11 ms·

Myanmar orders wireless internet shutdown until further notice: telecoms sources

191 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

agomez314 6y ago
This could be an interesting case study of what happens when people are suddenly taken away of the internet (at least wireless). I don't think any technology in history has been adopted so quickly and changed so profoundly the way individuals and societies behave. I think it could be a hundred years until we can fully see the consequences of what widely-available, fast-speed internet has.
- sa1 6y ago
  Internet shutdowns are regular in India.
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  Indian government shutdown internet in Kashmir for like a year (more or less, happened a lot beforehand but for less duration). That would be a good case study as well but internet shutdowns tend to go hand in hand with lots of violence and other kinds of crimes against humanity so the effect of loss of internet probably isn't studied as much
- waiseristy 6y ago
  This happens quite a lot. Turkey did it back in 2016, some of the Arab states did it back during the Arab Spring. Usually some sort of bootleg networks pop up around the countries borders/ edge nodes.
ecf 6y ago
Perhaps this is an idealistic and naive world view but internet connectivity _should_ transcend governments and be something that no one has control over and no one can shut down.
- femiagbabiaka 6y ago
  Agreed. I'd love to work on solving this problem.
- brobdingnagians 6y ago
  I like this point. The first question we should ask when someone develops a single switch to shut off an entire, critical piece of infrastructure is why? Who would need to do that? Whose interest is it for? Surely not the company, why would they stop serving their customers and go through the expense of making it easy to do that. There is no other reason to have and use that capability than to stop an entire population from communicating. No one has a good justified reason for wanting to do that. Corrupt reasons? Yes. But not any that are in the interest of a truly open, democratic society.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - karatinversion 6y ago
    Well in this case, the order is from a military government, which locked up the elected politicians earlier this year and is shooting its people in the streets, so the boat on “a truly open, democratic society” has kind of sailed. It also suggests, to the people running the networks on the ground, that the military is very open to coming round and shooting you if you don’t shut it down.
  - sedatk 6y ago
    > why? Who would need to do that? Whose interest is it for? "National security" is the blanket answer to all those questions.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > The first question we should ask when someone develops a single switch to shut off an entire, critical piece of infrastructure is why? They don't though. From a technical view point, they have the same "off switch" that every country has: boots on the ground, guns and trust that they'll use them. They didn't switch the internet off, they ordered the service providers to switch it off. Every country on earth can do that with the service providers that are running physical infrastructure in the country, it's harder for satellite internet. There's absolutely no reason why the US, Germany or Switzerland couldn't do the same. They probably won't any time soon, but they can: all it takes is a few phone calls and the service providers' belief that they mean it.
yingw787 6y ago
Are there material differences between wireless and wired Internet w.r.t. infrastructure? Is wired Internet easier to trace or something? I'm not too familiar with computer networks, but I thought that they would be the same.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  It affects different user segments differently. Disconnecting wireless internet means that you're mostly disconnecting consumers/social media users/general public, while the businesses that are non-digital but rely on the internet for their daily operations keep functioning - if you disconnect all the internet then you're likely to disrupt e.g. ATMs and retail store logistics and all kinds of technical service monitoring which cause you trouble; but if you "just" disconnect all the mobile internet (except for a whitelist of phone numbers used by gov't employees) and the residental networks, then the general public is without communications but the economy can still be mostly functional. Also, a key goal is to disrupt the communications between protesters in the streets - so that they can't coordinate any reaction between themselves or those who are at home until they themselves leave the streets; we saw similar actions a few times last year in Belarus.
  - yingw787 6y ago
    Makes sense; thanks so much for the explanation!
cblackthornekc 6y ago
Interesting. Last time something like this happened, that I remember, was about a decade ago in Egypt. The government demanded the internet be turned off during a civil war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Egypt#2011_Internet_shutdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Egypt#2011_Interne...
