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> houses broadcasting wifi Cell phones are popular with drug dealers in south america because they're impossible to shut down - if the government can't shut do

> houses broadcasting wifi Cell phones are popular with drug dealers in south america because they're impossible to shut down - if the government can't shut down drug dealers, they definitely can't shut down people sharing offensive memes.

dymk 5y ago
It may not be possible to target specific uses of cellphone data channels, but this isn't much of a roadblock for the Iranian government. They'll just shut down every cell tower within their borders. Iran is already willing to impose full internet blackouts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Internet_blackout_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Internet_blackout_in_Iran).
- zinekeller 5y ago
  Yeah, this is the difference. Drug dealers are an annoyance but they aren't a direct threat to any government (as long as you let them be in peace). If it's a direct threat to you, then you do anything, even if the benefits outweigh the risks.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  In 2019 India shut down both the internet and regular voice networks in Kashmir: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-two-month-blackout-cellphones-start-to-ring-again-in-kashmir/2019/10/14/a7b163e0-ee51-11e9-bb7e-d2026ee0c199_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-two-...
hwbehrens 5y ago
> they're impossible to shut down They're impossible to shut down without (potentially) affecting innocent bystanders. If they don't care, they absolutely can and do shut down towers. In this case, if they judge anyone broadcasting or using this network as subversive, then there are no bystanders, only accomplices. And, thanks to the tyranny of the inverse square law, it becomes much easier to sniff out broadcasters/uplinks as well. The easiest way to mitigate this is to do both -- rebroadcast a cell connection over WiFi, and do so intermittently and in varying locations to complicate triangulation.

dymk 5y ago

It may not be possible to target specific uses of cellphone data channels, but this isn't much of a roadblock for the Iranian government. They'll just shut down every cell tower within their borders. Iran is already willing to impose full internet blackouts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Internet_blackout_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Internet_blackout_in_Iran).

zinekeller 5y ago
Yeah, this is the difference. Drug dealers are an annoyance but they aren't a direct threat to any government (as long as you let them be in peace). If it's a direct threat to you, then you do anything, even if the benefits outweigh the risks.
roywiggins 5y ago
In 2019 India shut down both the internet and regular voice networks in Kashmir: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-two-month-blackout-cellphones-start-to-ring-again-in-kashmir/2019/10/14/a7b163e0-ee51-11e9-bb7e-d2026ee0c199_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-two-...

hwbehrens 5y ago

> they're impossible to shut down They're impossible to shut down without (potentially) affecting innocent bystanders. If they don't care, they absolutely can and do shut down towers. In this case, if they judge anyone broadcasting or using this network as subversive, then there are no bystanders, only accomplices. And, thanks to the tyranny of the inverse square law, it becomes much easier to sniff out broadcasters/uplinks as well. The easiest way to mitigate this is to do both -- rebroadcast a cell connection over WiFi, and do so intermittently and in varying locations to complicate triangulation.