PCWorld: Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down

[ronpaulhawaii]

I imagine there is much to learn from the North Africa events

http://www.pcworld.com/article/218155/get_internet_access_when_your_government_shuts_it_down.html

These days, no popular movement goes without an Internet presence of some kind, whether it's organizing on Facebook or spreading the word through Twitter. And as we've seen in Egypt, that means that your Internet connection can be the first to go. Whether you're trying to check in with your family, contact your friends, or simply spread the word, here are a few ways to build some basic network connectivity when you can't rely on your cellular or landline Internet connections.

 

[specsaregood]

 

[DirtMcGirt]

Here's a blog post by Life Hacker-"How to foil a nationwide internet shutdown"... comment section from this post has some good tips too...
http://lifehacker.com/5746046/how-to-foil-a-nationwide-internet-shutdown

 

[Anti Federalist]

This is old and kludgy but still in widespread maritime service with world wide wireless capability.

NBDP and Telex.

 

[roho76]

How possible would it be to set up a independent network outside of the governments control? There was a thread that Gunny started that I can no longer find that addressed this very subject. IF anybody can find it please post. This whole Egypt government communication shut down thing is really scary and will happen here most assuredly when we have our revolution.

I read an article someone posted about companies in the city using light to send info between buildings and it sounded pretty neat. Something like this using Daihinia which is discussed in this article would be a liberty orientated solution to the internet.

The independent network would rely on everybody buying a receiver/transmitter in order to be a part of the network. It could be HAM Radio based or 802.11 but I like light based because of speed. In my business we use these IR sensors with transmitters and receivers called light curtains to tell if someone has entered a certain area and they will stop a machine so they don't get hurt. How hard would it be to setup to send blazing fast signal through pulsed light. You could buy the components to add yourself to the network and put up on an over the air TV antenna tower attached to your house. Then you would line it up with your neighbors and then your mac ID would be added to the network. It would be independent of current ISP's and harder for the government to shut down because all they could do was shut down one node but what ever it was they were trying to shut down would then just be put up on some other node. Imagine the ground hog effect. Everybody would run there own servers so there is no central hosting company that would be taken down. If I wanted to connect to someone in CA it would run its course through the shortest path available and if one section of the network was shut down it would just go around it.

Would this be to slow/cumbersome/hard? Anybody else have some ideas. I really like the idea of purchasing the equipment to add yourself to the network. You could even come up with devices that use this open network like cellphones.

 

[sailingaway]

Wow, that's interesting. Thanks.

 

[sailingaway]

I don't think it necessarily takes a revolution. I think the very idea of the government saying it can 'shut down' communication between citizens just needs to be rejected out of hand, with development of as many alternate options as possible.

 

[hazek]

I worked at the 3rd largest ISP in my country and I can tell you that if the government wishes to shut the internet down there are a few key points that they could physically destroy and you can't do anything about it. As soon as they destroy those key points you'd need actual physical cables going from your servers to another country to be able to reconnect to the world.

 

[roho76]

Now this is what I'm talking about.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

It seems as thought it's single point to single point but I have to read it again. It would be nice if it broadcast to multiple sources at once in a 360 degree fasion and then your neighbors repeat the signal.

 

[CaseyJones]

bump

 

[Sola_Fide]

Interesting...

 

[amy31416]

I worked at the 3rd largest ISP in my country and I can tell you that if the government wishes to shut the internet down there are a few key points that they could physically destroy and you can't do anything about it. As soon as they destroy those key points you'd need actual physical cables going from your servers to another country to be able to reconnect to the world.

I'm a knucklehead when it comes to this stuff, but couldn't people conceivably still access the 'net through phone lines? Or does the destruction of those "key points" also cut off phone communication? What about satellite?

 

[Pericles]

I'm a knucklehead when it comes to this stuff, but couldn't people conceivably still access the 'net through phone lines? Or does the destruction of those "key points" also cut off phone communication? What about satellite?

You gotta have two things

(A) An IP address for your machine - not that big of a deal - usually assigned by your ISP, but you can fake it if you have to.

(B) The ability to transmit / receive data packets from your PC to the server with data you want - a clear channel - be it modem and phone line, DSL, wireless, LAN, etc. This is where the break occurs because either the servers are cut off or you are cut off. The challenge is to have a data packet exchange infrastructure not subject to disruption. Currently that is the role the TELCOs play, and your data pipes (DSL, T-1, etc.) are services provided from those same TELCOs. The trick is to build networks that either (A) can connect to each other until reaching a "friendly" TELCO, or reaching a TELCO out of the jurisdiction trying to cut communications.

It is nice to have DNS and other services that make the NET run smoother, but that can be worked around - for example - I run a LAN where we maintain DNS caching servers, so the loss of DNS is not immediately noticable until either the cache expires (can change settings to prevent that) or somebody on the LAN wants to go somewhere new that the DNS lookup has not been cached.

