5 ms·

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

by 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.
umvi 6y ago
If it's satellite based internet, there's no way to shut it off, especially if gateway is not in the same country. Of course, the government could always patrol around looking for antennas...
- helios_invictus 6y ago
  It's quite easy to jam satellite comes, as well as locate them. The Tatmadaw has some US company built direction finding equipment.
  - squarefoot 6y ago
    "It's quite easy to jam satellite comes" That would literally require a man in the middle attack; the jammer should be kept between the antenna and the satellite, or very close to that position. I mean, it should be in the air. "as well as locate them" Possible, but not easy. A satellite dish can be buried, hidden under a camouflaging roof etc It's not like earth antennas that need the space around them free for pointing them; all they need is to see their satellite which is in the sky. One can dig a hole in the ground, put the dish down there pointed to the satellite, then when not in use park their truck above it, and good luck to the government helicopter passing above to track it. And btw, there are ways to build antennas that don't appear as such; they may offer worse performance but they do work, and satellite reflectors can be built that way too.
    - tbihl 6y ago
      The location finding would be by RF emissions, not visually.
      - squarefoot 6y ago
        That's my point. A dish antenna is highly directional, so an tx/rx antenna pointed towards the sky can be detected/jammed effectively only by standing in between the antenna and the target it's pointed to, ie the satellite. It's not a thin line, but it's still a limited area, and the minor lobes of its radiation pattern produce a very faint signal which can become negligible by burying or covering most of the dish in all directions except the one it's aimed to.
JTbane 6y ago
Because encryption exists, the internet can hopefully always stand as a transcendental entity. VPNs, TOR, steganography and obfuscation are some of the best tools against tyranny.
- bathtub365 6y ago
  These tools are useless if your tyrannical government cuts off access to the internet.
  - karatinversion 6y ago
    “The protesters are communicating using encryption. Take this $5 wrench and hit the network equipment with it until they stop.”
- simplicio 6y ago
  In this case, it sounds like they're physically shutting off the broadband wireless servers. Encryption seems unlikely to help if the actual connection is severed.
- rich_sasha 6y ago
  They don’t protect against rubber hose cryptography, and that’s the biggest concern with oppressive governments.
  - adwi 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis
jasonjayr 6y ago
If the government is lawless enough that it will trample on the rights of the citizens, then the laws that prevent citizens from setting up wireless networks securely to recreate the internet backbone are null and void. (With all the risks that comes with operating + defending a detectable RF emitter from the ground in a hostile environment) If you want to work to prevent this, keep enough technology and know-how on hand that you could do this on short notice, even if's as simple flinging 5mb/s on a cantana a mile away.
knolax 6y ago
I will never understand the HN crowd's deification of the internet. Out of all the methods of communication out there it doesn't seem particularly special, and definitely not special enough to supercede the sovereignity of nations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- polypodiopsi 6y ago
  In this case the problem is that the sovereignity of the nation has been undermined by a military coup. Which is to say: Unless you believe in the rightfullness of the right of the stronger which in political terms would amount to believe into some elan vitale, a will of the biological organism of the people, some superstition of thinking blood and soil (which is to say a mob of antisocial males) to be the (metaphysical) being of what is considered the nationstate. (Some might also argue that the nationstate has had terrible consequences for the average worker in the dawn of modernity (that bit of history is probably specific to western history)) adding on this: I'd agree with the notion that it is weird that people fetishize the internet as some anarchic free entity when on a material level it is owned in big parts by private interest.
mycall 6y ago
This makes SpaceX even more interesting.
- abestic9 6y ago
  Not to take away from your point but I think you mean to say Starlink - it's a separate company. Governments could block sales of the customer equipment, but once they're in it would be almost impossible to locate and confiscate them all. They could order termination of service (based on coordinates or serial numbers), but there's no way for them to physically control that if the company refuses to do so.
  - tbihl 6y ago
    The service would be highly susceptible to DF of the outgoing traffic, but could probably be managed on the basis of set up, transmit, run away quickly before they find and arrest/kill you.