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  Indian govt shutdown internet in Kashmir for a year (maybe a bit longer maybe less) much more recently so they could de facto annex the region: https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/kashmir-internet-shutdown-continues-despite-supreme-court-ruling/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/kashmir-internet-shutdown-co...
- vmception 6y ago
  Its pretty common and predictable over the last decade
LogicX 6y ago
Next email in the thread: April Fools!
bob1029 6y ago
I look forward to global adoption of systems like Starlink. Presumably, neither the US Government nor SpaceX will comply with the mandates of totalitarian governments and waste time geo-fencing specific chunks of the globe. This isn't really practical from a technological perspective either.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  No, but I assume Starlink will implement geofencing for subscribers to please content-providers.
- wmf 6y ago
  Geo-fencing is kind of inherent to Starlink since it's based on spot beams. I also wonder if people really want to see "Starlink customers in Myanmar executed for treason" headlines.
  - nullsense 6y ago
    I can imagine a boots on the ground approach searching door to door to find and execute people using it. When no one will stop you doing something, you can go as far as you want. WEIRD people see this type of situation as very catastrophic, strange, and alien, but when you crack open the history books present day Myanmar is a regular day at the office on planet earth and it's all the WEIRD people who are actually the anomaly.
    - bob1029 6y ago
      This thinking goes both ways. There is no reason someone would have to use starlink at their home. That is the entire point. You could hide a setup in the middle of nowhere.
      - nullsense 6y ago
        Take a 3 hour drive every weekend to go watch cat videos, see what shenanigans Trump's up to these days, and jerk off to midget porn. Good times.
raverbashing 6y ago
Does anyone still has a 56k modem gathering dust somewhere?
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Oh I’ve got much worse than that. I have 56k modems, T1/E1, ISDN equipment, and even some weird 4800/9600bps mainframe modems all sitting around until I finally put together my internal little networks. Then I may decide to screw around with old LANs like Token Ring and WAN backbone stuff like ATM.
  - jebeng 6y ago
    cue "Running in the 90s" track
sp_nster 6y ago
What's going on here in Myanmar should be a lesson to all people. Here is the US, I'd like to see a lobby to have Communications Act amended to remove any power of the government or business to shut down communications networks, systems or inter-connections. This idea that governments can protect us from ourselves is foolish.
- drak0n1c 6y ago
  Governments at a certain point aren't trying to protect us from ourselves. They're trying to protect themselves from us.
  - falcor84 6y ago
    'People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.'
    - jfengel 6y ago
      Myanmar has a government that's afraid of its people. It's not working out so great. What seems to work best is when the government and the people like each other, and nobody's afraid. That doesn't mean that they have to agree, but it does mean that they disagree politely, and seek to resolve disagreements with compromises that everybody can live with. That requires a certain amount of trust and good faith. Once there's widespread fear, it's not going to end well for anybody.
      - LordDragonfang 6y ago
        I think the people of Myanmar are more afraid of the government than the government is of them. That's kind of the important part of that idiom there.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  It's not like a law is going to stop a malicious government from literally cutting a connection. Do you really mean to propose that network operators not be able to disconnect from people that don't pay or are disruptive to their operations? I feel like you need to be a little more clear about what responsibilities you think private entities have.
evolve2k 6y ago
You have friends in Myanmar and now know they’ve lost wireless internet. Is there a fast way to help them recover some functionality?
- nullsense 6y ago
  It's not fast, but, move to Myanmar, join the military, rise up the ranks, start an off-hand discussion to the tune of "you know, when you really think about, running a country is a lot of work..." and make them think it was their idea to call the whole thing off.
- tyingq 6y ago
  I wish I could remember the name of the software package. It was posted here some time ago, but it was a DIY way to create a "summary of the internet" on a 1TB disk, similar to the “Paquete Semanal”[1] used in Cuba. Shipping those in regularly would likely be appreciated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal
