's another example of shortsightedness by the USG,but fortuitous in this case. The technology described in this article will likely be used to circumvent domestic USG intentions within 10 years.
  - iwwr 15y ago
    It's not so clearcut as this. Projects like these give the US government knowledge in how to disturb or thwart those that try to circumvent US-imposed restrictions.
- mhansen 15y ago
  The US Government isn't some big monolithic entity with one goal, it's made up of many factions, each pulling in a different direction.
  - wisty 15y ago
    Believing in "The Machine" - a single coherent entity running things seems almost like the belief in Thor, the god of thunder. Sure, stuff happens for crazy reasons. That's not because of the agenda of some mysterious weather god, or an elusive organization; it's because of a complex system of dumb entities bumping into each other. You can rationalize it as gods or Illuminate, but it's probably just random noise. Sometimes stuff like the Patriot act can give a single actor a disproportionate amount of power, but they usually have no idea what to do with it; thankfully.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
yaix 15y ago
This is a very simplistic view on development of societies. Freedom must always come accompanied with responsibilities. In the West, we learn that early in school and (hopefully) life. I have lived many years in countries where people have not learned that. As a consequence, they all still want freedom (for themselves), but when you start talking about responsibilities, you are not so popular anymore. But it's very popular at home (i.e. in the West), so who cares about the victimes of all this simplistic "development aid"...
- yaix 15y ago
  Thanks for confirming the censorship in the West regarding this topic. I would have thought I get downvoted more than only (-4) points, though. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me for saying the unsayable. Btw: I have studied thic topic for many years and have lived half my life in the Third World to learn about this issue in practice. Who would have thought that the main problem is ideological ignorance in the West. (And now, downvote me again for talking on topic and contibuting first hand information...)
  - corin_ 15y ago
    Two FYIs for you: 1.) Downvoted comments never show as more than -4, -4 means "at least 5 people have downvoted, possibly a lot more" 2.) People thinking that you're talking nonsense doesn't equate to "censorship in the West".
    - yaix 15y ago
      Well, I am not talking nonsense, I am probably much better informed about the topic that most other here. With "censorship" I do not mean government censorship but self-sensorship. It's implated in the heads that certain things are "correct" and whoever dares to question one of these things gets punished. That's what "Ideology" is all about. When the reality is ignored in favour of "the Truth". I actually did the work and lived (and still live) in those places to have a look myself. Nobody cares, because everybody knows "the Truth" already. Downvote me for it.
tdignan 15y ago
Americaaaaaaaaaaa, fuck yeah!
Derbasti 15y ago
Could we maybe use that Shadow internet to circumvent the the censoring and shutting down of networks in the US?
delinquentme 15y ago
Transparency and detours around censors abroad ... but supports censored internet within the US? the "S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act" seeks to do exactly the opposite... within our own country hypocritical? ... stunt to confuse public?
breck 15y ago
I had assumed we were doing this, and am happy to see it confirmed. Creating wifi access points is quite a simple thing to do and the benefits it provides to free speech are quite obvious. With a budget as big as the U.S.'s, blanketing an area with a ton of powerful wifi points(satellite uplinks, etc.), is incredibly cheap too.
- Groxx 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure the 2 million dollar grant is for the group to develop the system and start producing them, not a single suitcase.
- pwim 15y ago
  The grant was $2M, not the individual "suitcases".
  - breck 15y ago
    Thanks! Edited.
derrida 15y ago
Not mentioned: Obama admin targeting Tor developers, despite the fact this technology is completely neutral.
- delinquentme 15y ago
  link?
  - nhebb 15y ago
    He's probable referring to Jacob Appelbaum, the Tor developer who has been harassed by the Obama administration because of his links to Wikileaks.
    - derrida 15y ago
      I am. Refer to twitter.com/ioerror
illumin8 15y ago