by 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.

umvi 6y ago

If it's satellite based internet, there's no way to shut it off, especially if gateway is not in the same country. Of course, the government could always patrol around looking for antennas...

helios_invictus 6y ago
It's quite easy to jam satellite comes, as well as locate them. The Tatmadaw has some US company built direction finding equipment.
- squarefoot 6y ago
  "It's quite easy to jam satellite comes" That would literally require a man in the middle attack; the jammer should be kept between the antenna and the satellite, or very close to that position. I mean, it should be in the air. "as well as locate them" Possible, but not easy. A satellite dish can be buried, hidden under a camouflaging roof etc It's not like earth antennas that need the space around them free for pointing them; all they need is to see their satellite which is in the sky. One can dig a hole in the ground, put the dish down there pointed to the satellite, then when not in use park their truck above it, and good luck to the government helicopter passing above to track it. And btw, there are ways to build antennas that don't appear as such; they may offer worse performance but they do work, and satellite reflectors can be built that way too.
  - tbihl 6y ago
    The location finding would be by RF emissions, not visually.
    - squarefoot 6y ago
      That's my point. A dish antenna is highly directional, so an tx/rx antenna pointed towards the sky can be detected/jammed effectively only by standing in between the antenna and the target it's pointed to, ie the satellite. It's not a thin line, but it's still a limited area, and the minor lobes of its radiation pattern produce a very faint signal which can become negligible by burying or covering most of the dish in all directions except the one it's aimed to.

JTbane 6y ago

Because encryption exists, the internet can hopefully always stand as a transcendental entity. VPNs, TOR, steganography and obfuscation are some of the best tools against tyranny.

bathtub365 6y ago
These tools are useless if your tyrannical government cuts off access to the internet.
- karatinversion 6y ago
  “The protesters are communicating using encryption. Take this $5 wrench and hit the network equipment with it until they stop.”
simplicio 6y ago
In this case, it sounds like they're physically shutting off the broadband wireless servers. Encryption seems unlikely to help if the actual connection is severed.
rich_sasha 6y ago
They don’t protect against rubber hose cryptography, and that’s the biggest concern with oppressive governments.
- adwi 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis

jasonjayr 6y ago

If the government is lawless enough that it will trample on the rights of the citizens, then the laws that prevent citizens from setting up wireless networks securely to recreate the internet backbone are null and void. (With all the risks that comes with operating + defending a detectable RF emitter from the ground in a hostile environment) If you want to work to prevent this, keep enough technology and know-how on hand that you could do this on short notice, even if's as simple flinging 5mb/s on a cantana a mile away.

knolax 6y ago

I will never understand the HN crowd's deification of the internet. Out of all the methods of communication out there it doesn't seem particularly special, and definitely not special enough to supercede the sovereignity of nations.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
polypodiopsi 6y ago
In this case the problem is that the sovereignity of the nation has been undermined by a military coup. Which is to say: Unless you believe in the rightfullness of the right of the stronger which in political terms would amount to believe into some elan vitale, a will of the biological organism of the people, some superstition of thinking blood and soil (which is to say a mob of antisocial males) to be the (metaphysical) being of what is considered the nationstate. (Some might also argue that the nationstate has had terrible consequences for the average worker in the dawn of modernity (that bit of history is probably specific to western history)) adding on this: I'd agree with the notion that it is weird that people fetishize the internet as some anarchic free entity when on a material level it is owned in big parts by private interest.

mycall 6y ago

This makes SpaceX even more interesting.

abestic9 6y ago
Not to take away from your point but I think you mean to say Starlink - it's a separate company. Governments could block sales of the customer equipment, but once they're in it would be almost impossible to locate and confiscate them all. They could order termination of service (based on coordinates or serial numbers), but there's no way for them to physically control that if the company refuses to do so.
- tbihl 6y ago
  The service would be highly susceptible to DF of the outgoing traffic, but could probably be managed on the basis of set up, transmit, run away quickly before they find and arrest/kill you.