[HN Gopher] Internet shutdowns at record high in Africa as acces...
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Internet shutdowns at record high in Africa as access 'weaponised'
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 246 points
Date : 2025-03-10 20:22 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| create-username wrote:
| Here, in Spain, internet access is cut off for many websites
| during football matches because La Liga, the association football
| league, is in war against cloudflare for not blocking their
| allegedly offending websites. Or something like that.
|
| Today, I tried to look up a word on a dictionary and I got an
| error message. "There must be a football game going on right
| now". I thought
| somedude895 wrote:
| That sounds insane! Do you have a source?
| joey_spaztard wrote:
| https://torrentfreak.com/laliga-blocks-cloudflare-again-
| new-...
| oefrha wrote:
| Previously discussed:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43157000
| nextts wrote:
| Ah the old misunderstood IP address. It's not a street
| address guys!
| sickofparadox wrote:
| Even if it were, you still need to prove the person you
| are accusing is in the building!
| yard2010 wrote:
| This is wild - thank you for the rabbithole
| briandear wrote:
| I have Starlink and it doesn't seem to be affected in Spain,
| but I could be wrong. I just haven't noticed it.
| nextts wrote:
| Why would it? That's a network in space. Could the Spanish
| league force a US company to block specific satellites
| covering some part of Spain and some part of not Spain? Seems
| a stretch.
| matwood wrote:
| Starlink does come back to earth often in the same country
| or region as the user. Then it would fall under all the
| same blocking.
| haneefmubarak wrote:
| I imagine that the blocking is semi-voluntary by the
| local ISPs, not at a transit or peering level.
|
| Anyhow, I flicked through the tables for Starlink's Spain
| IP address blocks and they directly peer with Cloudflare,
| so short of Starlink agreeing to perform similar blocking
| itself or worse yet de peering with Cloudflare, I'd
| expect availability through them.
| generalizations wrote:
| I think the relevant quote here is, "they can shake their
| fist at the sky".
| perihelions wrote:
| Satellite internet isn't a philanthropy project.
| Whoever's selling it is operating a retail front in the
| client's country, running payment processing and
| delivering or shipping physical satellite dishes. Even if
| the satellite vendor is aligned with your interests (I'm
| not touching that third-rail topic)--if your government
| doesn't want you to have satellite internet, you won't
| have it.
|
| Satellites aren't, in practice and for the time being, a
| technological end-run around sovereignty and the
| practical ability of governments to censor internet
| access.
|
| It's been discussed on HN before, that even first-world
| democracies, such as the UK [0,1], feel comfortable
| enacting laws banning satellite internet.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979869 ( _"
| Starlink in the Falkland Islands - A national emergency
| situation? (openfalklands.com)"_, 225 comments)
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37645945 ( _"
| Saint Helena Island Communications
| (sainthelenaisland.info)"_, 145 comments)
| generalizations wrote:
| Interestingly, I don't think you have to purchase the
| starlink in the same country you plan to use it (else
| what would be the point of the Mini version).
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| "they fan shake their fist at the sky... and with the
| other hand strangle payments that are very much
| terrestrial"
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Why do you think it's a stretch? If Starlink wants to
| legally operate in a country as an ISP then it has to
| comply with the laws of that country. Just because it's
| using satellites instead of locally deployed physical
| infrastructure doesn't absolve it from ISP and general
| telecomunications regulations of a country.
|
| So if the Spanish government were to make a law saying all
| ISPs must block the following domains for whatever reason,
| then Starlink must also comply in that jurisdiction or face
| fines or get booted out, and I don't know many businesses
| that take pleasure in being in contempt of the courts.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Booted out of where, space?
| Muromec wrote:
| Starlinks isnt a charity, so they collect payments for
| service and payments are not going through space for sure
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Booted out of the country mate. Why are you acting daft?
| Do you think Starlink could operate in Spain without a
| regional/EU branch that serves Spanish customers,
| collects payments, pays Spanish/EU taxes and can be
| summoned to court if it doesn't follow Spanish laws?
|
| That's why Starlink has geofencing in place so they can
| ensure it operates only in regions they're legally
| autorized to, it's not some pirate HAM network that can
| just freely operate while evading local laws willy nilly.
| ty6853 wrote:
| HAM isn't an acronym, FYI.
|
| If you break the internet and summon starlink yes I think
| pirates will take the void.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| How many pirate ISPs exist in EU? How many of them have
| satellites in orbit?
| ty6853 wrote:
| How many ibuprofen pirates are there in Europe? None,
| because it's easy enough to get it without a cartel
| operation.
|
| Making wanted goods and services illegal just hands
| profits to the black market, it doesn't stop them. If
| Spain bans the internet there will be pirate ISPs
| tomorrow.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> it doesn't stop them._
|
| Yeah? Where are the pirate ISPs of North Korea then?
|
| Mate, you're fighting with ghosts here. There are legit
| ISPs in EU, you don't need pirate ones. And there are
| legit VPNs to bypass whatever soft government
| restrictions are in place. There's no point arguing about
| endless made up hypotheticals.
| tbihl wrote:
| Do we suspect there's significant demand for internet in
| North Korea? Market potential, sure. But I'm guessing if
| you asked North Korea what information distribution they
| wanted, they would say they just want a more honest
| newspaper.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Do we suspect there's significant demand for internet
| in North Korea?_
|
| Why not? They literally throw USB sticks and optical
| media over the border. After my country broke away from
| communism, content consumption of foreign media was the
| highest priority.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > How many ibuprofen pirates are there in Europe? None,
| because it's easy enough to get it without a cartel
| operation.
|
| In a lot of Europe, you can only buy a handful at a time
| (like 16), at a relatively hefty per-tablet price and
| only from a pharmacy (good luck on sunday in a lot of
| places).
|
| In France, you can't just grab it off the shelf yourself
| anymore:
| https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20200115-pharmacies-ordered-
| sel...
|
| Sometimes I leave part of my 500 ct bottle from Amerika
| because I don't know why I bought so many in the first
| place.
| concordDance wrote:
| It could using crypto, but Spain would complain to the
| USA and they'd back down.
| hinkley wrote:
| Three years ago they would. Not for the next four.
| sneak wrote:
| Booted out of the market. Payments, banking,
| interconnection, contractual agreements.
|
| Businesses exist solely at the pleasure of the state. The
| state runs the courts; they can invalidate your ability
| to enforce contracts.
|
| Until and unless they smuggle the dishes into the country
| like bricks of cocaine and allow subscription payments in
| bitcoin, local governments can and will regulate Starlink
| service and users.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, is there anything technical the Spanish
| authorities could do to block Starlink (i.e jamming)? Or
| are legal/bureaucratic measures the only solution?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They can roll up to the starlink ground station and turn
| of the power or cut the cords.
|
| Edit" it looks like the inter-satellite capacity might be
| able to handle more than I thought
|
| https://mikepuchol.com/modeling-starlink-
| capacity-843b2387f5...
| hinkley wrote:
| I believe I recall them bragging about increases to
| horizontal bandwidth in the later designs. You may be
| thinking of the original network?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| IIRC, Originally they had none
| entropyneur wrote:
| Hopefully not something that can happen in Spain, but in
| authoritarian countries they simply arrest or otherwise
| penalize the end users.
