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US Has Secret Tools To Force Internet On Dictatorships
4phun found a Wired story that talks about the military options when a dictatorship decides to cut off internet access to its population.
"The American military does have a second set of options if it ever wants to force connectivity on a country against its ruler’s wishes. There’s just one wrinkle. 'It could be considered an act of war.'"
Hopefully the same options will be available for us when our government gets around to implementing our own kill switch.
A network that grew out of a military project may still has backdoors the military can access/control.
Who'd have thought?
Anything to break the usual Comcast/whatever monopoly for ISP service would be welcomed.
...the access would be for the people to communicate and keep it real, that we're the white hats. But of course the access would only be granted to advance a military objective, such as continuing and fanning an uprising perceived beneficial to our interests.
Why stop there? Why not seed blogs, twitter and facebook and initiate a misinformation campaign?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
That would work, although it'd be rather expensive - http://www.thuraya.com/
444 kbit/s. I guess that's better than what most citizens have even when the internet is working.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
I am pretty suspicious of all the things that people claim as " inviolable human rights" now. Would the USA put its money where its mouth is and give money to foreign powers to give people internet access? Would they even pay for someone in part of the USA who can't afford access in a remote area?
If anything this dilutes the idea of real human rights - if every country in the world doesn't provide "human rights" to someone or other it becomes meaningless to criticise counties on this ground. Human rights should be confined to life, liberty, and essentials that we would all agree on.
People who want internet access write down the URL on a piece of paper, smuggle the piece of paper to a CIA operative, and the response is broadcast in the form of printouts of the requested web page dumped out of a Hercules C130.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Use drones to airdrop a small kit containing a satphones with free satellite access for a while and a solar charger. Make sure the satphone is by default enabled as an open wifi hotspot. Spread all over the country. Be sure to include free porn memberships in uptight countries. I mean, come on, this has got to be a lot more efficient for democracy than sending tanks (and cheaper to boot), and a lot safer than sending journalists.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
That coke can is using that old style which was common when I was a kid.
Knowing Internet could have been restored when it was needed and was not is rather sad. An act of war against a falling dictator is quite a bit less risky. The saddest part of this whole event is not fully supporting 82 million people at the brink of ending their dictatorship and achieving democracy, out of fear of the possibility they won't elect your friends. After 30 years of supporting their dictator, it wouldn't be surprising. I'd think that if the US authorities and media has thrown full support and started egging people on to get real democracy and freedom, there was a good chance they would elect a government for peace and stability, and in the process US-friendly . But fear and blowback is a bitch, isnt it.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I'm not sure my friends out in the "sticks" would enjoy drones circling overhead, but they would get excited about FTD (faster than dialup) internet. And this would give the military a way to practice their internet enabling battle plans.
Is this the same thing as Net Neutrality? [/sarcasm]
i remember when people said the way to defeat totalitarian/hard-line islamic countries was not to drop bombs, but to drop TVs and fridges filled with coke...
Now we are talking about dropping smartphones with free pron subscriptions, progress!
People, what a bunch of bastards
A severed fibre or disconnected plug has little in the way of backdoors.
the american president is not going to cut off the internet and start goose stepping around the white house. this ranks right up there with other paranoid schizophrenic fantasies like rednecks with guns in the woods are going to save us from fascism. please stop mentioning the american internet kill switch in the same sentence as egypt, china, or iran. its just... dumb
we live in an abused, yes, compromised, yes, but still functioning democracy. meaning rule is by consent, not force and fear. any president who cuts off the internet is going to have to explain his or herself to the people who elected him or her. and the american people are still electing presidents (now comes the part where some genius complains about liberal media and propagandized morons or conservative media and propagandized morons... snore... thank you for thinking so lowly of your fellow citizens. oh where is your nonexistent utopia where every citizen is perfectly ideologically in tune with you as only an "educated" person would be?)