- neolog 6y ago
  There's probably an app for building mesh networks.
- altacc 6y ago
  Bribery. The military has separate networks which it doesn’t shutdown and if you know the right people and have the cash, then it’s possible to get added to it.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Is there a fast way to help them recover some functionality? A NATO tank division in Yangon, and a missile destroyer flotilla in the bay of Bengal. There is 1 US friendly nation anywhere in the vicinity. And given the timeline of Iraqi Freedom as a reference, 1.5 month.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    That is, unless they're part of the unlucky 5% to be slaughtered in the invasion.
sjg007 6y ago
Why we need starlink.
- logosmonkey 6y ago
  Wouldn't make a difference in this instance. Not only would they need base stations somewhere in country but the users would require a dish. Both could and probably would be in this case found and destroyed by the military.
  - genericacct 6y ago
    Then again protesters can definitely make do with 9600 bps and that is achievable with other sat networks that have much smaller (and hideable) terminals such as iridium or its newer competitors whose name i forget.
  - rarefied_tomato 6y ago
    Many wireless and ethernet connections could ultimately network with just a few Starlink user dishes in population centers. I think the base station could be located in neighboring countries. It might be plausible if you have a bunch of young people who are disconnected for too long.
MattConfluence 6y ago
Something that makes this extra interesting is that two of the major telcos of Myanmar are subsidiaries of companies from other countries: Telenor from Norway and Ooredoo from Qatar. Both of which are majority owned by their respective governments. According to [1] they account for 28 of 54 million subscriptions. It will be interesting to watch how these two companies continue to comply with such orders. These events are making the news in Norway with a Telenor angle. If things keep escalating and Telenor is shown to be in any way complicit in any human rights abuses, it will be a scandal in Norway, and the Telenor leadership will have to answer to the government. Norway has cultivated an image as a human rights champion of sorts on the international stage, and is expected to take this sort of development very seriously. There is precedent in the VimpelCom case [2] where the financial crime police, parliament and the ministry of commerce got involved. Senior leadership had to testify before parliament committees, the police made corruption charges, and the chairman of the board resigned after the minister of commerce indicated she did not have confidence in him. So Telenor Myanmar and it's Norwegian leadership is now under pressure from the government of Myanmar to comply, while also being answerable to the government of Norway for the possible consequences of doing so. Meanwhile, Qatar is under international pressure because of human rights issues on their own turf, and the international eye turned on them because of the upcoming FIFA World Cup. In fact, Norway's national team has been calling them out recently [3]. They might also want to tread very carefully around this issue. [1] https://www.charltonsmyanmar.com/myanmar-economy/telecommunications-in-myanmar/ https://www.charltonsmyanmar.com/myanmar-economy/telecommuni... [2] https://www.thelocal.no/20151105/former-vimpelcom-ceo-seized-at-oslo-airport/ https://www.thelocal.no/20151105/former-vimpelcom-ceo-seized... [3] https://twitter.com/FRfotballBen/status/1374809071497383953 https://twitter.com/FRfotballBen/status/1374809071497383953
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  I don't see how any consequences inflicted upon the foreign owned telcos by their respective governments is much more than theatre as viewed from the perspective of Myanmar citizen. How will any of that help to reduce the burden of human rights abuses? I'll admit though, it is entertaining to watch a political scandal unravel. Predictable though.
- 6y ago
PicassoCTs 6y ago
Now is starlinks time to shine. Freedom of information from the skys.
- tiagod 6y ago
  Starlink is geofenced, they don't provide service to regular customers outside their contract location.
- noman-land 6y ago
  I'm all for this but unfortunately these transmissions can be triangulated.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    No need for triangulation when you can load up directional antennae and equipment looking for specific RF freqencies being beamed skyward using a light aircraft with GPS. All you have to do and fly in a grid, marking all ground stations on a map and send the coordinates to your goons later (or in real-time, if you want to make sure the stations are being turned off).
rPlayer6554 6y ago
Relevant XKCD? https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
pjfin123 6y ago
I wonder what difference satellite internet like Starlink will make in future situations like this.