| bombcar wrote:
| There are countries where starlink isn't available. But
| if you get one from a nearby country and keep quiet it
| works.
|
| Spain isn't large enough, I suspect. But they can lean on
| starlink as long as they're sold there.
| itishappy wrote:
| Starlink terminals are jammable, but the jamming source
| will need to be in it's FOV and it uses quite a focused
| beam. Not particularly viable for an entire nation.
|
| The ground stations would be a lot more vulnerable, but
| cutting the cable would be a lot easier than flying a
| Ku/Ka band jammer overhead.
| ge96 wrote:
| Would be interesting if they could jam starlink by
| tracking/blocking the laser coming off the spacecraft
| (satellite) probably far fetched
| tbihl wrote:
| Tracking satellites is computationally intensive,
| Starlink has many satellites, and friends generally don't
| jam friends' communication satellites.
|
| The old jokes about aggressive NFL Copyright enforcement
| would really pale in comparison to Spain developing a
| mature anti-satellite capability in order to disrupt
| soccer broadcast piracy _at the physical layer_.
| ge96 wrote:
| > Tracking satellites is computationally intensive
|
| Is it? I've seen a guy doing it by hand with a YAGI
| antenna and a little handled radio. But I could see it
| for many and the phased part. Also people have web models
| like this one showing the orbits.
|
| https://satellitemap.space/
|
| Anyway yeah just mental exercise not really arguing for
| it
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| Its much easier to ban imports and periodically do sweeps
| to locate terminals on the ground and confiscate/arrest
| the criminals operating them illegally. A Cessna or
| helicopter with GPS and directional antennae tuned to the
| right frequency bands is well within the reach of even
| banana republics.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Starlink doesn't defy local governments except when the US
| government greenlights it (offering service in Iran.)
| 1270018080 wrote:
| That's still just giving a different corporation the power to
| control communications
| mixermachine wrote:
| Truly a case where VPNs do make sense.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| If they're blocking all of Cloudflare I would think they
| could also be able to block popular VPN gateways. It's wild
| that a sports league has power to dictate to ISPs like this.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Are you just stuck on it being a sports league? Just
| s/sports league/entity with lots of money/
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| No, it's wild that any private entity has the legal
| censorship authority. My own country is catapulting into
| authoritarianism, but as far as I'm aware, we haven't
| gotten to the point yet where private entities are
| unilaterally disconnecting users from broad swaths of the
| Internet.
| VHRanger wrote:
| VPNs would not make sense if the actual ISP if blocking you.
|
| Apart from something like starlink and even then they're not
| playing nice with geographical access most of the time based
| on politics, whims of a narcissist, or just business.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Starlink is the only massively global ISP and (as far as
| I'm aware) has not cut off access for anyone based on their
| politics or location.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| Not quite true, but merits of me saying this is murky
| (I'm not going to fault Starlink).
|
| In Southern Africa, they were bringing in grey imports of
| Starlink from the UAE and these units have been blocked.
| 05 wrote:
| Except Ukraine
| oeitho wrote:
| Not true at all, Elon Musk has already cut off access for
| Ukraine because of his own personal views[1]. There's a
| reason why he's currently hated in most of Europe.
|
| [1] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4193788-musk-
| acknowledges...
| yard2010 wrote:
| What a villain.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| That article is heavily slanted, while providing the
| facts hidden in the text: Starlink was never enabled in
| Sevastopol. Musk simply denied an informal request to
| enable it to be used in a first strike, and deferred that
| decision to the DoD, which he contacted.
|
| Which is the correct thing to do when random people ask
| private companies to go to war.
| gabeio wrote:
| > VPNs would not make sense if the actual ISP if blocking
| you.
|
| Unless they are outright blocking your entire connection.
| That is precisely why one would use a vpn. A vpn most
| definitely can help get around blocking key words.
| tryauuum wrote:
| you can't solve political issues with technological
| solutions. Sure you can use VPN, but they always can
| block more. As the last resort they will have a whitelist
| of government-approved IPs you can connect to
| gabeio wrote:
| > you can't solve political issues with technological
| solutions. Sure you can use VPN, but they always can
| block more. As the last resort they will have a whitelist
| of government-approved IPs you can connect to
|
| You are in a thread specifically talking about blocking
| swaths of the internet because of football games.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| I'm beginning to think Europe needs to just dry out from soccer
| for a year or two.
|
| Like, we're impacting communications now.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Or, alternatively, we consider whether doing our
| communications via the same few huge American corporations is
| actually a good idea. The internet was literally designed to
| be resilient to enemy attack and look what we've done to it.
| Decades later, still on IPv4 and using ridiculous hacks to
| keep it all just barely working.
| outime wrote:
| I know the current situation isn't the most optimal but
| _barely working_ is an extreme hyperbole.
| globular-toast wrote:
| You're replying to a thread where people lose internet
| connectivity when a bunch of men are kicking a ball
| around a field.
| alexvitkov wrote:
| This has nothing to do with ipv4/ipv6 and the "ridiculous
| hacks" we do to keep ipv4 going. Those work just fine.
| This is a cultural problem, not a technological one.
| globular-toast wrote:
| If we want to use the internet as a communication network
| then we need peer-to-peer connectivity. We can't get than
| on IPv4. Resilience is pointless if everyone needs to
| connect to the same (few) middlemen before they can
| establish any kind of connection to a peer. It's no
| better than the old telephone system that needed an
| exclusive physical link between correspondents.
|
| We almost had this in the early 2000s, but then we
| regressed. People were excited about meshnets, when was
| the last time someone mentioned those? Too many people
| have forgotten and now many have been raised in this
| current form of the Internet thinking it's the only way.
| We need to think bigger. We need to push for IPv6 and
| basic internet connectivity (meaning ability to connect
| to any peer in the world) as a human right. Otherwise we
| build our lives around something that can be taken away
| on a whim over something as silly as grown men kicking a
| bladder around a field.
| 762236 wrote:
| There seems to be a problem starting new companies in the
| EU. It's hard to imagine the EU developing alternatives
| that people would want to use in such an environment.
| arkh wrote:
| The problem is not in starting a company. It's in the 20
| to 100 million investment if needed: those do not exist
| here.
|
| You'll get up to 10 million investment from whatever bank
| + state arrangement no problem. But when you want to
| scale up you're fucked if it requires money. So no "let's
| get 1 billion users and then think about milking them"
| way to do business, you have to be profitable a lot
| earlier. And you better not require too much R&D.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You say resilient to attack, yet it's also the opposite
| where it is very very easy for someone to attack someone to
| the point of removing their online presence. People will
| DDOS a site for the lulz. People will do it to cause
| problems for some perceived slight. Some will do it to hurt
| a competitor. It costs them pretty much nothing to have it
| happen. For those on the receiving end, it could be
| devastating. Their only affordable option _is_ to use one
| of the megaCorp providers.
|
| So it's a "this is why we can't have nice things" more than
| anything else. The assholes always ruin things in the end.
