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Syria’s largest city just dropped off the Internet
- dil8 13y agoCommunication needs to be decentralised...
- agumonkey 13y agoOne thing at a time
- level09 13y agoIts not only the internet, All communication (mobile networks, landlines) are cut off as well (I lost contact with many friends in that city) fortunately, the US will soon be bombing Syria to bring back peace and democracy to the country.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- level09 13y agosorry, forgot the close the </sarcasm> tag ..
- hayksaakian 13y agoI think it's rather telling about the US when statements like yours are interpreted without sarcasm.
- libso 13y agoSo sorry to hear that. US always learns from its mistakes and comes up with a new way of bringing peace! </sarcasm>
- fixxer 13y agoI actually think we are learning from our mistakes (Iraq). I don't see the general public supporting engagement. True, Kerry gets top headlines in the papers, but there is usually a very critical article right below (case on point, the WSJ this week talking about the rebels in very negative light with links to Al Qaeda). EDIT: And every time Kerry talks, he has to preface his statements with "this isn't going to be like Iraq". We're all thinking otherwise.
- Amadou 13y agoIt is like the US only has one option - shooting. If we had a medical-industrial complex we could be air-dropping medical supplies and instead of the marines we could send in the doctor corps. There is a ton of things we could do to support the revolution without adding to the risk for civillians or having to worry about what anti-american fighters would do with the equipment afterwards.
- anigbrowl 13y agoWe are already giving humanitarian & medical aid and have been for some time. The use of chemical weapons has been considered a particularly heinous war crime since before WW2. Destroying chemical stockpiles is about as limited an engagement as possible. We're not sending any marines in, or supplying rebels with arms - at least not yet, and I hope not ever.
- Amadou 13y agoI don't just mean humanitarian aid, which I think is dwarfed by the costs of whatever attacks are being considered. I'm talking about direct support to the revolutionaries - combat hospitals and the like. We could do more than just medical support too without risking blow-back, things like robust communications links and battlefield intelligence from drones, vehicles, spare parts, mechanics to work on the vehicles, food, and other supply-chain type stuff. Pretty much everything we do for american troops except providing weapons. We just have this mindset that the support we provide to the people doing the fighting must itself be directly offensive which is itself a risk to us because of terrorism. Those blinders have caused us to sit it out and let the conflict drag on. And then there is the question of what comes after. By providing direct support we would be building personal relationships with the revolutionaries so that when it came time to put together a new government, they would be much more receptive to our input on what it takes to make a stable and american-friendly government.
- sillysaurus2 13y agoThe goal of a war is to win, and to win the opposing army must die. Napoleon demonstrated that. Most warfare in the preceding centuries was focused on winning battles rather than killing armies. But then Napoleon demonstrated how frighteningly effective it was to win a battle and immediately chase down and kill the opposition. Along with the invention of the standing army, warfare changed forever. We've been mainly focused on killing people ever since, because the people who wouldn't focus on that were swiftly debased. If America chooses to support this conflict, I wish we would do it quickly and efficiently, and then immediately leave. Setting aside the question of morals, the primary reason Iraq and Afghanistan were such disasters is because we stayed. Actually, I wish we would bow out of the Middle East entirely and leave people alone, but that's unlikely to happen in the current political climate. It's important to always remember the goal of modern warfare. When you choose to support war, you are choosing to kill other people, even if you're not doing the killing directly. There are no half measures. Either your side wins, and therefore the other army is dead, or yours is. So if you're going to support the war and endanger your countrymen, you want to win. Otherwise what's the point?
- fixxer 13y agoBring "back" peace and democracy? I'm guessing that is sarcasm. When was Syria a democracy?
- baddox 13y agoThere has never been less subtle sarcasm.
- ZirconCode 13y agoSo what can we do? I honestly ask. I'm sick of hearing such news, and as a community of "hackers", at least we should be able to have a minuscule influence. Yet I can't think of something better than running a TOR node.
- marcosdumay 13y agoTOR won't help, they can't reach a node. Long distance mesh networks will help, but not completely solve the problem. We need to decentralize the connectivity resources, we need things like wifi drones with long distance repeaters, and we need them to be cheap enough so that they become a public resource and ownerless. But until we can make something like that, yeah, long distance mesh networks will help.
- kmf 13y agoSomething like Loon? http://www.google.com/loon/ http://www.google.com/loon/ Though arguably something like that isn't safe in a war zone? I have no expertise in this section, but it is an interesting dilemma to figure out how to restore basic connection to a area in turmoil.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- saraid216 13y agoSome of the HN discussion when Loon was announced focused on the vulnerability of the balloons. The approximate conclusion was that the balloons were usually far too high up for any kind of effective attack by firearms. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Assad has the military capability to take them down.
- ryanhuff 13y agoAmateur radio is about as decentralized as it gets.
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- jlgaddis 13y agoRenesys' usually tracks and reports on events like this on their blog and, indeed, they posted an article yesterday about this: http://www.renesys.com/2013/08/whats-next-for-syrias-internet/ http://www.renesys.com/2013/08/whats-next-for-syrias-interne... A few examples from previous events of a similar nature: http://www.renesys.com/2011/01/egypt-leaves-the-internet/ http://www.renesys.com/2011/01/egypt-leaves-the-internet/ http://www.renesys.com/2011/06/syrian-internet-shutdown/ http://www.renesys.com/2011/06/syrian-internet-shutdown/ http://www.renesys.com/2012/11/syria-off-the-air/ http://www.renesys.com/2012/11/syria-off-the-air/
- Raphmedia 13y agoYou know, that's one of the scariest thing I have read in a long while. I can't imagine how it would be to have all communication cut. It's crazy. We live in a crazy world these days.
- jonknee 13y agoMost days never had communication in the first place, so it's really not that crazy.
- BlackDeath3 13y agoAnd people in those days didn't rely on that communication like many people do today. What wasn't a big deal hundreds of years, or even decades ago (perhaps even less than that) is a big deal today.
- adamnemecek 13y agoDid they try holding the router reset button for 30 seconds?
- dhughes 13y agoThe button was blasted 2km away from the router.
- rurban 13y agoSo Turkey is helping preparing the first strike tomorrow morning. The UN inspectors are out finally, the chemical theatre took place again, and finally they strike can begin. Reportedly Saturday until Wednesday.