191 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

This could be an interesting case study of what happens when people are suddenly taken away of the internet (at least wireless). I don't think any technology in history has been adopted so quickly and changed so profoundly the way individuals and societies behave. I think it could be a hundred years until we can fully see the consequences of what widely-available, fast-speed internet has.

sa1 6y ago
Internet shutdowns are regular in India.
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
Indian government shutdown internet in Kashmir for like a year (more or less, happened a lot beforehand but for less duration). That would be a good case study as well but internet shutdowns tend to go hand in hand with lots of violence and other kinds of crimes against humanity so the effect of loss of internet probably isn't studied as much
waiseristy 6y ago
This happens quite a lot. Turkey did it back in 2016, some of the Arab states did it back during the Arab Spring. Usually some sort of bootleg networks pop up around the countries borders/ edge nodes.

ecf 6y ago

Perhaps this is an idealistic and naive world view but internet connectivity _should_ transcend governments and be something that no one has control over and no one can shut down.

femiagbabiaka 6y ago
Agreed. I'd love to work on solving this problem.
brobdingnagians 6y ago
I like this point. The first question we should ask when someone develops a single switch to shut off an entire, critical piece of infrastructure is why? Who would need to do that? Whose interest is it for? Surely not the company, why would they stop serving their customers and go through the expense of making it easy to do that. There is no other reason to have and use that capability than to stop an entire population from communicating. No one has a good justified reason for wanting to do that. Corrupt reasons? Yes. But not any that are in the interest of a truly open, democratic society.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- karatinversion 6y ago
  Well in this case, the order is from a military government, which locked up the elected politicians earlier this year and is shooting its people in the streets, so the boat on “a truly open, democratic society” has kind of sailed. It also suggests, to the people running the networks on the ground, that the military is very open to coming round and shooting you if you don’t shut it down.
- sedatk 6y ago
  > why? Who would need to do that? Whose interest is it for? "National security" is the blanket answer to all those questions.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > The first question we should ask when someone develops a single switch to shut off an entire, critical piece of infrastructure is why? They don't though. From a technical view point, they have the same "off switch" that every country has: boots on the ground, guns and trust that they'll use them. They didn't switch the internet off, they ordered the service providers to switch it off. Every country on earth can do that with the service providers that are running physical infrastructure in the country, it's harder for satellite internet. There's absolutely no reason why the US, Germany or Switzerland couldn't do the same. They probably won't any time soon, but they can: all it takes is a few phone calls and the service providers' belief that they mean it.

yingw787 6y ago

Are there material differences between wireless and wired Internet w.r.t. infrastructure? Is wired Internet easier to trace or something? I'm not too familiar with computer networks, but I thought that they would be the same.

PeterisP 6y ago
It affects different user segments differently. Disconnecting wireless internet means that you're mostly disconnecting consumers/social media users/general public, while the businesses that are non-digital but rely on the internet for their daily operations keep functioning - if you disconnect all the internet then you're likely to disrupt e.g. ATMs and retail store logistics and all kinds of technical service monitoring which cause you trouble; but if you "just" disconnect all the mobile internet (except for a whitelist of phone numbers used by gov't employees) and the residental networks, then the general public is without communications but the economy can still be mostly functional. Also, a key goal is to disrupt the communications between protesters in the streets - so that they can't coordinate any reaction between themselves or those who are at home until they themselves leave the streets; we saw similar actions a few times last year in Belarus.
- yingw787 6y ago
  Makes sense; thanks so much for the explanation!

cblackthornekc 6y ago

Interesting. Last time something like this happened, that I remember, was about a decade ago in Egypt. The government demanded the internet be turned off during a civil war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Egypt#2011_Internet_shutdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Egypt#2011_Interne...

notsureaboutpg 6y ago
Indian govt shutdown internet in Kashmir for a year (maybe a bit longer maybe less) much more recently so they could de facto annex the region: https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/kashmir-internet-shutdown-continues-despite-supreme-court-ruling/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/kashmir-internet-shutdown-co...
vmception 6y ago
Its pretty common and predictable over the last decade

LogicX 6y ago

Next email in the thread: April Fools!

bob1029 6y ago

I look forward to global adoption of systems like Starlink. Presumably, neither the US Government nor SpaceX will comply with the mandates of totalitarian governments and waste time geo-fencing specific chunks of the globe. This isn't really practical from a technological perspective either.