| So instead of some idealistic dream of a world, we get this
| shithole dystopian reality.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| The internet attack resilience isn't meant to keep a single
| node online. It is to keep a communication network active
| even if parts are destroyed. That part works.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Who cares about a single node? You shouldn't need a node
| in the middle for two parties to communicate. That's the
| point.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| La Liga is the problem in this scenario
| api wrote:
| People getting riled up about soccer as a way to blow off
| steam and experience their tribalism is vastly superior to
| what we have in the USA -- a political environment that
| people treat like battling football clubs complete with
| lawless hooligans.
|
| When a soccer team wins they don't get to ascend to power and
| leverage the state against their enemies.
| pc86 wrote:
| Surely you're talking about a District Attorney deciding
| that an individual needs to be charged prima facie and
| saying he "will find a crime" right?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I expect that's not what they were talking about, but I
| bet what you are talking about can happen just about
| anywhere.
| pc86 wrote:
| I'm sure it could and it's wrong everywhere.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| District Attorneys everywhere charge first and then prove
| the crime afterwards, right?
| pc86 wrote:
| Well typically a case is referred to them by law
| enforcement or a criminal complaint, then they review the
| evidence and decide whether or not to go to trial.
|
| It's much rarer for a DA to say they _want to find crimes
| a particular person committed_ and then direct others to
| go find evidence for whatever they can find evidence for.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Which DA went after a particular person without referral
| by law enforcement or a criminal complaint? If this was
| really such a breach of ethics, surely it would be
| trivial for the political party in question to first make
| a criminal complaint? It's not obvious to me that the
| complaint/referral matters much?
| thrance wrote:
| I don't know how much of this tribalism is confined to the
| stadium. Personal experience makes me feel like there is a
| big overlap between Ultras and actual nationalists, but I'd
| like to see a study.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > When a soccer team wins they don't get to ascend to power
| and leverage the state against their enemies.
|
| I mean, FIFA is corrupt _as hell_ and there 's been plenty
| of documented cases of other social ills caused by European
| soccer fandom, but okay.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This isn't a football problem, it's a "company has way too
| much power" problem. It's as if Coca-Cola were allowed to
| tell my water company to turn off my tap water for a few
| hours because I should be drinking their soda at lunchtime.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| So then why hasn't Europe made a viable competitor to
| Cloudflare yet...?
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Cloudflare isn't the company with too much power in the
| above scenario: La Liga is. CF isn't turning off access
| because they want to, it's because La Liga convinced a
| court that Cloudflare is promoting "piracy" with the
| various websites they host (some of which, constituting
| less than a rounding error of the overall sites they
| host, may host pirated soccer streams), and convinced a
| court to have Cloudflare blocked.
| dmix wrote:
| Technically LaLiga is only allowed to sue because the gov
| created aggressive IP/piracy rules, such as:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_Sinde
|
| They were given those powers in court over Cloudflare via
| the Spanish government, with some help via a pressure
| campaign by US gov to protect US copyright globally.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| If there was a viable competitor, then it wouldn't matter
| so much if it was blocked or not...
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| The same IP rules would apply to anybody hosting any site
| that could have the pirated streams...
| amarant wrote:
| What makes you think the competitor wouldn't simply be
| blocked as well?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Because their policies, behavior, etc., likely wouldn't
| be 100% identical.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That's a bad thing in this case. I don't want website
| blocking to be easier.
| autoexec wrote:
| That said, Cloudflare absolutely has too much power.
| Centralizing the internet makes it fragile and maximizes
| the collateral damage caused by draconian copyright
| enforcement.
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| Must be a lack of regulations and compliance procedures
| giving potential entrepreneurs the legal framework to
| work within.
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| this literally happens in mexico, monterrey in 2022 during
| biggest drought in the century, public supply was shut down
| while coca-cola keep producing soft drink from that
| reservoir, they end-up give some percentage back after a
| protest.
|
| https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/08/06/estados/022n1est
| Retric wrote:
| That's not literally the same thing, it was a protest
| over them for not "connect wells of their property to the
| public service supply network."
|
| Which isn't something I'd want random companies to be
| doing, and a figurative drop in the bucket.
| NewJazz wrote:
| One drop in an empty bucket is infinitely more water.
| Retric wrote:
| > One drop in an empty bucket is infinitely more water.
|
| No multiply 0 by infinity and you don't get one drop, ie
| 1/0 is undefined.
|
| Further it wasn't an empty bucket.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| In this case, as bucket content aproaches 0 drops, 1 drop
| becomes infinitely more, at least in calculus.
|
| Limits in calculus: "When a real function can be
| expressed as a fraction whose denominator tends to zero,
| the output of the function becomes arbitrarily large, and
| is said to "tend to infinity" For example, the reciprocal
| function, f ( x ) = 1/x tends to infinity as x tends to
| 0.
|
| Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero
| Retric wrote:
| Tends to infinity != infinity. Also, the fundamental
| theory of calculus requires a continuous function.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_calc
| ulu...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| You think it's possible for a bucket to contain a
| negative amount of water?
|
| I should note that the product of zero and infinity being
| an indeterminate form is actually a result about the
| product of an infinitesimal (of small but indefinite
| magnitude) and an infinite value. If when you say "zero",
| you actually mean "zero", there is no ambiguity: zero is
| more infinitesimal than any infinite value is infinite,
| and the product of zero with anything, including an
| infinitely large value, is zero.
| Retric wrote:
| > You think it's possible for a bucket to contain a
| negative amount of water?
|
| Irrelevant, the discontinuity occurs at 0 not a negative
| number.
|
| The limit of f(X) = (X-2)/(X-2) as X approaches 2 is 1,
| that doesn't mean the function has a defined value at 2.
| Limits seem easy because most students really don't
| understand limits and thus misuse them.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Quantum physics tells us all particles are waves, so it's
| possible that the amount of water will be negative in
| some point in time, as long as the average value is not
| negative. ;-)
| itishappy wrote:
| Zero times any _number_ is zero, but infinity is not a
| number. In order for multiplication to be valid, your
| elements must share a field.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Are you trying to make a point? The indeterminate forms
| are statements about limits. Those limits are statements
| about the possible range of certain operations on
| infinitesimal and infinite values. It's perfectly valid
| to multiply those values. And when zero is one of the
| multiplicands, it's also the product.
|
| You might want to think about why two times infinity is
| _not_ an indeterminate form.
| itishappy wrote:
| I am, thanks for noticing.
|
| If you extend your field to include infinity (e.g. the
| extended reals, or the extended positive reals), only
| then is it valid to multiply by infinity. One of the
| rules in such a system is that when infinity is one of
| the multiplicands, it's also the product. This gives us
| conflicting results for zero times infinity, therefore
| 0*[?] is an indeterminate form.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| You do not appear to have the slightest idea what you're
| talking about. For example, the extended reals _aren 't a
| field_.
|
| But it's easy to extend the real numbers to a field that
| includes infinite and infinitesimal values. Limiting is
| then a projection from the hyperreals, which are a field,
| to the extended reals, which aren't. Instead of "lim",
| let's call this projection "f".
|
| 0*[?] is an indeterminate form because f(f-1(0) *
| f-1([?])) is not well defined. f is a many-to-one
| function, and in this case the different possibilities
| that come up as we invert it interact differently. In
| contrast, 2*[?] is not an indeterminate form because,
| while f-1(2) * f-1([?]) might be any value _that is
| greater than all real numbers_ , it must always be
| greater than all real numbers, and therefore f(f-1(2) *
| f-1([?])) is always [?].