Amazingly, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) is censoring parts of the Internet in the US, while we try to export the uncensored Internet to the 3rd world. I guess the Internet should be free, as long as you don't violate copyrights...
- GHFigs 15y ago
  When has freedom ever meant violating the rights of others?
  - yaix 15y ago
    If you are an US American, you may want to go to your nearest Indian reserve and ask them.
    - pyre 15y ago
      Hear, hear! They were even kicking Native Americans off of reservations during the Kennedy Administration!
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Traditionally, the united states restricts freedom of speech legally in a few fairly well defined cases. In all of them, due process is involved. These domain seizures are such a disturbing issue because there is no due process. They don't even attempt to pretend like it exists. Since when has freedom ever meant violating the rights of others indeed.
    - pyre 15y ago
      Even worse, the seizures don't seem to be the result of ICE investigations so much as some industry (RIAA, MPAA, etc) person gives ICE a list of sites, ICE does some mild amount of confirmation, and then sends it off to a judge. I remember that a number of the rap blogs taken down in the first round, were claiming that the artists themselves (or their PR people) sent the music to them. Now maybe the industry person that told ICE about that site "just didn't know" that the music was legal, but isn't that the point of investigations and due process?
makmanalp 15y ago
On the other hand, if I were a senior official in the US Government, I sure would want to be the first to know all about renegade gatherings in countries which I do not approve of.
chopsueyar 15y ago
I consider this slightly hypocritical. Only a despot would mess with DNS w/out due process. How did revolutions occur prior to the creation of the TCP/IP stack?
jakevoytko 15y ago
So the government wants to develop communication links with hot zones. I find it more likely they want reliable communication with agents in conflict zones without needing agents to carry specialized equipment that could tip off local governments [0]. After all, if you install one of these Internet-in-a-suitcase devices in a conflict zone, you're likely there for more than a package delivery. What better way to blend in than mixing with hundreds of local citizens trying to use the same shadow network to communicate with the outside world? The risk still seems high, but it seems marginally better to be identified as a protester than a spy. [0] Except for, of course, the Internet-in-a-suitcase itself.
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  Couldn't an agent just use a satellite phone? I thought they were worldwide.
  - jdietrich 15y ago
    Satphones draw attention in much of the world. It's hard to pretend to be an ordinary peasant when you're carrying a device that costs the equivalent of two year's wages. When the US and Afghan authorities are detaining people for possessing a digital watch[1], a satphone is a total liability. WiFi-enabled smartphones are ubiquitous and dirt cheap - used shanzhai handsets cost just a few dollars. A smartphone's firmware is the ideal place to hide crypto. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F91W http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F91W
zitterbewegung 15y ago
Is the real reason the US is trying to do this is the fact that it wants to remain friendly to the next people in power? If the US helps the dissidents it seems more likely they will be friendly to the US in the future. Since the next regime may or may not be friendly to the United States.
gregory80 15y ago
Perhaps I am missing the point, but isn't this just the 21st century version the School of the Americas and the CIAs radio broadcasts / clandestine media efforts? I certainly don't oppose freedom, but willfully causing destabilization in foreign countries, even if that country has a brutal government seems to violate the concept of state sovereignty, at least a little bit. http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/03/30/how-the-cia-used-radio-in-the-1954-guatemala-coup/ http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/03/30/how-the-cia-used-rad... http://www.soaw.org/ http://www.soaw.org/
spir 15y ago
Why is the US government doing this? Primarily because, for the low low price of building networks they receive dragnet surveillance capabilities in foreign unstable and potentially hostile countries. See the SF fiber split dragnet surveillance. See the Onion episode about "The Facebook Project" - 'normally it would take CIA operatives weeks of tracking down hotel receipts, but people just put stuff on Facebook now!!'