in egypt or china or iran the kill switch can be invoked, and then: you got a problem with that? there's no accountability to the people of those countries. if the people get angry, crack skulls until they cower again in fear (until blessedly, as the people in egypt show us, the people just aren't afraid anymore, and it is revealed to the world exactly why democracy, as messy as it is, is still so superior to despotism: its simply more stable because it manufactures legitimacy by consulting the people)
but fear is not how it works in the usa. really, mr. snarky teenager. do you feel afraid criticizing the us government on slashdot? oh, why not? maybe because you have that right AND THAT RIGHT IS RESPECTED. aka: you do not live in a society ruled by fear. want to test that? ok: try criticizing the chinese government in china or the iranian government in iran as vocally and as vociferously and as loudly and as repeatedly as some of you false equivalency geniuses, who think your democracy is just as bad as despotism. go ahead, go on with your bad self. what happens to squeaky wheels like you in iran, china, or egypt?
now that you understand the difference, please understand that the reasons for the use of an internet kill switch are for entirely different criteria in democracies versus despotic countries. a valid use: some armageddeon level ddos or a warhol virus, versus an invalid use: preventing the people from coordinating and rising up against their oppressors
look: there are many problems with the american government. i repeat: there are many problems with the american government. i am not an american apologist. but making snark about the american internet kill switch in the same breath as the policies of egypt, or iran, or china, governments clearly far, far worse in terms of the rights of its citizens, that doesn't advance any cause you believe in. it just makes you look stupid and either ungrateful for how well you have it, or simply naive and uneducated about how little rights people have in other countries
teenage level snark might get snickers from other snarky teenagers, but its not the path to valid commentary on your government or any other government in the world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
tfa is bullshit
long story short:
You use a plane to become a flying wap.
Bandwidth will suck.
Broadcast radio would be better suited for this.
Theres no reason a sufficiently advanced country couldnt broadcast on the same frequencies themselves, thereby interfering with the signal you want to get in to the country.
They cant magically turn the wired isps back on without boots on the ground.
Wow this article is full of "Well we would , but we don't want to go into those military secrets."
> operatives could smuggle small satellite dishes into a country
Seriously?
Or in other words: the problem isn't internet connectivity, the problem isn't dictators, the problem is governments.
The US government is better than a dictatorship, but only by degree. The US is not democracy: your vote in elections doesnt matter, and more importantly you have no voice in Congress, the executive, or the military. The US government is owned by the people who pay for it.
The solution isnt to get the government/military to protect the internet, it is to get the internet to overcome the need for governments/militaries.
The people who are building a peer-structure internet are in fact creating the foundation for a completely new form of governance. Just you watch.
The Spice must Flow !
Aren't the Egyptians telling you guys to stay out!? Maybe it's better if you don't get involved for once.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
I ask that rhetorically, but has VOA become so neutered and politically correct that it could not at least broadcast current events to the Egyptian people? It wasn't that long ago that VOA was jammed regularly in the former Soviet Union.
Carpet-bombing the country with 'cheap' sat phones or wireless routers for use with a foreign-sponsored offshore Internet service sounds like fun, though. All we need to do is figure out how to set up the link so aircraft don't need to overfly the target nation, and set these up as mesh nodes to extend the network into the interior. And keep the airborne links far enough outside the target's borders to pretend they are in 'international' airspace. Battery power is not a good idea, but it may be the simplest thing. Imagine a national ban on batteries... USB-powered devices would be ideal, but that's a tall order technilogically...
These flying access points better be remotely piloted, though. Hosni in particular knows his way around air defense, and has good equipment.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Nowhere in the constitution is there are mention of access to the internet, but it has CLEARLY become critical to maintaining the freedom and security of a nation of people.
Dictator: Shut down your satellite access
US: Oh were really sorry those wascally hackers keep breaking our pass codes! Were trying really hard to lock them out (changes password to fred ) there that should do it.
One could construe their satellite hacking problems in Brazil to be laying ground work for this position.