|
| > One of the rules in such a system is that when infinity
| is one of the multiplicands, it's also the product.
|
| In the extended reals, this is a result, not a rule, and
| it doesn't always hold. Again, the extended reals aren't
| a field. But even ignoring the question we're actively
| discussing, you should have been able to think of e.g. -3
| * [?].
|
| That's assuming that when you said "such a system", you
| meant the extended reals. If you meant a field that
| extends the reals to include infinite values, it's just
| meaningless noise - there is no value called "infinity"
| that would even let you evaluate the claim true or false.
| But in any multiplication of two values, any infinite
| value can only simultaneously be the product and one of
| the multiplicands if the other multiplicand is 1. When we
| say that 2*[?] = [?], the [?] on the left and the one on
| the right are both infinitely large, but they aren't the
| same value.
| int_19h wrote:
| It's the same aquifer though, right?
| Retric wrote:
| If the factory had simply shut down without hooking up
| their infrastructure, the area still would have had the
| exact same short term issues.
|
| The issue was arguably a lack of wells in an extreme
| situation, not a lack of water in the aquifer.
| pstuart wrote:
| Aquifers are not infinite in capacity, so it's a valid
| point.
| Retric wrote:
| Again not what this was about.
|
| If the area can't support the factories water use then
| shut down the factory _permanently._ Wanting to hook up
| to its infrastructure is all about a lack of public
| infrastructure.
|
| Many aquifers are over used, but that's a long term
| problem and has nothing to do with a drought in a single
| year.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Wow, I try to come up with an exaggerated hypothetical
| and it turns out to be a real example. We live in a
| ridiculous world.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Look up artisanal oil refining.
| HaZeust wrote:
| That's why I haven't taken life so seriously and been as
| uptight about things in recent years; because life sure
| as hell doesn't take us serious lol
| sandy_coyote wrote:
| I need to try out this line on my manager in stand-up
| later today.
| HaZeust wrote:
| Yes, that'll get you right.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _We live in a ridiculous world._
|
| Let The Market(tm) decide on access to drinking water:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization
| latentsea wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl_(film)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Your hypothetical involved Coca-Cola directing the
| service cutoff. It doesn't sound like that was real.
| r00fus wrote:
| Late-stage capitalism - the future is now.
| FredPret wrote:
| Are you in an alternate dimension where _Snow Crash_
| literally happened?!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
| lelandfe wrote:
| Burbclaves coming next:
| https://www.wired.com/story/startup-nations-donald-trump-
| leg...
| FredPret wrote:
| This type of crazy shit makes me love Canada even more
| mystraline wrote:
| Its one of the reasons why I am a market based socialist.
|
| The essentials of living should be state owned, and
| provided as inexpensively or freely as part of being
| here. And when that doesn't completely work, significant
| controls be put in place to prevent undue
| capitalization/financial ideation.
|
| The next tier should be a middle ground of intermediate
| importance, that companies can fulfill, but with modest
| controls to allow suitable profit and growth.
|
| The final tier is the new and not-required level. This is
| the new stuff, the crazy tech. Low/no laws, let everyone
| in this realm go crazy and experiment. The skies the
| limit.
|
| But water? This is beyond the pale. And revolutions have
| gone on for this before.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I might've got a bad translation, but :
|
| > the parastatal Water and Drainage Services of Monterrey
|
| Isn't that already the state owning the water supply?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| But _why_ does the company have too much power?
|
| Because there's a lot of money at stake surrounding soccer
| in Europe.
| autoexec wrote:
| > This isn't a football problem, it's a "company has way
| too much power" problem.
|
| This isn't limited to just one company. The problem is how
| copyright has been abused and over-prioritized until it's
| become a threat to people's freedoms, to art, and to
| progress.
|
| Copyright needs to be reined in so that no matter what the
| company is or what product they're pushing innocent people
| won't be negatively impacted just so that the industry can
| squeeze more profit from people while refusing to adapt.
| kiney wrote:
| the problem here isn't football. It's rampant censoreship and
| net blocks in the EU. (same problem different methods in
| other EU countries. In germany theiy raid your home for
| harmless political satire)
| thrance wrote:
| What kind of "harmless political satire"? Where can I find
| more about this?
| ptrl600 wrote:
| "Pimmelgate", Stefan Niehoff raid are two examples of
| hilariously disproportionate law enforcement response for
| minimal offense.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>In germany theiy raid your home for harmless political
| satire)
|
| Can you give some examples so we can see what harmless
| political satire you have in mind?
| smolley wrote:
| Andy Grote comes to mind. Someone tweeted "Du bist so 1
| Pimmel" (something like "you are such a willy") at him.
| Got his house searched and everything for that.
|
| Issue here being the fact that insulting someone is a
| criminial offense (hope that's the correct english
| terminology) in Germany.
|
| https://theweek.com/news/world-news/954635/willygate-
| german-...
|
| e:/ Whether this is actual satire or not is up for debate
| i guess, but this was in my opinion way overblown
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > "Du bist so 1 Pimmel" (something like "you are such a
| willy")
|
| Sure, it's something like that, but it's _more_ like
| "thou beest such a willy". ;D
| ohgr wrote:
| I travel a lot in the EU and the Internet is a total
| shambles. Blocked stuff everywhere. Right down to VPNs not
| even working.
| seydor wrote:
| it s not such a massive thing as it used to
|
| but football teams often have political connections and thus
| easy access to do such things
| crest wrote:
| Maybe DDoS their fax machines? "Toner or paper is empty!!!",
| white on black, 999 copies. _sigh_
| dylan604 wrote:
| Did anyone actually ever attempt the faxing a piece of black
| construction paper on an old sheet fed fax machine where you
| tape the top to the bottom prank? Was that even possible, or
| just urban legend?
| mysteria wrote:
| I've never heard of anyone making a paper roll with tape
| but I've definitely seen pranksters fax sheet after sheet
| of full black to waste paper and ink.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Huh? I live in Spain and I've never had any issues with
| internet or any websites being cut off. I'm not sure when these
| matches are on though because I'm not interested in sports.
|
| Spain does have a problem with the legal system though. Last
| year they almost cut off telegram and the government had to
| intervene.
| flkenosad wrote:
| Spain could build thier own cloudflare.
| basisword wrote:
| Thought you must be exaggerating but after reading further I'm
| shocked. I know the courts can be a tech illiterate but why are
| the Spanish courts this bad? Surely they see the consequences
| of the decision and immediately realise it's stupid? The UK can
| be pretty bad with this stuff and the Premier League is huge
| but I have no concern of something this idiotic happening here.
| phmagic wrote:
| What are the best ways for citizens to get their own p2p internet
| going?
| theodric wrote:
| DIY mesh networks (I'm speaking of Wi-Fi, not Meshtastic, but
| even that has its place), isolated pirateboxes, dead drops, and
| (horror of horrors) _going to the pub and talking to people_.
| It 's trivial for a government to make the first one illegal
| and relatively trivial to enforce it, but difficult in
| increasing magnitude for them to actually control the
| remainder.
| nradov wrote:
| Have WiFi mesh networks ever been proven to work at scale?
