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Starlink needs a commercial contract with a company that may choose to terminate your service or be dictated to do so. Starlink contracts specify a cell region

Starlink needs a commercial contract with a company that may choose to terminate your service or be dictated to do so. Starlink contracts specify a cell region in which you're receiver can work. If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent government or you are running away from disaster region or war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly. I will repeat my own quote, Amateur Radio gives communities a means of long distance communication when all other infrastructure fails.

generalizations 5y ago
> If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent government or you are running away from disaster region or war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly. That use case would be suicidal without encryption. I'll repeat my quote also - HAM radio has a future, but it needs to adapt.
- sliken 5y ago
  Unencrypted communications are better than none. You can arrange for an escape without mentioning a street address, social security number, or full name. Becoming a ham includes the knowledge to keep yourself from being easily tracked. Ham (at least in the USA) does have the idea that anything goes if you are trying to save someone's life.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Not necessarily, there are a lot of variables. If someone is a fugitive of a government and is using ham radio while also being stationary, sure. I think most HAMs are aware they can track signals that are stationary quiet well. After all, the cats who get caught breaking the rules are usually doing it daily for months. Think of the occasional crazy old bat who decides to do a pirate radio station. But so long as the individual is on the move it becomes more difficult. That is also supposing a government from a federal down to local level are monitoring all ham frequencies 24/7. Now if we are talking like a rebellious faction within a country, well they are technically breaking all other rules of the nation anyways, so no-encryption HAM rules suddenly becomes the line in the sand they draw as to not cross?
  - generalizations 5y ago
    That's a pretty far-out use case, if you even specified one. The utility of a long range, decentralized, encrypted mesh net is pretty broad in comparison.
    - sliken 5y ago
      I'm all for the idea of a long range, decentralized, encrypted mesh net. I've read a fair number of papers proposing and analyzing different approaches to make this happen. Unfortunately, unlike the internet, or a local mesh network the total collective bandwidth isn't there. If it worked people would try to do full duplex audio with loved ones, file sharing, monitoring GPS coordinates of fleets of vehicles, internet gateways, and a zillion other bandwidth intensive things. Bandwidth is so low, that even sending bytes is rare, encoding that average a few bits per character are common. Such encodings try to minimize the bits by using less bits for more common english characters, so they often are measured in words per minute instead of bits or bytes. There was exist various hybrid solutions like APRS (which can use ham + internet), winmail (ham + internet email), various digital radio protocols (ham to tower, which has an internet connection). But a pure radio mesh net just doesn't seem practical.
      - generalizations 5y ago
        Done enough research into this that I'm familiar with the stuff you're describing. I remember looking into those packet radio protocols, and honestly, they seemed kinda rudimentary, especially (IIRC) the error correction algos. Seems like there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in that area. > I'm all for the idea of a long range, decentralized, encrypted mesh net. I've read a fair number of papers proposing and analyzing different approaches to make this happen. What do you think the fundamental value of a meshnet would be? For my part, seems like an (encrypted) text-only system with high latency (15 minutes per paragraph, even) and a range of hundreds of miles between hops, would be preferable to something capable of streaming HD video that was restricted to hops of only a few hundred feet. I think that's a fair comparison of what the physics can handle, and I think that if the former existed, there'd be a lot of people using it. Edit: looks like I edited out from under you. Sorry, didn't think you'd see it so quick.
- nvelty 5y ago
  It's actually a pretty common use case, if employed properly. For example, I've heard that the Cuban expat community in Florida and their cohort still in-country will use HF radio to pass information. During the recent protests there was reports of the Cuban government employing signal jamming on frequencies associated with this. It gets harder to DF a signal if you use directional antennas and low power, short transmissions. Digital protocols help a lot with this. If you have a communications schedule with the receiving end and perhaps have exchanged one time pads, then setting up a temporary station at a pre-set time to transmit a message then book it, it'll be quite hard for anyone to catch you. And, of course, if you fall into this use case then laws concerning encryption are probably of lesser concern to you.
  - generalizations 5y ago
    That's pretty cool. Though, again, that use case is viable because of encryption.