This has been done since 1990!
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html
I can see this type of technology being used in a very pro-American area in which access has been eliminated or severely limited. Take Kurdistan, for example (an area in Northern Iraq); they can be extremely pro-Western and have even adopted some of our clothing and technology. I'm not sure about now, but a few years ago they were fairing much better than the rest of Iraq due to their more flexible nature and mentality.
One thing you'll find with the military infrastructure is that there won't be underpaid IT workers lackadaisically "getting around to it" when outages or problems arise. These guys are professionals with a mission to accomplish - downtime is extremely limited, even if the data rates and latency aren't the greatest. It's better to take slightly longer to get a complete, message than it is to get an incorrect or partial message through.
Of course, none of our technology would be used in a situation that didn't eventually benefit us as a nation. We might go too far in aiding others at times, but we're not complete idiots. Quid pro quo.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
There’s just one wrinkle. 'It could be considered an act of war,'"
Reminds me of the "Democratic Republic of North Korea". Everything is an act of war if you want it to be!!
iBomb
I think it would be nice/responsible if the U.N. had this technology and could deploy it whenever ANY country uses its kill switch. (Including freakin America.)
Unfortunately, I don't believe the current U.N. would act in a timely fashion for the tech to do them any good.
It might be a good idea to have an Internet kill switch for RoboEarth. Hmm, perhaps I shouldn't post this. Who knows who is reading this.
Trojan Boot Loaders in all routers ( and maybe switches ) overriding configured settings - this does not prevent disruption of communication if the Internet providers really have to pull the plug - literally the fibre patch cables.
by not supporting those dictatorships to begin with.
...at it's best! Yesterday's news next week. Today's future, a fortnight from now.
I realize that most of us here on slashdot will be lucky enough to never experience this happening even though slashdot makes it out like all the governments of the world are trying to switch it off tomorrow but theres something you need to think about before making such retarded statements.
By the time the government gets around to shutting down peering with the rest of the world ... using the Internet will be the last thing on your mind. The Internet isn't going to protect you from the riots outside your home or put food on your table, and I promise you those things will be what you'll be worrying about when the US 'flips the Internet kill switch'.
When countries devolve to that point people actually start to care about the actual necessities of life ... not how they are going to tweet about it or updating their facebook page.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
On the contrary, this is as good as it gets. Disappointed? I am too. Then again, I always had a feeling that trusting men with guns (and a special right to employ them as a business model) to create peace, justice, and prosperity was going to be much different in practice than in theory. (You do realize that at the bottom of everything government does is a gun, don't you?)
The cellphone provider would have to fly in a tight circle to serve a small area on the ground (otherwise you'd lose connection). This makes it impractical to serve a large area (you'd need too many aircraft).
Wifi is even more difficult, since the range of standard wifi is not enough.
brought to you by the united states of america! (note: offer not valid in guantanamo bay, some restrictions may apply, see abu graib for details. offer void if found on US Targeted Killing list)
Good people go to bed earlier.
the american president is not going to cut off the internet and start goose stepping around the white house. this ranks right up there with other paranoid schizophrenic fantasies like rednecks with guns in the woods are going to save us from fascism. please stop mentioning the american internet kill switch in the same sentence as egypt, china, or iran. its just... dumb
we live in an abused, yes, compromised, yes, but still functioning democracy. meaning rule is by consent, not force and fear...
Goddamnit, dude. Way to miss the point. Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, is saying the US is as bad as Egypt or China. What we do say when we compare the proposal for the kill switch in the US with what happened in Egypt is that we don't want to move in that direction. It's not that we fear tomorrow the President is going to go dictator on us...it's that we don't want to make it any easier for this to one day happen, even 200 or 400 years from now.
but fear is not how it works in the usa. really, mr. snarky teenager. do you feel afraid criticizing the us government on slashdot? oh, why not? maybe because you have that right AND THAT RIGHT IS RESPECTED.