| The few experiments that I've seen seemed to be slow and
| unreliable. And in order to be of any real value, at least
| one of those mesh network nodes needs a connection to the
| real Internet.
| simfree wrote:
| Mesh networks like https://guifi.net have been reliably
| delivering internet longer than you have been a member of
| HN.
|
| There are many mesh networks with Autonomous Systems
| Numbers, peering at internet exchanges, etc. You don't
| order 10Gbps ports at various IXPs if your community run
| network can't deliver that bandwidth usefully.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > You don't order 10Gbps ports at various IXPs if your
| community run network can't deliver that bandwidth
| usefully.
|
| Well, to be fair.... - Membership of
| most IXPs is not that expensive and the smaller port
| sizes are not that expensive - Many IXPs are
| moving to 10Gbps as the default port size (e.g. with a
| membership at LINX in London, you get your first default-
| size port for free, which is now 10Gbps at LINX).
| - If you are running an eyeball network (i.e. xSP, WISP
| etc.) then you might as well just buy bare-minimum IP
| transit and save your money for your peering point
| memberships, since most of your traffic will be going to
| the CDNs etc. all of whom have open-peering policies at
| IXPs, so why pay more than you need to ? - Moving
| to cynical-view territory, its a marketing expense ...
| become an IXP member, get a nice logo you can put on your
| website and give your salesdroids something to name-drop
| ....
| memhole wrote:
| I believe NYC has had one running for quite some time.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > And in order to be of any real value, at least one of
| those mesh network nodes needs a connection to the real
| Internet.
|
| I don't know what this means. If all of my family and
| friends are on a private network, and I'm serving my copy
| of Wikipedia, and all of us are sharing our books, movies,
| and music, we have a bulletin board, voice and video
| chat...
|
| No real value?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| How did you get your copy of Wikipedia? How do you
| _update_ your copy of Wikipedia?
|
| How do you get your books, movies, and music? How do you
| get new ones?
|
| Yes, it has real value as a fill-in-the-gap until you can
| reconnect to the real internet. Long term I guess it
| still has _some_ value as a way to look at a static
| collection of things (plus content generated by people on
| the mesh), but the real internet is much more valuable.
| nextts wrote:
| AM radio?
|
| Even FM walkie talkies as a start.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Not exactly P2P, but I think the fibre optic drones used in
| Russia/Ukraine could be effective for regaining internet access
| in Africa.
|
| Those drones have 10km+ fibre optic cables stringing out the
| back. Fly it to a different country, hook up to a friendly
| wifi/cellular network, then pipe your general purpose internet
| traffic through the fibre optic cable.
|
| This wouldn't work everywhere. But for small Africa countries
| with lots of land borders it might work. Especially if the
| border area had jungle or other low traffic terrain.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| "Internet is a little flaky today. Probably a bird perching
| on the fiber."
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Imagine having a mesh of hundreds of fibre optic cables
| strewn across the border.
|
| Many having wireless routers at their terminus to forward
| traffic to other cables. Other cables having vertices and
| graph-like structures so that they could tolerate cuts in
| individual lines.
|
| The end result could be something quite authentic to
| ARPANET.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Before wireless came to my rural area, we used to joke
| about how the phone companies ran dialup over barbed wire.
| "Internet's down; deer must have broken the barbed wire
| again."
| mywittyname wrote:
| Growing up, my grandpa would joke that "someone tripped
| over the extension cord" when the power went out.
| dingnuts wrote:
| the Internet Protocol, IP, is already peer to peer. Assign
| yourself an address (V6) and get a peer, assign them an
| address, plug in a cable, voila!
|
| Get a switch and another computer and you have an Internet. Ok,
| we would generally call it an "intranet," but that's because
| -the- Internet with a capital I is specifically a net of
| intranets.
|
| So, if you were to start an ISP, which is the proposal, you
| would buy an uplink to the rest of the Internet for your
| intranet that you just built, from another ISP or backbone
| provider.
|
| But you don't have to do that, you could partner with another
| intranet, and have a separate Net. Similar to what happens in
| China actually.
|
| My point is: the Internet is already peer to peer. You just
| have to use the technology. Thirty years ago every tech nerd
| knew how to start an ISP.
|
| The only reason individuals don't do it as much anymore is
| because we want the ISP to lay dedicated cable for our
| connections, rather than just using the phone lines, and laying
| cable is really expensive.
|
| But you could use phone or amateur radio (like the JS8 digital
| mode) if lower speeds are acceptable, or lay your own Ethernet
| or fiber if you're capable.
|
| The only thing that makes today's Internet seem like it's not
| peer to peer is the investment needed to start an ISP with the
| performance modern consumers expect
| nostrademons wrote:
| IP is P2P, but a lot of the layers built on top of it are
| centralized, and very vulnerable to attack. DNS is
| hierarchical with 13 root name servers. Google is a private
| company, but if websearch ever goes offline, the utility of
| the Internet decreases dramatically. Some stupid percentage
| of webhosts are protected by Cloudflare; Cloudflare outages
| have taken large portions of the Internet offline. Same with
| AWS on the backend; when AWS has gone down, people find that
| a large number of the websites they depend upon go down too.
| Most people's consumer IPs are blocked off from the public
| Internet by their ISP and NAT.
|
| Actually using an Internet based on IP addresses alone is
| ridiculously difficult. Quick, tell me how the IP protocol
| works using IP addresses alone! You can't type anything other
| than IP addresses into the address bar of your computer, and
| your browser can't make any secondary requests unless they're
| to a raw IP address. No using Google or Wikipedia unless you
| have their IP addresses memorized and have HOST file entries
| for all the secondary resources they request. You can't use
| HN to tell me; you need to find my computer's IP address and
| SSH in to me. Oh, and whatever certificate validation SSH
| does can't make any network requests to a DNS entry.
| dingnuts wrote:
| in a small network you just put the hostnames in /etc/hosts
| and you're done, or you set up a local DNS server. The GP
| asked about "making a p2p internet," and that's how it's
| done. Hostnames are not a hard problem.
|
| Google Search is useless on a p2p internet. Why would you
| want to search the corporate network on your separate net?
| Doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't use the global DNS
| system in this scenario either, you can just set up your
| own -- DNS is hierarchical but there's no reason you cannot
| have your own roots, or just pass around hosts files like
| the old days, either on sneakernet or using another
| protocol
|
| > You can't use HN to tell me
|
| HN wouldn't be on my private "peer to peer" internet, it's
| on the regular internet. Set up a mirror or find a route to
| the regular one through any one of your PEERS.
|
| I don't get it, I thought the GP wanted to know how to set
| up their own Internet, or thought that the Internet was
| centralized. It's not. Build your own network, be creative,
| replace DNS if you need to. The tech is there, it's well-
| established, well-tested, and we use it today for the
| regular internet.
|
| The grandparent only needs to read some man-pages.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > DNS is hierarchical with 13 root name servers.
|
| It's a closed network, we can just hardcode everyone's
| address.
|
| > Google is a private company, but if websearch ever goes
| offline, the utility of the Internet decreases
| dramatically. Some stupid percentage of webhosts are
| protected by Cloudflare; Cloudflare outages have taken
| large portions of the Internet offline. Same with AWS on
| the backend; when AWS has gone down, people find that a
| large number of the websites they depend upon go down too.