generalizations 5y ago

> If you fall out with a benevolent or not so benevolent government or you are running away from disaster region or war zone all of these solutions fall apart pretty quickly. That use case would be suicidal without encryption. I'll repeat my quote also - HAM radio has a future, but it needs to adapt.

sliken 5y ago
Unencrypted communications are better than none. You can arrange for an escape without mentioning a street address, social security number, or full name. Becoming a ham includes the knowledge to keep yourself from being easily tracked. Ham (at least in the USA) does have the idea that anything goes if you are trying to save someone's life.
tcmart14 5y ago
Not necessarily, there are a lot of variables. If someone is a fugitive of a government and is using ham radio while also being stationary, sure. I think most HAMs are aware they can track signals that are stationary quiet well. After all, the cats who get caught breaking the rules are usually doing it daily for months. Think of the occasional crazy old bat who decides to do a pirate radio station. But so long as the individual is on the move it becomes more difficult. That is also supposing a government from a federal down to local level are monitoring all ham frequencies 24/7. Now if we are talking like a rebellious faction within a country, well they are technically breaking all other rules of the nation anyways, so no-encryption HAM rules suddenly becomes the line in the sand they draw as to not cross?
- generalizations 5y ago
  That's a pretty far-out use case, if you even specified one. The utility of a long range, decentralized, encrypted mesh net is pretty broad in comparison.
  - sliken 5y ago
    I'm all for the idea of a long range, decentralized, encrypted mesh net. I've read a fair number of papers proposing and analyzing different approaches to make this happen. Unfortunately, unlike the internet, or a local mesh network the total collective bandwidth isn't there. If it worked people would try to do full duplex audio with loved ones, file sharing, monitoring GPS coordinates of fleets of vehicles, internet gateways, and a zillion other bandwidth intensive things. Bandwidth is so low, that even sending bytes is rare, encoding that average a few bits per character are common. Such encodings try to minimize the bits by using less bits for more common english characters, so they often are measured in words per minute instead of bits or bytes. There was exist various hybrid solutions like APRS (which can use ham + internet), winmail (ham + internet email), various digital radio protocols (ham to tower, which has an internet connection). But a pure radio mesh net just doesn't seem practical.
    - generalizations 5y ago
      Done enough research into this that I'm familiar with the stuff you're describing. I remember looking into those packet radio protocols, and honestly, they seemed kinda rudimentary, especially (IIRC) the error correction algos. Seems like there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in that area. > I'm all for the idea of a long range, decentralized, encrypted mesh net. I've read a fair number of papers proposing and analyzing different approaches to make this happen. What do you think the fundamental value of a meshnet would be? For my part, seems like an (encrypted) text-only system with high latency (15 minutes per paragraph, even) and a range of hundreds of miles between hops, would be preferable to something capable of streaming HD video that was restricted to hops of only a few hundred feet. I think that's a fair comparison of what the physics can handle, and I think that if the former existed, there'd be a lot of people using it. Edit: looks like I edited out from under you. Sorry, didn't think you'd see it so quick.
nvelty 5y ago
It's actually a pretty common use case, if employed properly. For example, I've heard that the Cuban expat community in Florida and their cohort still in-country will use HF radio to pass information. During the recent protests there was reports of the Cuban government employing signal jamming on frequencies associated with this. It gets harder to DF a signal if you use directional antennas and low power, short transmissions. Digital protocols help a lot with this. If you have a communications schedule with the receiving end and perhaps have exchanged one time pads, then setting up a temporary station at a pre-set time to transmit a message then book it, it'll be quite hard for anyone to catch you. And, of course, if you fall into this use case then laws concerning encryption are probably of lesser concern to you.
- generalizations 5y ago
  That's pretty cool. Though, again, that use case is viable because of encryption.