85 points by credo 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Money well spent. Anything we can do to increase communications outside of officially sanctioned methods within the borders of these regimes is a good thing in my book. The article is lite on exactly how communications within a geography link up with the rest of the larger internet but you need to forgive the poor reporters who are obviously in way over their heads technically. I give you nonsense exhibit A: "Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border." To the four cool dudes hanging out with briefcase gear on L street in DC: Pack those beasties with mesh wifi AND satellite uplinks. Make a few hundred and let uncle sam distribute them/pick up the bandwidth tab.

cabalamat 15y ago
> Money well spent. Anything we can do to increase communications outside of officially sanctioned methods within the borders of these regimes is a good thing in my book. I agree. I would also add that in my book, "these regimes" includes the USA, UK, EU, Australia, etc.
- danking00 15y ago
  I'm not comfortable with the connotation that "regime" brings, but I had the same thought as you. This technology and equipment will find itself in the hands of Americans if the US government tries to shutdown the Internet Mubarak-style. However, I think the difference is that, in America, I could walk down to Best Buy and build a reasonably effective "alternative Internet" today, at low cost.
- hugh3 15y ago
  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we're so slow in making progress in fighting against the genuinely oppressive regimes in the world -- because when we should be helping those who really suffer from oppressive regimes we're too busy complaining and finding false equivalence with our own. "Oh yeah, it's a big problem that the house across the street is on fire. But it's also at least three degrees warmer in here than I'd like! It's important that we go get some hoses for the people across the street. But it's also important that we stop my housemate from turning the thermostat up so high. Let me tell you more about my annoying housemate..."
  - pyre 15y ago
    More like we help the neighbor down the street, while ignoring the shoddy wiring in our own house. We save the neighbor's house, while our own lights on fire and burns down. There's no reason that we can't help others and ourselves at the same time.
    - true_religion 15y ago
      Actually there is... time and focus are limited resources. Meetings and discussions should be focused on one topic---say for instance stopping the abuses of power by a genuinely totalitarian government. If we want to talk about the encroachment on civil liberties in a social democracy, that is good and well but it should be held at a different time. Conversation about the former shouldn't suffer from interjections by proponents of discussing the later simply because its an issue that's "closer to home".
  - cabalamat 15y ago
    You have misunderstood my meaning, which suggests I could have phrased my comment better. Of course I believe that Western countries are less repressive than the likes of North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, etc. The internet offers people an unprecendented ability to communicate with each other. This is causing big social changes, and big social changes always create winners and losers, so that some people who are currently powerful, but who these changes will make less powerful. For example, repressive regimes, or the copyright industry. The attitude of the USA and other Western countries is inconsistent. They welcome the changes the internet is bringing when it hurts incumbents they don't like (e.g. repressive regimes except those ones allied to the West), and want to stop they changes when it hurts incumbents they like (e.g. major political donors such as the MAFIAA). So on the one hand they're trying to make the internet more locked-down, and on the other hand they're trying to make it more free. It's obvious that they won't succeed in doing both, and it's also obvious that they are going to be more successful at doing anything if they have a clear goal of what they want to achieve. My view is that the national interests of Western countries lie in making the internet as free as possible. Yes there will be costs -- e.g. Wikileaks will embarrass Western leaders from time to time, and file sharing will hurt political donors. But these are harms to the leaders of Western countries, not to their populations.

Groxx 15y ago

I like this, but it feels hypocritical after the recent domain seizures and bullshit internet and digital media laws, and past censoring / banning of documents. It's OK to break other nations' walls, but not your own, apparently.

yid 15y ago
In fairness, media pirates and revolutionary elements have never been prompt about paying their lobbyists.
Estragon 15y ago
It's another example of shortsightedness by the USG,but fortuitous in this case. The technology described in this article will likely be used to circumvent domestic USG intentions within 10 years.
- iwwr 15y ago
  It's not so clearcut as this. Projects like these give the US government knowledge in how to disturb or thwart those that try to circumvent US-imposed restrictions.
mhansen 15y ago
The US Government isn't some big monolithic entity with one goal, it's made up of many factions, each pulling in a different direction.
- wisty 15y ago
  Believing in "The Machine" - a single coherent entity running things seems almost like the belief in Thor, the god of thunder. Sure, stuff happens for crazy reasons. That's not because of the agenda of some mysterious weather god, or an elusive organization; it's because of a complex system of dumb entities bumping into each other. You can rationalize it as gods or Illuminate, but it's probably just random noise. Sometimes stuff like the Patriot act can give a single actor a disproportionate amount of power, but they usually have no idea what to do with it; thankfully.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

yaix 15y ago

This is a very simplistic view on development of societies. Freedom must always come accompanied with responsibilities. In the West, we learn that early in school and (hopefully) life. I have lived many years in countries where people have not learned that. As a consequence, they all still want freedom (for themselves), but when you start talking about responsibilities, you are not so popular anymore. But it's very popular at home (i.e. in the West), so who cares about the victimes of all this simplistic "development aid"...

yaix 15y ago
Thanks for confirming the censorship in the West regarding this topic. I would have thought I get downvoted more than only (-4) points, though. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me for saying the unsayable. Btw: I have studied thic topic for many years and have lived half my life in the Third World to learn about this issue in practice. Who would have thought that the main problem is ideological ignorance in the West. (And now, downvote me again for talking on topic and contibuting first hand information...)
- corin_ 15y ago
  Two FYIs for you: 1.) Downvoted comments never show as more than -4, -4 means "at least 5 people have downvoted, possibly a lot more" 2.) People thinking that you're talking nonsense doesn't equate to "censorship in the West".
  - yaix 15y ago
    Well, I am not talking nonsense, I am probably much better informed about the topic that most other here. With "censorship" I do not mean government censorship but self-sensorship. It's implated in the heads that certain things are "correct" and whoever dares to question one of these things gets punished. That's what "Ideology" is all about. When the reality is ignored in favour of "the Truth". I actually did the work and lived (and still live) in those places to have a look myself. Nobody cares, because everybody knows "the Truth" already. Downvote me for it.

tdignan 15y ago

Americaaaaaaaaaaa, fuck yeah!

Derbasti 15y ago

Could we maybe use that Shadow internet to circumvent the the censoring and shutting down of networks in the US?

delinquentme 15y ago

Transparency and detours around censors abroad ... but supports censored internet within the US? the "S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act" seeks to do exactly the opposite... within our own country hypocritical? ... stunt to confuse public?

breck 15y ago

I had assumed we were doing this, and am happy to see it confirmed. Creating wifi access points is quite a simple thing to do and the benefits it provides to free speech are quite obvious. With a budget as big as the U.S.'s, blanketing an area with a ton of powerful wifi points(satellite uplinks, etc.), is incredibly cheap too.