| Most people's consumer IPs are blocked off from the public
| Internet by their ISP and NAT.
|
| All of this is irrelevant on a private network. I don't
| think you understood the comment you were replying to. The
| _Internet_ is a bunch of little internets mashed together.
| Instead of mashing your internet with the others, you can
| provide services internally. No, other people 's websites
| will not necessarily be on it, but they will anyway,
| because you'll probably provide a tunnel out to the wider
| internet. Anyway, you already have the internet, use it
| like you always did. The internet police don't make you
| give up the internet if you set up your own network.
|
| You may not be able to appreciate the value of a
| communication system without access to google (you can
| download Wikipedia and serve it yourself if you find it a
| useful tool and your connection to the wider internet is
| endangered.) I _remember_ an internet without Google, and I
| liked it more. The only thing Google ever did that was
| interesting was pagerank, and pagerank, being not resilient
| at all, was completely obsoleted by SEO. Everything else
| they 've done has been a result of taking advantage of when
| they controlled an important market (access to the wider
| resource of the internet) for a few years over a decade
| ago.
|
| When the internet goes down, my home network doesn't become
| either ridiculously difficult or useless. It will without
| pause or much notice still serve dozens of terabytes of
| data to anyone I allow to connect to wireless, and allow us
| to communicate with each other.
|
| BBS's were useful.
| bombcar wrote:
| The way to do p2p communication without the Internet is to
| remove immediacy from it.
|
| Old email servers were configured this way, they'd try to
| communicate the next time they got a connection.
|
| For text it could be simple as encrypting and sending it to as
| many devices as you see until you get an ack back - something
| almost blockchain-like, but without the CPU and just signing.
|
| Ack'd messages would be purged from ThePile and you could also
| expire them after a time. It'd be a few gigabytes perhaps, and
| could share diffs when you see another device.
| sgt wrote:
| FIDONet was pretty rugged that way.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| No internet here, but I'm setting up Meshtastic nodes between
| me and my family so we can keep messaging when internet stops
| working, or power goes out (solar panels).
|
| They'll get 99.99% of people, but not me. I only need it for an
| hour or so to communicate meeting points. After that it's an
| added luxury for whatever comes after. It's my contribution to
| the prepping of my family.
| int_19h wrote:
| Look up AREDN.
| junaru wrote:
| Given how internet exploited and divided people in the west i
| don't blame them. Ignorance is bliss and i want it back.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| What? They don't block Internet because they want their people
| united. They do it because they are authoritarians who want to
| control every aspect of people's lives. India doesn't top the
| list of countries that cut Internet access because it's a haven
| of national unity, lol. It's probably a country more divided
| than any Western ones.
| ty6853 wrote:
| The irony here is the government has little grip in much of
| central Africa. Militias roam the bush with little fear of
| law. Places like CAR are nations only because europeans drew
| it like that on a map. Killing the internet may be the only
| lever of control for the central government, they cannot
| control people's lives to nearly the extent is done in most
| the west.
|
| In places like the US they can just use one of the gazillion
| laws on the books to charge anyone, then send the police on
| any corner to get them. There is no need to kill the
| internet.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| We just had that whole Cliven Bundy thing happen a few
| years ago, no? Also, large swathes of the western US,
| Alaska, Appalachia, etc., are often difficult for
| authorities to access (at least quickly).
|
| It's important to be clear that the lack of government
| control in Central Africa has a lot to do with that same
| sort of geographic inaccessibility. There are whole
| countries in Asia that exist largely because of the
| difficulty of administering rugged frontier; the Amazon
| still exists largely because the Brazilian/Colombian/etc.
| governments understandably have trouble administering
| thousands of square miles of jungle.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > We just had that whole Cliven Bundy thing happen a few
| years ago, no?
|
| That's interesting because of how unusual it is. If there
| were hundreds of him, the US would be like central
| Africa.
|
| > governments understandably have trouble administering
| thousands of square miles of jungle.
|
| I'm sure that governments feel better that you understand
| their problems. You're replying to somebody who is
| enumerating those problems, not reviewing individual
| governments and giving them a star rating.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The US doesn't have that kind of geographic
| inaccessibility. Cliven Bundy is alive, not because the
| US couldn't locate him, not because the US couldn't reach
| that location with overwhelming force, but because the US
| decided that killing him was a less optimal move than
| letting him be an annoyance for a while, and eventually
| arresting and trying him.
| gimme_treefiddy wrote:
| Lets peek into whether those divisions are organic or driven
| through NGOs.
| mywittyname wrote:
| "Keep the bad parts, eliminate the good parts."
|
| - The Authoritarian Cookbook
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Libraries are bad and should be banned because you might find
| Mein Kampf in the nonfiction section
| gimme_treefiddy wrote:
| Note how almost no one will acknowledge this is happening in
| the backdrop of unravelling of USAID and how certain powers in
| the world sow discord in other countries.
|
| I have done a complete 180 on this issue in recent years.
| hello_computer wrote:
| I blocked Africa from my networks a couple weeks ago, and the
| number of attempts in my logwatch emails has been cut in half
| ever since. Sometimes even more.
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| what are you using to block entire geographical regions?
| hello_computer wrote:
| it's a secret
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Apps should respond to events like this by becoming smaller--so
| that you can only collaborate with people on your network
| partition. Most of the time they instead break altogether.
|
| The future is way to uncertain to assume a reliably connected
| future, which is what most of our tech is doing.
| api wrote:
| Most of our tech has been developed in stable advanced
| developed countries.
| ironmagma wrote:
| > stable
|
| I wouldn't be too certain about that.
| rbanffy wrote:
| At least not anymore
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It would be fun to develop some kind of war games scenario
| where we see what we can make work in a less stable
| environment and make changes accordingly. Some kind of
| apocalypse conference or somesuch.
|
| I mean we'll be doing the work eventually, might as well get
| a head start in-game.
| sofixa wrote:
| But if the app doesn't have internet access, how would it
| discover the others on that same partition? (Assuming it's a
| wholesale internet/specific domains being fully blocked). If
| your phone/computer can't contact Telegram's servers, it
| doesn't matter.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I imagine using bluetooth for peer discovery, so you find
| peers by sharing an elevator with them, or stopping at the
| same intersection, standing in line at the grocery store etc.
| Although the network would probably never converge entirely,
| it would drift approximately towards convergence as long as
| the gossiped dataset stayed small.
|
| The gossiped data would be:
|
| > My public key is ABCD1234... and the most recent CID of my
| data is DCBA9876...
|
| These devices need be on no other network at the time, just
| in range of each other.
|
| At other times when they're near a node on the larger network
| they offload their discovered peers and the consult their
| trust graph to see which peers (new or already known) are
| both trusted in some capacity (maybe transitively) and
| interested in the same topics/apps. In those cases, that data
| syncs to their mobile device, and apps which reference it
| update.
|
| This would work better if you dedicate some device somewhere
| to be permanently attached to a network node, but unlike what
| we're doing today there's no need for it to be maintained by
| the author of your apps. We can decouple those personas. If
| the device hosting your data ends up on another partition,
| you can dedicate a new device to the task without updating
| anyone, since nobody is hanging onto device identifiers
| anyway. Probably this just means leaving yesteryear's busted
| phone plugged in at home so it can be a cache for your data
| while the device in your pocket is offline. Your mobile
| device an update when it gets on the wifi.
