The article suggests the only way to avoid government shutdowns is through satellite internet which makes Starlink a lot more valuable.
Iran’s internet blackout left people in the dark. How does a country shut down the internet?
Submitted 2 months ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
buzzer noise
Sat links are a way to avoid that… if you assume they are not cooperative with the government.
Which is basically a very stupid assumption in a whole lot of scenarios.
Actual alternative:
Build a community meshnet of your own transceiver devices, and/or use I2P.
It’d be some work to setup, and probably be pretty slow, but this would at least enable local communication, and if you’re using I2P, it’d also be secure and private.
At the moment, Starlink in Iran can only do local sms text messages, that’s it, no web access, no voicecalls, no signal nor whatsapp nor telegram.
Also, Elon can just rail a line of ketamine and suddenly change his mind for no apparent reason.
Whereas a local meshnet does not have a single point of failure, and actually supports many more kinds of internet traffic, and Elon isn’t reading all your SMS and metadata… as well it being possible to hook into any kind of potential tunnel to the broader internet.
Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But Elon shut off Starlink to Ukraine at the worst time… he can do it to you too.
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 months ago
It’s a good article for people who got so used to the internet permeating everything that they never considered the underlying infrastructure. But it’s there, and it can be controled - not just in Iran; though certainly countries like Iran and Russia put more effort into isolating it than others. But it will never be 100% - and I don’t mean VPNs, just other physical/technical means of accessing & distributing the internet and/or other forms of ditributed messaging. As a layman’s guess I’d say cell towers might factor into this.
14th_cylon@lemm.ee 2 months ago
cell towers do not really factor into this. they will just shut down local peering center and transit for major providers and they are done. far less moving elements to take care off than cell towers, which would not even address the whole problem (“problem” from the government’s point of view)
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 months ago
You misunderestood; I guessed that cell towers could be helpful in circumventing such shutdowns.
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Aren’t most cell tower functions just backhauled to the Internet these days, anyway?
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 months ago
I was wondering the same actually (I did label the cell tower thing a guess):
Wouldn’t hard shutting down the internet shut down mobile communications as well. Of course a soft shutdown would allow for filtering that out. I wonder which one Iran chose.
Still guessing btw.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Image
booly@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
ABSOLUTELY HARAM
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 months ago
Stock traders use shortwave radio to transmit digital data. Over long idstances it is apparently faster than the internet.
So yeah, there are always options.
altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Probably easier to do rather than laying your line through different jurisdictions and plots of someone’s property.
aeroplayne@lemm.ee 2 months ago
My Iranian friend was talking to me about the Internet blackouts. I mentioned the ham radio thing.
He told me I would be hung by the regime, but only after being severely tortured for at least a week first.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Meshtastic would work too. But it’s banned in many countries. Or specifically devices that transmit in a specific frequency
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago