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I would like to believe there is a future where blocking access to the internet is unilaterally impossible. Major powers being able to pull the rug on what has
by skeaker 3y ago
I would like to believe there is a future where blocking access to the internet is unilaterally impossible. Major powers being able to pull the rug on what has become a foundation of modern society like this is too scary of a thing to allow. What could the answer be? Satellite-powered relays and DIY-able user devices to talk to them?
- asynchronous 3y agoPeer-peer wifi mesh based intranet could become a solution
- alephnerd 3y agoHK protesters tried mesh networking in 2014-2019 as well as anti-Covid protesters in China in 2022 but both were quickly shut down by blocking the service providers (Bluetooth mesh sharing apps were removed in HK app stores and Apple Airdrop for the latter).
- x-complexity 3y ago> HK protesters tried mesh networking in 2014-2019 as well as anti-Covid protesters in China in 2022 but both were quickly shut down by blocking the service providers (Bluetooth mesh sharing apps were removed in HK app stores and Apple Airdrop for the latter). It doesn't help that even if app sideloading was made possible on iOS, the significant drop in installations will still happen once the apps are pulled from official stores. Most people are not familiar with installing apps from outside of their phone's sponsored ecosystem.
- alephnerd 3y agoHypothetically, if sideloading is allowed 1. How do you access said apps? There has to be some repository storing the apps. 2. Certain regions can straight up ban sideloading by only allowing pre-approved app stores (eg. Mainland China). Ofc there will be technical ways to bypass this, but you are limited by technical knowhow and internal intelligence agencies abilities to find those people. 3. You could make using certain apps with such capabilities illegal. People may try to use it, but if found among a small set of protesters, they can just be "isolated". How do you prevent that?
- dingledork69 3y ago> How do you access said apps? Sent to you via bluetooth file sharing (an OS feature) by someone else who already has it. Or tor, vpn, etc.
- alephnerd 3y agoHow do you download a Tor client if every repository providing it is blocked by default? What if Bluetooth File Sharing is disabled via a region lock? (Eg. China) What if the only VPNs allowed are those that have prior approval from an Interior Ministry? What if a country initiates Internet Whitelisting at the ISP level for "national security reasons" and requires every user to maintain access logs?
- dingledork69 3y agoGet an old android phone and flash some degoogled rom on it. There's plenty of them floating around.
- alephnerd 3y agoThose sites hosting degoogled Roms might be blocked themselves by the ISP. In addition, certain countries may require you to run approved Roms, and if you don't you can face prosecution. This has been done in action in India with ISPs like Jio to block TPB for example. Remember - any traffic over the internet can be logged by your service provider (eg. ISP, VPN, etc)
- dingledork69 3y agoSure, and when they release the mind reading necromancers we'll all be totally screwed, too.
- alephnerd 3y agoMind reading Necromancers (probably) don't exist, but every example I listed above has already been deployed in a piecemeal manner in various countries the last 10 years. Mass File Sharing Blacklisting has been enforced by Indian ISPs since 2019 VPN+ISP traffic log sharing has been enforced in Kazakhstan (along with SSL stripping) Blocking Tor downloads has been implemented already (with varying levels of success) plus attacks to deanonomize Tor have started occurring since 2021. Turkïye has implemented ISP Whitelisting ostensibly for Children but the same core technology can be extended to everything - https://internet.btk.gov.tr/guvenli-internet-hizmeti https://internet.btk.gov.tr/guvenli-internet-hizmeti App Store restrictions and region locks have existed in Mainland China since the early 2010s. It's very easy to tamp down and censor internet based communications. Individual corporations have the capabilities to apply such censorship if they wanted to, let alone ISPs.
- acdha 3y agoThat’s pretty risky, though: the authorities can track radio signals easily enough and they can hammer the exit nodes. One mole uploads a video to a known destination and they take down each IP seen delivering those packets.
- polishdude20 3y agoWhoever provides the infrastructure needs to be paid though right? How do you pay the satellite provider?
- mandmandam 3y agoIf you want to learn about the many different ways to accomplish goals like this, you can look into the terms 'decentralization' and 'post-scarcity society'.
- acdha 3y agoRather than wasting everyone’s time, why don’t you enlighten us about how you think those different concepts should combine? Be sure to include examples.
- mandmandam 3y ago... Why don't you? If you think such a complex and broad question can be distilled to a pithy HN comment, go right ahead - why demand that I do it? I pointed OP to the words that best enable them to find their own answers. That's not a waste of time, it's useful information that they seem to have lacked. If you don't think that's useful, fine - offer your own answer.
- acdha 3y agoBut you didn’t help them: you just added noise if you’re just mentioning two large topics without any connection or examples of plausibly working systems. For example, post scarcity is hypothetical at this point and nothing about it is incompatible with authoritarian governments. Similarly, decentralization covers a lot of ground but satellites are inherently centralized to some extent and there’s little precedent for decentralized funding of something that big, and even terrestrial networking has few examples of a decentralized system resisting attacks by even relatively weak governments.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mlyle 3y agoMaybe the internet as a whole is intractable. But perhaps we can get a meaningful digest of snapshots of the important stuff that can work over slow links, intermittent links, and one-way links? Perhaps we can mechanize the selection of important content. The real question is how you do this in a way that doesn't encourage one-sided propaganda, sybil attacks, etc. I'm reminded of systems like Secure Scuttlebutt and the Othernet satellite transport. https://othernet.is/ https://othernet.is/ I know the internet is fundamentally two-way. It seems there's always a few competent users who know how to get information out of a conflict zone or disaster area... getting information in beyond a few choke points seems to be the hard part.