|
| So now you've got users carrying around data which other
| users might be interested in (beyond the peer-finding data),
| and it's organized by topic/app, so when two peers are nearby
| which share an interest (perhaps on the behalf of their
| peers, transitively), they can directly sync heavier data as
| well. I think that attaching a wifi router to every delivery
| truck would get you most of the way there, since it could
| move the data between houses it's delivering to.
|
| This might mean network latencies measured in hours or days,
| which would be awkward, but at least it's never hard down
| because it never depends on the state of a unique server.
| Besides, if the partition-tolerant fallback works beyond a
| certain usability threshold then you've removed the incentive
| to disable the internet in the first place.
|
| Maybe I don't have the details perfect, but something like
| this is possible and I don't think the difficult part is
| getting the underlying protocol right. Rather it's getting
| the apps we rely on to also work under the fallback paradigm.
| The necessary shift is to get away from request/response
| architectures and towards pub/sub ones. Fewer unique server
| identifiers and more trusted user keys and predicates about
| the degree to which those users trust different content
| hashes.
| m3047 wrote:
| By making its own "internet in a box": open wifi, DHCP and
| DNS, and Bob's your uncle. Anybody in range can play;
| everyone else is out of luck. Install NNTP so that news can
| move around by flooding, as nodes form new associations. Add
| a second wifi transceiver and some clever dynamic route
| discovery and you have a mesh network.
| m3047 wrote:
| I made a wifi firing range / disconnected collab environment to
| this end a few years ago. Has BIND (which takes over the
| world), Apache, DAV, Etherpad. I carry a VM of it around on my
| laptop "against the day".
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Thats a cool idea. Instead of initializing our hard disks
| with 0's we should fill them with things like that so that
| people have a chance of finding them as needed.
|
| Does it have a corresponding repo or blog post or anything
| like that?
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Not who you're replying to, but they linked their GH in
| bio, which led me to this:
|
| https://github.com/m3047/pangolin
| callc wrote:
| I agree, but also am weary trying to solve societal issues with
| technical solutions. We naturally try to do this, using the
| tools we know. It's a losing battle to fight technologically
| against a motivated state actor, like CCP. When your door gets
| knocked down and you get arrested for using e2e encrypted
| communications, technology will not save you.
|
| Certainly things like SSL and encryption have helped fight back
| against the spying eyes of governments and bad actors.
|
| This is not a dig against making apps robust to network
| partitions
| folmar wrote:
| Briar does just that
| foundart wrote:
| This? https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/
|
| Hadn't heard of it. Thanks for bringing it up.
| matt3210 wrote:
| Some might say the other countries should stay out of it. For
| example people might say Switzerland should stay out of those
| nations issues. However, if Switzerland provided technology
| thought a normal market or not, to the rulers, they have already
| interfered with the natural progression of that nation. There is
| no hope of the people making the situation better while
| Switzerland is providing the rulers with tech and they're keeping
| it from the people.
| fluoridation wrote:
| That's like saying that because the store sold you the belt
| you're using to beat your children, the owners should break
| into your house to physically stop you from doing so.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| Individuals looking for belts and nation-states looking for
| networking equipment are not really the same thing... also
| belts don't usually include service/maintenance contracts
| etc, or the ability to be revoked from the public at large
| (imagine the embarrassment)
| fluoridation wrote:
| It doesn't have to be the same, that's what makes it an
| analogy. What is the same is the relative relationships
| between the elements involved. Although, now that you've
| made me think about it, I guess it's not quite right
| anyway, because I doubt it's _Switzerland_ selling
| technology, but _Swiss companies_. It 'd be more correct to
| say that because you bought a belt from the store, the
| store-owner's father (as well as some of his neighbors,
| let's be real) should break into your house to stop you
| from beating your children with it.
| leereeves wrote:
| The way these countries treat their citizens is rarely a
| secret. I'd say a better analogy is that gun stores
| should not sell guns to known felons.
| fluoridation wrote:
| What would prevent gun stores from selling guns to
| criminals would be the law and the punishments doled out
| by the government. So if your argument is that
| Switzerland should punish Swiss companies for dealing
| with oppressive governments, then yeah, maybe. That's not
| the topic of discussion, though.
|
| If someone buys a gun in a foreign country, and after
| returning to his home country he shoots a man, is he
| subject to the laws of the foreign country? To me that
| sounds like it would be a breach of the sovereignty of
| the man's home country. Not that I'm saying this is an
| apt analogy, but it's certainly closer.
| pmontra wrote:
| > if your argument is that Switzerland should punish
| Swiss companies for dealing with oppressive governments
|
| Some countries require an export license for some
| products and companies might get it to export to friendly
| countries and not get it for other countries. It's
| similar to sanctions. Those licenses apply even to some
| piece of software (spying tools et al.) Companies caught
| selling without a license are punished.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Fine. Like I said, it's not the topic of discussion.
| dingnuts wrote:
| lots of people think gun manufacturers should be liable if
| the customer shoots someone so it's not like this is an
| argument without precedent
| rbanffy wrote:
| Is the US still providing updates and spares for Ukraine's
| airforce? Modern military aircraft depend a lot on software
| updates to stay operational.
| fluoridation wrote:
| I fail to see the relevance.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| This should be an extremely high profile piece of news...
|
| Imagine people all over planet Earth talking to each other in
| real life, in passing.. "Did you hear Internet access is cut off
| in ____"?
|
| Is there not some "tracker" out there? I'm sure it would be hard
| to keep up to date but..
| alephnerd wrote:
| In most countries, "curfews" are viewed as a justified legal
| construct. In most cases, internet shutdowns are clubbed with
| general curfews as well.
|
| You see this especially in most of the former British colonies
| listed that continue to use British Colonial Era legislation
| for Law and Order. You see this is South Asia (India, Pakistan,
| Sri Lanka, Bangladesh), Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore,
| Myanmar), and much of Africa (eg. Nigeria, Kenya) as well
|
| It's the classic "collectivist" versus "individualist" split,
| and it's something only individual countries can decide.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _Imagine people all over planet Earth talking to each other in
| real life, in passing.. "Did you hear Internet access is cut
| off in ____"?_
|
| The issue is that no one would care.
|
| There are children being sold into sexual slavery and you don't
| get that kind of reaction. You're definitely not going to get
| it because some random InstaSnapTwit in Nigeria can't get his
| fart app to work.
| oefrha wrote:
| Did you hear about hundreds of thousands of people dying in
| South Sudan's civil war since 2013? Did you hear about the
| return of open-air slave markets in Libya since NATO
| intervention in 2011? Did you hear about dozens of other
| hideous things happening in Africa? It's almost comical that
| you think people elsewhere would give a shit about such a
| comparatively minor thing as Internet interruptions.
| pc86 wrote:
| These things have been reported hundreds / thousands of time
| if you read enough news to get informed of them. That's the
| only reason you know about them. There's no reason for a
| random local news station in rural Oklahoma to cover the
| South Sudan's civil war or Libyan slave markets.