ForHackernews 6y ago
No, but I assume Starlink will implement geofencing for subscribers to please content-providers.
wmf 6y ago
Geo-fencing is kind of inherent to Starlink since it's based on spot beams. I also wonder if people really want to see "Starlink customers in Myanmar executed for treason" headlines.
- nullsense 6y ago
  I can imagine a boots on the ground approach searching door to door to find and execute people using it. When no one will stop you doing something, you can go as far as you want. WEIRD people see this type of situation as very catastrophic, strange, and alien, but when you crack open the history books present day Myanmar is a regular day at the office on planet earth and it's all the WEIRD people who are actually the anomaly.
  - bob1029 6y ago
    This thinking goes both ways. There is no reason someone would have to use starlink at their home. That is the entire point. You could hide a setup in the middle of nowhere.
    - nullsense 6y ago
      Take a 3 hour drive every weekend to go watch cat videos, see what shenanigans Trump's up to these days, and jerk off to midget porn. Good times.

raverbashing 6y ago

Does anyone still has a 56k modem gathering dust somewhere?

the_only_law 6y ago
Oh I’ve got much worse than that. I have 56k modems, T1/E1, ISDN equipment, and even some weird 4800/9600bps mainframe modems all sitting around until I finally put together my internal little networks. Then I may decide to screw around with old LANs like Token Ring and WAN backbone stuff like ATM.
- jebeng 6y ago
  cue "Running in the 90s" track

sp_nster 6y ago

What's going on here in Myanmar should be a lesson to all people. Here is the US, I'd like to see a lobby to have Communications Act amended to remove any power of the government or business to shut down communications networks, systems or inter-connections. This idea that governments can protect us from ourselves is foolish.

drak0n1c 6y ago
Governments at a certain point aren't trying to protect us from ourselves. They're trying to protect themselves from us.
- falcor84 6y ago
  'People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.'
  - jfengel 6y ago
    Myanmar has a government that's afraid of its people. It's not working out so great. What seems to work best is when the government and the people like each other, and nobody's afraid. That doesn't mean that they have to agree, but it does mean that they disagree politely, and seek to resolve disagreements with compromises that everybody can live with. That requires a certain amount of trust and good faith. Once there's widespread fear, it's not going to end well for anybody.
    - LordDragonfang 6y ago
      I think the people of Myanmar are more afraid of the government than the government is of them. That's kind of the important part of that idiom there.
maxerickson 6y ago
It's not like a law is going to stop a malicious government from literally cutting a connection. Do you really mean to propose that network operators not be able to disconnect from people that don't pay or are disruptive to their operations? I feel like you need to be a little more clear about what responsibilities you think private entities have.

evolve2k 6y ago

You have friends in Myanmar and now know they’ve lost wireless internet. Is there a fast way to help them recover some functionality?

nullsense 6y ago
It's not fast, but, move to Myanmar, join the military, rise up the ranks, start an off-hand discussion to the tune of "you know, when you really think about, running a country is a lot of work..." and make them think it was their idea to call the whole thing off.
tyingq 6y ago
I wish I could remember the name of the software package. It was posted here some time ago, but it was a DIY way to create a "summary of the internet" on a 1TB disk, similar to the “Paquete Semanal”[1] used in Cuba. Shipping those in regularly would likely be appreciated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal
neolog 6y ago
There's probably an app for building mesh networks.
altacc 6y ago
Bribery. The military has separate networks which it doesn’t shutdown and if you know the right people and have the cash, then it’s possible to get added to it.
baybal2 6y ago
> Is there a fast way to help them recover some functionality? A NATO tank division in Yangon, and a missile destroyer flotilla in the bay of Bengal. There is 1 US friendly nation anywhere in the vicinity. And given the timeline of Iraqi Freedom as a reference, 1.5 month.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  That is, unless they're part of the unlucky 5% to be slaughtered in the invasion.