 

[angelatc]

I don't think it necessarily takes a revolution. I think the very idea of the government saying it can 'shut down' communication between citizens just needs to be rejected out of hand, with development of as many alternate options as possible.

The problem with that is that you're entrusting your liberty to other people. The government, and people in other positions of power, have proven over and over again that they have no respect for the law or rules of civil society. 99% of the country might sat the concept is abhorrent, but when the 1% that run things clamp down, at best we can only hope that the courts will sort it out, a few years down the road.

 

[AFPVet]

You gotta have two things

(A) An IP address for your machine - not that big of a deal - usually assigned by your ISP, but you can fake it if you have to.

(B) The ability to transmit / receive data packets from your PC to the server with data you want - a clear channel - be it modem and phone line, DSL, wireless, LAN, etc. This is where the break occurs because either the servers are cut off or you are cut off. The challenge is to have a data packet exchange infrastructure not subject to disruption. Currently that is the role the TELCOs play, and your data pipes (DSL, T-1, etc.) are services provided from those same TELCOs. The trick is to build networks that either (A) can connect to each other until reaching a "friendly" TELCO, or reaching a TELCO out of the jurisdiction trying to cut communications.

It is nice to have DNS and other services that make the NET run smoother, but that can be worked around - for example - I run a LAN where we maintain DNS caching servers, so the loss of DNS is not immediately noticeable until either the cache expires (can change settings to prevent that) or somebody on the LAN wants to go somewhere new that the DNS lookup has not been cached.

This is true. The internet backbone infrastructure (T-lines) are owned by telephone companies; however, if everything was point to point (2.4 GHz wireless towers) then it would be a different story.

 

[amy31416]

You gotta have two things

(A) An IP address for your machine - not that big of a deal - usually assigned by your ISP, but you can fake it if you have to.

(B) The ability to transmit / receive data packets from your PC to the server with data you want - a clear channel - be it modem and phone line, DSL, wireless, LAN, etc. This is where the break occurs because either the servers are cut off or you are cut off. The challenge is to have a data packet exchange infrastructure not subject to disruption. Currently that is the role the TELCOs play, and your data pipes (DSL, T-1, etc.) are services provided from those same TELCOs. The trick is to build networks that either (A) can connect to each other until reaching a "friendly" TELCO, or reaching a TELCO out of the jurisdiction trying to cut communications.

It is nice to have DNS and other services that make the NET run smoother, but that can be worked around - for example - I run a LAN where we maintain DNS caching servers, so the loss of DNS is not immediately noticable until either the cache expires (can change settings to prevent that) or somebody on the LAN wants to go somewhere new that the DNS lookup has not been cached.

So, correct me if I'm wrong........what you're telling me is that I ought to learn Morse code, yes?

 

[roho76]

So, correct me if I'm wrong........what you're telling me is that I ought to learn Morse code, yes?

That's all computers are. Morse code. 1's and 0's. It's called ASCII.

 

[Anti Federalist]

So, correct me if I'm wrong........what you're telling me is that I ought to learn Morse code, yes?

-.-- . ... --..-- / -... -.-- / .- .-.. .-.. / -- . .- -. ... --..-- / -.-- --- ..- / ... .... --- ..- .-.. -.. .-.-.-

 

[Anti Federalist]

So, correct me if I'm wrong........what you're telling me is that I ought to learn Morse code, yes?

Smart assery aside, yes.

Government, for all intents and purposes, owns the "tubes" that pass all the information that is "the web".

A lot of it is done wirelessly, however the bulk of net traffic still travels through plain old copper wires or fiber optic lines.

Therefore it is very easy for government to "open up" a tube and look at what is passing through, or shut it right off.

What is being discussed here are alternatives to get around a government shut down such as:

a) going back to older dial up as a back up, not very effective, I think because the same lines that carry voice carry data in that case, and they can be shut down too.

b) connecting computers via radio, wireless. A good idea except that the only "content" you would be able to access would be whatever is on the other computer that you are connected to. That is, as Pericles mentioned, until you could "hopscotch" wireless links until you got to "friendly" wireless link and then passed the web content back down the line. Drawbacks? easily broken chain, and easily triangulated single.

c) non digital analog. Ham radio voice, morse, NBDP and so on.

 

[tangent4ronpaul]

Once upon a time, the Internet behaved as it was designed to - able to route around a nuclear war. Then somewhere between the Mega Internet providers buying up almost all the mom and pop ISP's and telco's laying a lot of fiber along a limited number of routes and the advent of Network Operation Centers, so my packet has to go to Texas on it's route to a machine a mile and normally 3 hops away, with possible side trips 100 miles in the opposite direction before figuring out it's lost... umm, yeah - this whole "we will assimilate you" jazz didn't work out really well and we ended up with something like the below, and a situation where one yahoo with a backhoe can can black out a 5 state region for a week or an absent minded ships captain can forget to pull up their anchor and take out Internet service for a country for at least a month.

Oh Joy!

-t