US-backed 'internet in a suitcase' could aid dissidents

[dreamdancer 0]

interesting...

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The US government wants to keep dissidents around the world online by providing them with alternative internet and mobile phone connections that stay running even after oppressive regimes have shut down public communication services. It is pouring millions of dollars into projects such as the "internet in a suitcase", a Wi-Fi enabled box which could be smuggled over a border to set up wireless communications, reports the New York Times.

Egypt and Libya are among a number of Middle Eastern countries this year that have disconnected themselves from the internet in an effort to quash uprisings. Both events saw the countries' citizens attempting to get their message out though other means, such as foreign internet service providers or phone-to-tweet translation services. Syria also recently disabled its web connection.

"We see more and more people around the globe using the internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realise their aspirations," said secretary of state Hilary Clinton. "So we're focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world."

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/06/us-backed-internet-in-a-suitca.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[Gravitymaster 0]

This is great news. Now we can control what content they get and only allow them to read what we want them to read. Pretty cool when you're thinking about regime change. The new VOA.

[sfzombie 3]

i fail to see the logic in this. it seems to me that it's none of our business who is in charge of what country. i'm not an isolationist by any means, in fact i'm the opposite, i believe that we need to act more globally. however, until we start doing that, we should keep out of another sovereign nation's business. it seems to me that's no different than what we had historically when hitler thought everyone should be fascists. a little extreme, but similar in that one nation was forcing their views on everyone else. i mean isn't that why there are seperate nations?

http://kitswv.com

[Andy9o8 2]

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i fail to see the logic in this. it seems to me that it's none of our business who is in charge of what country. i'm not an isolationist by any means, in fact i'm the opposite, i believe that we need to act more globally. however, until we start doing that, we should keep out of another sovereign nation's business. it seems to me that's no different than what we had historically when hitler thought everyone should be fascists. a little extreme, but similar in that one nation was forcing their views on everyone else. i mean isn't that why there are seperate nations?

You're being very naive. You need to study more history.

[sfzombie 3]

how so? how is it our business to tell other nations how they should treat their citizens? if i'm not mistaken, and i could be, the only times in history we've gotten involved in the affairs of state of others, it's been in opposition to communism, when the nations asked for assistance, the drug trade, or when it was detrimental to the oil supply.
we had no involvement in pol pot's regime, the civil wars and general unrest in many african nations, or chinese repression, to name a few.
these examples are all from the 20th centruy, and i do believe i'm pretty well versed in the history of us involvement in combat throughout history, in fact, when i was in the military(special forces), it was common discussion most of the time. and i am referring to the publically known involvement, not the clandestine operations. and another point about history: the winners usually write the history books, and all of the participants in any struggle claim that god is on their side.

http://kitswv.com

[billvon 3,118]

Yep. We've talked about a kind of cellphone that contains a local area network and a router, such that each phone is essentially its own cell site. As long as all phones in the network can see at least one other phone, you can get a message to anyone (probably text rather than voice due to latency issues.)

Also, if even one of them has access to the Internet (via, say, a satellite modem) they all do. The more people who have access the faster it is.

One drawback is that you can't make much money doing this; the phones would not be legal to sell to people in the country so you'd have to sell to relatives/friends/visitors so they can be brought back into the country.

Another drawback is that if you could access the net everyone would use it to download porn and nothing else would get through.

[dreamdancer 0]

install an ai system and you've got a little 'general' co-ordinating each revolt...

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[theonlyski 8]

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Another drawback is that if you could access the net everyone would use it to download porn and nothing else would get through.

Immarsats are slow, Iridiums are even slower. Sure, you can STREAM ($$$$$) a whopping 256k connection with the right hardware, that would still be some pretty slow porn after a couple hops. These systems are used widely as a mobile communications platform, but for just about anything other than email and some light web browsing, they plain ol suck!

Interesting concept to use them as a mesh network, even if you have a cell tower in a box, general range is only a couple of miles, spread that across some of the less populated cities, and that would defeat the idea of using a mesh.

Not even going to get into how easy some govts could identify the systems, and track it down to just about which house it is in a matter of hours.

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
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[billvon 3,118]

>Immarsats are slow, Iridiums are even slower. Sure, you can STREAM ($$$$$) a
>whopping 256k connection with the right hardware, that would still be some pretty slow
>porn after a couple hops.

You would think - but people were downloading porn on 300bps modems.

>general range is only a couple of miles, spread that across some of the less
>populated cities, and that would defeat the idea of using a mesh.

Or just put a phone every few miles with a (very small) solar panel to keep it running. Not ideal, of course, but if your goal is to keep some communications open, can work well.

>Not even going to get into how easy some govts could identify the systems, and
>track it down to just about which house it is in a matter of hours.

Do it via CDMA UWB. Very hard to track down, since the energy at any one frequency is very, very low.