- lazide 3y agoThis isn't really a technical issue, per-se. It's a social one, because social means are what are used to enforce the lockdowns - and those social means exist because of socially justified purposes in the societies. Unless it was literally impossible to block internet access at all (some kind of unjammable starlink with undetectable receivers/transceivers?).
- Dalewyn 3y agoGenerally speaking, any kind of radio transmission is detectable. It's why radio silence is a thing when stealth is important.
- lazide 3y agoThe tricky thing is that receiving radio transmissions is also usually detectable - and a transceiver has to, by it's nature, transmit. [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5699393 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5699393]
- mlyle 3y ago> The tricky thing is that receiving radio transmissions is also usually detectable A LNB is pretty quiet to begin with... and the LO is on the same frequency whether you're watching satellite TV or tapping into Othernet. You could, of course, make it much quieter still. Just because a lot of receivers leak a lot of oscillator and mixer frequencies doesn't mean it's intrinsic. > and a transceiver has to, by it's nature, transmit. Which is why I was talking about a receive-only approach. (Well, also for reasons of scalability).
- anaganisk 3y agoAny major/minor form used for communication/currency will be regulated in the end in the name of national security. No amount of democracy, socialism, communism or any ism for the fact cannot overcome it. As long as govts don't behave like a service provider but like a ruling class this won't change. Power corrupts, anyone. Hard limits on power, individuals instead of parties, extreme transparency(including defence, yes), and war free world is the only way we ever achieve freedom. As long as we allow govts to function in secrecy, someone will not care about ethics and morals.
- JimmyAustin 3y agoYou are describing StarLink once they get laser-based relaying between satellites working.
- xxpor 3y agothere is no world where using Starlink won't be easily detectable. You're beaming radio waves up into space, all you need is a helicopter with a $100 antenna.
- hackernewds 3y agoEncryption is a thing.
- anigbrowl 3y agoJust make it a crime to use the internet when the government tells you not to. The actual content doesn't matter. Or don't make it a crime, and just arrest people on spurious 'national security' charges, with vague allegations that they were spying. Encryption is great but some of its proponents seem not to grasp more concrete realities.
- nine_k 3y agoEncryption does not mean invulnerability. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- ianburrell 3y agoThe satellite dish is a spot light. It doesn’t matter if the signal is encrypted (it is), the radio signal can be detected. Maybe not from the side but definitely from above. The dish is big enough that can see it optically.
- kibwen 3y agoIndeed, a future where you'll never lose access to the internet as long as you agree to never make fun of Elon Musk on Twitter. Jokes aside, corporations are no better than governments when it comes to censorship. They're corruptible, centralized points of failure.
- tiedieconderoga 3y agoYou'd need more than an internet that could not be shut off. You'd also need an internet where communication could not be tracked. One of the most effective ways to maintain an authoritarian regime is to proactively prevent a critical mass of revolt from forming. You just need to keep a steady low volume of arrests and disappearances going for people who express discontent. If not enough people are actively expressing discontent, you fill your quota with members of a group or area that you see as a risk. History shows that your people will stay silent and meek, clinging to the belief that they personally have done nothing wrong. A means of communication which authorities cannot snoop on is absolutely essential for any oppressed population that yearns to breathe free.
- robocat 3y agoHistory also shows that creates instability. Everyone knows what is going on and keeps the status quo, but a shock (often external) occurs to ignite the dry wood, and disruption erupts. Demonstrations and riots can be healthy releases of tension in democracies. Bottle-in the regular microquakes, and you get devastating earthquakes instead.
- SllX 3y agoDemonstrations? Sure. There's nothing healthy about riots for the communities being rioted in.
- h0l0cube 3y ago> History also shows that creates instability I would say Russia, China, and North Korea (all well-known to disappear people) have been incredibly stable. Even countries that were quite liberal (e.g., Iran, Myanmar) have worn their populations down into compliance in their major cities. Even the liberal West is borrowing from the same playbook (e.g., police raids on investigative journalists, politically motivated prosecutions). The strategy works, but as you imply, maybe there's a breaking point... or maybe totalitarian states have figured out how to get as close to that line as possible without crossing it.
- throw9away6 3y ago
- hackernewds 3y agoStarlink
- SoftTalker 3y ago> a foundation of modern society For most people, it's entertainment. And before the internet, we had newspapers and television and radio and telephones, much more easily blocked by authoritarians than the internet.
- darth_avocado 3y agoIf you live in a country where internet can be blocked, so can access to power. Satellite relays or other DIY devices or starling or pretty much anything else doesn’t work if you have no power.