|
| That war and slavery are bad doesn't make the curtailing of
| civil rights for millions of people suddenly a nothingburger.
| technothrasher wrote:
| "That war and slavery are bad doesn't make the curtailing
| of civil rights for millions of people suddenly a
| nothingburger."
|
| Also known as the fallacy of relative privation. This line
| of reasoning quickly leads to the conclusion that only bad
| thing worth caring about is the absolute worst thing
| happening.
| notavalleyman wrote:
| Wagner* and russia's Libya intervention to continuously arm
| and support general khalifa haftar against the
| internationally recognised government
| rbanffy wrote:
| Usually it's only the propaganda outlets that get blocked,
| not all internet access.
| timewizard wrote:
| This is Africa. So the first question you should ask yourself
| is "do they even have electricity 24 hours of the day?" The
| answer is generally "they're lucky to get 8 hours in a day."
|
| I mean, it's a disappointing that Facebook isn't available in
| Uganda, but I think there are some bigger ticket items on the
| continent to be concerned with first.
| rbanffy wrote:
| At least in Brazil, blocks are limited to specific IP ranges
| and happen because companies defy court orders to hand over
| publisher data the court considers illegal - irregular
| electoral propaganda, misinformation campaigns, etc. Rumble,
| AFAIK, is blocked in Brazil right now. Twitter and WhatsApp
| were blocked more than once.
| jp42 wrote:
| Internet shutdown typically happens during riots/ violent
| protests. Starlink makes "internet shutdown" impotent. Though
| Starlink has to follow country's laws and actually shutdown the
| internet. Most if not all protest are sponsored by entities that
| are against the host country and they will find ways to enable
| the internet for protesters with starlink or some other ways.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Starlink makes "internet shutdown" impotent
|
| It still requires a radio transmitter. If push comes to shove,
| a government can still track RF leakage or worst case GPS
| jamming (if it's really that existential).
|
| Iran did the same thing when cracking down on Satelite TV and
| SatPhones during the crackdown of the Green Revolution (anti-
| Ahmedinijad protests in 2009) and anecdotally, Starlink
| terminals have been increasingly unstable in Iran.
|
| I also vaguely remember a DIUx RFS within the past year for
| startups working on minimizing RF leakage from terminals.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| A lot of these people talk about Starlink like they never
| heard of RF engineering.
|
| It's like, "Um, guy, Starlink can be shut down too."
| alephnerd wrote:
| > A lot of these people talk about Starlink like they never
| heard of RF engineering.
|
| Because they most likely didn't. On a separate tangent, I
| HATE how most CS majors can get a CS degree without even
| learning basics about electronics engineering or even
| computer architecture.
|
| It's a shame because a lot of the craft used in DSP and RF
| Engineering has direct applications in ML (much of ML is
| itself a fork of Information Theory which started off as a
| DSP subfield)
| protocolture wrote:
| Starlink just transmits to a ground station thats 99% of
| the time in the same country. Its not some magical space
| internet, its just regular internet bottled and delivered
| by satellite.
|
| RF is really where this discussion needs to be, you and
| your mate jim can set up a bunch of UBNT hardware and
| create your own intranet really god damn easily. No
| reliance on some guy who signed on to all your governments
| internet censorship laws.
| daveguy wrote:
| Starlink puts "internet shutdown" in the hands of just one
| asshole oligarch.
| jp42 wrote:
| why i am being downvoted for this :confused:
| rbanffy wrote:
| Most likely this part you didn't realize happened:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43354309
| jp42 wrote:
| Well I did not even bring Elon into my original post. What
| I wrote is true regardless of whether its starlink or some
| other constellation. e.g satphones are routinely used
| across the world in conflict/insurgency areas. Starlink is
| already being used in insurgency in NE part of India and so
| on.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Internet has become an essential right up there with housing,
| electricity, water etc.
|
| Everywhere around the world people are connected to the internet.
| Even in poor African countries.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Um.
|
| Yeah.
|
| The internet is important. But if you go some places in this
| world you learn in a very swift fashion that it is not as
| important as housing, food, and water.
|
| There's parts of the world that are not a fairy tale. Places
| where people have far more basic worries.
|
| That said, if there are parts of Africa where people want the
| luxury of internet, they should, of course, be allowed access.
| The mere fact that they want it is an indication that they are
| in a relatively well off area.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Counterpoint: in the third world some 3rd rate shack with a
| shitty well or water source may often come 'free' as it stays
| in the family. I have seen people in the third world blow
| most their paycheck on phone and internet related charges
| since food/water/shelter may cost a villager in a farm
| basically nothing and the internet is entertainment and
| communication for a whole month.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| If they had access to internet, you weren't in the parts of
| Africa I'm talking about. There is a difference between
| undeveloped, developing and developed.
|
| You go to an undeveloped place, you wouldn't be worried
| about phones or internet access. You just accept that
| you're going to be off the grid for the duration of your
| stay in that village. Alternatively, you bring your
| communications equipment with you so that you can stay in
| touch with your, "base", for lack of a better term. But I
| can tell you right now, that equipment better not be
| dependent on internet access.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Well yes in places with no internet access people don't
| buy internet, but it's a bit tautological. People who
| survive by subsistence but come upon hard money somehow,
| in some place with towers, I have personally seen them
| blow a whole month pay on phone credits and it wasn't
| uncommon.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Just because some people are deprived of it doesn't mean it
| shouldn't be a right. And the fact that some of these
| communities don't even have time to consider it a priority
| when they're also deprived of other basic rights doesn't mean
| that it isn't also a basic right. It's not a fairy tale to
| expect basic human rights. The entire world could be
| connected if that's what powerful people wanted.
|
| Internet should _not_ be a luxury in any community. That is
| against the ethos of the web, which should be free, open and
| accessible. Your comment is needlessly patronizing and
| dismissive without actually presenting any evidence that the
| internet shouldn 't be considered essential for any modern
| community.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Increasingly, you need the internet working to access your
| money or pay for things. I've found you unfortunately need to
| pay for food.
| hbn wrote:
| It's essential if you live in a place where it's essential.
|
| But there are plenty of places where everything hasn't gone all
| digital, which makes living without internet much easier than
| it is in e.g. America.
| Terr_ wrote:
| It's interesting to think that if the US Constitution had been
| created in today's technological environment, the founders
| would have authorized a federal United States Internet Service,
| as opposed to a postal one.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Maybe it's time to create one.
|
| On second thought, I'd wait 4 years before starting that.
| bmitc wrote:
| I thought the solution that everybody wanted was Starlink?
| Because that will never be politicized or weaponized ...
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I don't want to be dependant on Starlink (or any one provider)
| for internet.
|
| I think the world is better when there's an access point that
| governments can't shut off.
| bmitc wrote:
| I was being sarcastic in case it wasn't clear. I agree with
| you.
| benced wrote:
| This is especially notable when you consider African states are
| bad at basically everything you'd expect a state to be able to do
| but are apparently very capable of this.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Blocking internet access is pretty simple thing to do,
| especially compared to something like building and maintaining
| a bridge.
| aierjtlaj wrote:
| And now Americans are giving this type of control to Musk, after
| he's demonstrated that he's happy to cut off a country's internet
| access during a war and he'll happily focus his company's
| resources on attacking his enemies. Genius.
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