Iran’s internet blackout left people in the dark. How does a country shut down the internet?

Comments

• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Set “Power at ISP provider” = 0

  Done

  Btw is it legal to own Walkie Talkies / Ham Radios in Iran? Maybe they should be trying to get those for communications… 🤔

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  • whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Ham Radios

    Image

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    • booly@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Ham Radios

      ABSOLUTELY HARAM

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    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      OMG I didn’t get the joke until someone mentioned “haram” 🤣

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  • aeroplayne@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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  • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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    • altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Probably easier to do rather than laying your line through different jurisdictions and plots of someone’s property.

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  • lepinkainen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Meshtastic would work too. But it’s banned in many countries. Or specifically devices that transmit in a specific frequency

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    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Meshtashtic isn’t really much better, in fact, its worse, the frequency is higher, therefore, it doesn’t penetrate obstructions well, compared to like VHF (which can be pocket sized, like a walkie talkie), or HF (which is essentially like a console size). The only advantage is that, in some jurisdictions, it doesn’t need license, and can legally re-transmit. All the legal benefits goes out the window when the country is authoritarian, so ham radio frequencies are much better for Iran.

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• Mrkawfee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The article suggests the only way to avoid government shutdowns is through satellite internet which makes Starlink a lot more valuable.

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  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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  • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But Elon shut off Starlink to Ukraine at the worst time… he can do it to you too.

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• A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Aren’t most cell tower functions just backhauled to the Internet these days, anyway?

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    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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  • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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)

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    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      You misunderestood; I guessed that cell towers could be helpful in circumventing such shutdowns.

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