Groxx 15y ago
I'm pretty sure the 2 million dollar grant is for the group to develop the system and start producing them, not a single suitcase.
pwim 15y ago
The grant was $2M, not the individual "suitcases".
- breck 15y ago
  Thanks! Edited.

derrida 15y ago

Not mentioned: Obama admin targeting Tor developers, despite the fact this technology is completely neutral.

delinquentme 15y ago
link?
- nhebb 15y ago
  He's probable referring to Jacob Appelbaum, the Tor developer who has been harassed by the Obama administration because of his links to Wikileaks.
  - derrida 15y ago
    I am. Refer to twitter.com/ioerror

illumin8 15y ago

Amazingly, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) is censoring parts of the Internet in the US, while we try to export the uncensored Internet to the 3rd world. I guess the Internet should be free, as long as you don't violate copyrights...

GHFigs 15y ago
When has freedom ever meant violating the rights of others?
- yaix 15y ago
  If you are an US American, you may want to go to your nearest Indian reserve and ask them.
  - pyre 15y ago
    Hear, hear! They were even kicking Native Americans off of reservations during the Kennedy Administration!
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Traditionally, the united states restricts freedom of speech legally in a few fairly well defined cases. In all of them, due process is involved. These domain seizures are such a disturbing issue because there is no due process. They don't even attempt to pretend like it exists. Since when has freedom ever meant violating the rights of others indeed.
  - pyre 15y ago
    Even worse, the seizures don't seem to be the result of ICE investigations so much as some industry (RIAA, MPAA, etc) person gives ICE a list of sites, ICE does some mild amount of confirmation, and then sends it off to a judge. I remember that a number of the rap blogs taken down in the first round, were claiming that the artists themselves (or their PR people) sent the music to them. Now maybe the industry person that told ICE about that site "just didn't know" that the music was legal, but isn't that the point of investigations and due process?

makmanalp 15y ago

On the other hand, if I were a senior official in the US Government, I sure would want to be the first to know all about renegade gatherings in countries which I do not approve of.

chopsueyar 15y ago

I consider this slightly hypocritical. Only a despot would mess with DNS w/out due process. How did revolutions occur prior to the creation of the TCP/IP stack?

jakevoytko 15y ago

So the government wants to develop communication links with hot zones. I find it more likely they want reliable communication with agents in conflict zones without needing agents to carry specialized equipment that could tip off local governments [0]. After all, if you install one of these Internet-in-a-suitcase devices in a conflict zone, you're likely there for more than a package delivery. What better way to blend in than mixing with hundreds of local citizens trying to use the same shadow network to communicate with the outside world? The risk still seems high, but it seems marginally better to be identified as a protester than a spy. [0] Except for, of course, the Internet-in-a-suitcase itself.

felipemnoa 15y ago
Couldn't an agent just use a satellite phone? I thought they were worldwide.
- jdietrich 15y ago
  Satphones draw attention in much of the world. It's hard to pretend to be an ordinary peasant when you're carrying a device that costs the equivalent of two year's wages. When the US and Afghan authorities are detaining people for possessing a digital watch[1], a satphone is a total liability. WiFi-enabled smartphones are ubiquitous and dirt cheap - used shanzhai handsets cost just a few dollars. A smartphone's firmware is the ideal place to hide crypto. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F91W http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F91W

zitterbewegung 15y ago

Is the real reason the US is trying to do this is the fact that it wants to remain friendly to the next people in power? If the US helps the dissidents it seems more likely they will be friendly to the US in the future. Since the next regime may or may not be friendly to the United States.

gregory80 15y ago

Perhaps I am missing the point, but isn't this just the 21st century version the School of the Americas and the CIAs radio broadcasts / clandestine media efforts? I certainly don't oppose freedom, but willfully causing destabilization in foreign countries, even if that country has a brutal government seems to violate the concept of state sovereignty, at least a little bit. http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/03/30/how-the-cia-used-radio-in-the-1954-guatemala-coup/ http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/03/30/how-the-cia-used-rad... http://www.soaw.org/ http://www.soaw.org/

spir 15y ago

Why is the US government doing this? Primarily because, for the low low price of building networks they receive dragnet surveillance capabilities in foreign unstable and potentially hostile countries. See the SF fiber split dragnet surveillance. See the Onion episode about "The Facebook Project" - 'normally it would take CIA operatives weeks of tracking down hotel receipts, but people just put stuff on Facebook now!!'