sjg007 6y ago

Why we need starlink.

logosmonkey 6y ago
Wouldn't make a difference in this instance. Not only would they need base stations somewhere in country but the users would require a dish. Both could and probably would be in this case found and destroyed by the military.
- genericacct 6y ago
  Then again protesters can definitely make do with 9600 bps and that is achievable with other sat networks that have much smaller (and hideable) terminals such as iridium or its newer competitors whose name i forget.
- rarefied_tomato 6y ago
  Many wireless and ethernet connections could ultimately network with just a few Starlink user dishes in population centers. I think the base station could be located in neighboring countries. It might be plausible if you have a bunch of young people who are disconnected for too long.

MattConfluence 6y ago

Something that makes this extra interesting is that two of the major telcos of Myanmar are subsidiaries of companies from other countries: Telenor from Norway and Ooredoo from Qatar. Both of which are majority owned by their respective governments. According to [1] they account for 28 of 54 million subscriptions. It will be interesting to watch how these two companies continue to comply with such orders. These events are making the news in Norway with a Telenor angle. If things keep escalating and Telenor is shown to be in any way complicit in any human rights abuses, it will be a scandal in Norway, and the Telenor leadership will have to answer to the government. Norway has cultivated an image as a human rights champion of sorts on the international stage, and is expected to take this sort of development very seriously. There is precedent in the VimpelCom case [2] where the financial crime police, parliament and the ministry of commerce got involved. Senior leadership had to testify before parliament committees, the police made corruption charges, and the chairman of the board resigned after the minister of commerce indicated she did not have confidence in him. So Telenor Myanmar and it's Norwegian leadership is now under pressure from the government of Myanmar to comply, while also being answerable to the government of Norway for the possible consequences of doing so. Meanwhile, Qatar is under international pressure because of human rights issues on their own turf, and the international eye turned on them because of the upcoming FIFA World Cup. In fact, Norway's national team has been calling them out recently [3]. They might also want to tread very carefully around this issue. [1] https://www.charltonsmyanmar.com/myanmar-economy/telecommunications-in-myanmar/ https://www.charltonsmyanmar.com/myanmar-economy/telecommuni... [2] https://www.thelocal.no/20151105/former-vimpelcom-ceo-seized-at-oslo-airport/ https://www.thelocal.no/20151105/former-vimpelcom-ceo-seized... [3] https://twitter.com/FRfotballBen/status/1374809071497383953 https://twitter.com/FRfotballBen/status/1374809071497383953

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
I don't see how any consequences inflicted upon the foreign owned telcos by their respective governments is much more than theatre as viewed from the perspective of Myanmar citizen. How will any of that help to reduce the burden of human rights abuses? I'll admit though, it is entertaining to watch a political scandal unravel. Predictable though.
6y ago

PicassoCTs 6y ago

Now is starlinks time to shine. Freedom of information from the skys.

tiagod 6y ago
Starlink is geofenced, they don't provide service to regular customers outside their contract location.
noman-land 6y ago
I'm all for this but unfortunately these transmissions can be triangulated.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  No need for triangulation when you can load up directional antennae and equipment looking for specific RF freqencies being beamed skyward using a light aircraft with GPS. All you have to do and fly in a grid, marking all ground stations on a map and send the coordinates to your goons later (or in real-time, if you want to make sure the stations are being turned off).

rPlayer6554 6y ago

Relevant XKCD? https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

pjfin123 6y ago

I wonder what difference satellite internet like Starlink will make in future situations like this.