- 1024core 3y agoBatteries? Solar power?
- darth_avocado 3y agoIn theory sure, but practically, it won’t. Even in the US, only 15% of households have any backup at all [1]. That number it drops even more in the rest of the world. And to add to it, just having a backup isn’t enough if the outage is sustained for a longer period of time. For the rest of the world, especially countries like Pakistan, solar power or a battery backup is out of reach for the majority of the population, so they won’t work. [1] https://electrek.co/2022/09/29/american-power-outages/ https://electrek.co/2022/09/29/american-power-outages/
- 1024core 3y ago> Even in the US, only 15% of households have any backup at all That's because people in the US rarely, if ever, lose power, so there's no need for backups.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- darth_avocado 3y agoSo you would suggest countries with more power outages should have higher adoption of power backups? Yet, about 25% of population in Pakistan does not even have access to electricity. [1] Meanwhile the rest of the country frequently is plunged into darkness with millions without electricity. [2] Yet, solar adoption in the country is very low and most of the population does not have any backup power. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS?locations=PK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS?location... [2] https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/22/asia/pakistan-power-outage-intl-hnk/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/22/asia/pakistan-power-outag...
- nahnahg 3y ago[dead]
- flockonus 3y agoThere is no unstoppable tech, it's usually 100x cheaper to destroy than to build (a defining trait of our ever changing universe). That said, I find FreakWAN [1] (from the creator of Redis) a very interesting low-cost, low-powered communication protocol that can go VERY far[2] [1] https://github.com/antirez/freakwan https://github.com/antirez/freakwan [2] https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1632664864538738688 https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1632664864538738688
- Spooky23 3y agoYou need some controls. The death of licensed broadcast and high capital investment media like newspapers has damaged society. The notion that modern Nazis would have access to thousands of people was absurd in 1983. In 2023 it’s reality.
- usernew 3y agoWhat you suggest is impossible, because you are attacking a wrench on the head problem with a coding solution. You can always get a dish and connect to your choice of orbital provider, if your ISP - which is regulated - is blocked. The problem is, guys with guns will come to your door, beat you with a wrench, and put you in jail. Now if we solve for the real issue - lack of freedom because of a ruling class, the technical issue goes away. There's nothing to solve if you can't be oppressed, and if the ruler has no way to oppress, they'd have no way to block your ISP in the first place. The reason for the oppression is, a large portion of every country actually wants to be oppressed. Even in a democracy, the oppression of you can simply come from a majority (EU citizens have no freedom of speech) or large minority (magats prosecuting women and doctors for murder because of a life-threatening abortion). There is no answer, because many people want to control and silence others who don't agree - or to compensate for lack of control of their crap lives by controlling other lives. Take a look at this site, and most social media sites. Tiny-dick big-belly mods shadowbanning, the other users downvoting, making comments gray so you can't read them. Most people are bootlickers. Most people want the type of power structure that ends up with the internet blocked. They don't want freedom - they want to be on the side doing the oppressing.
- suction 3y ago[dead]
- vermilingua 3y agoGP didn’t say “your access to the internet”, but “access to the internet”. The solution is partly technical, because it’s about increasing the number of heads that must be wrenched to disrupt a society’s access to the internet. The only way that can be done is by reducing the cost and technical ability needed to connect to the internet with fewer intermediaries that can be wrenched by governments.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago>The reason for the oppression is, a large portion of every country actually wants to be oppressed. Nobody wants to be oppressed. A large portion of the population often wants to be oppressors themselves. They are addicted to controlling others. This might be raising tax on X group, or criminalizing Y minority. Many people don't like voluntary association and choice. They want compelled behavior that conforms to their expectation. The only way to combat this is to establish a baseline respect for individual autonomy and choice as long as it doesn't harm other people. Most people are hesitant to allow this because they don't like the choices that others make. Either that or they define harm as doing anything which they don't like.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- emodendroket 3y agoYou can’t fix a political problem by throwing more tech at it.
- eshnil 3y agoBut technology can empower individuals to change the balance of political power. See printing press, cryptography/encryption, social media etc.
- FpUser 3y ago>"I would like to believe there is a future where blocking access to the internet is unilaterally impossible." Sure thing. All you have to do is to come out in big numbers, beat your fucking rulers into submission and replace them with do good types. Easy peasy. If not they'll get you no matter what tech you use.
- monero-xmr 3y agoAlso, I would like to believe there is a future where blocking access to money is unilaterally impossible. Major powers being able to pull the rug on what has become a foundation of modern society like money is too scary of a thing to allow. What could the answer be? Satellite-powered bitcoin relays and DIY-able user devices to talk to them?
- bozhark 3y agowe need a worldwide mesh network. who's hacking StarLink?
- lynx23 3y agoTill someone pulls the plug on your satellite... I seriously doublt there is a way to prevent the powers that be to shutdown the internet for some. This will always be a threat, and before we have true worldwide anarchy, nothing will prevent this...
- 7373737373 3y agoSomething like a LoRaWAN meshnet node built into every smartphone may be practically unstoppable. But there are many approaches to censorship, and app stores are a potential one. Really depends on the adversary.