Exactly. So now is the time to use those rights. You're not supposed to wait until we become a dictatorship to start criticizing your government when it moves in a direction of increased government power. By that point it's far too late, and it's very difficult to turn back. You have those rights now for a reason, and maintaining vigilance is the fucking reason. Stop saying, "we're not as bad as China." That's not something to be proud of. We know we're not as bad as China, but the bar isn't set that low. Once we can point to anything at all in our government that is remotely similar to what governments with less freedoms are doing it's time to stop and think about the direction we're moving in.
In light of the Liebermann bill, where are the Russian spies now that this country really NEEDS them?
(And I invite CirleTimesSquare to consider this. Might LBJ not have found it a matter of "national security" to interrupt to flow of information to prevent efficient communication during the "Chicago Riots" at the 1968 Democratic National Convention? If you think not, you probably weren't IN Grant Park that Wednesday the way I was! The "kill switch" is not just "on or off". It's deep packet inspection, site targeting, local cutoffs, and everything in between.)
but fear is not how it works in the usa. really, mr. snarky teenager. do you feel afraid criticizing the us government on slashdot? oh, why not? maybe because you have that right AND THAT RIGHT IS RESPECTED.
do you feel afraid criticizing the us government in an airport? police officer - in the streets? try it - and see how much "that right is respected" in modern reality.
You guys sure like to sound tough when it comes to little piss-ant dictatorships. But lets see you take on AT&T/Verizon/Comcast when it comes to net neutrality.
Have gnu, will travel.
If you look here:
http://www.irandefence.net/showthread.php?t=6727&page=22
You'll see that Egyptian soldier do not wear jack boots, and if you do a bit of research, you'll find the Egyptian military has not been the source of human rights violations in Egypt.
I know your left knee is jerking very hard, but try to do some basic research before spouting nonsense.
4 years before we intervened on Egypt's behalf, we murdered a popular Iranian leader and helped the Shah regain power. That worked out really well in 1979, didn't it?
Here's a novel thought: leave Egypt alone. Let the people sort it out. If the US throws up its hands and walks away, there's no way the US can be blamed for good or ill.
What you don't seem to get is that if we "support the people" and the Muslim Brotherhood successfully takes control in place of Mubarak, we'll be blamed for that and that's not the sort of thing which will help the spread of representative government in that region or help our interests.
You mean, our government could OVERRIDE Obama's internet kill switch? That would be sweet?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
"US Has Secret Tools..."
Um... not so secret if everyone knows about them! Also - why is "To" capitalized in the title?
All of this would be easier once we get 802.11s. If you had an 802.11s network, (an ad-hoc mesh network, also known as a dark-net or backhaul network), one router can act as a connection point, repeater, and as a multi-band router. One router connects to as many other routers as it can, like a chain link fence. If one router goes down, there are dozen points of redundancy. If you had an 802.11s network in a city, which had otherwise been cut off from the internet, everyone in the city could still communicate within the city. One drone, with a solar powered 802.11s router, and a satellite internet link, could once again provide global internet access to the whole city. One link for a whole city might be slow, but slow is better than dead (and a drone could drop one in at night on a rural stand of trees or near some remote rocks, in range, but out of town). You can trace signals on 802.11s networks. The army could send out tracking equipment, and smash 802.11s routers. But if they were cheap a smashed router could be replaced 2 days later.
Hopefully the same options will be available for us when our government gets around to implementing our own kill switch.
Because every ridiculous bill proposed is passed into law, right? OP 4phun you must be new here, but here we reserve the kneejerks and sarcam and government bashing for the sake of government bashing for the commentators. The summaries are supposed to at least have the appearance of objectivity and should have no political agenda. Also, the redundency of this "news" is annoying, but understood as par for the slashdot course. FYI Congress us never going to "get around" to that one. The rest of the world would be pissed because an US Internet killswitch is in reality a rest-of-the-world internet killswitch... you could pound that switch over and over and never notice it was working... because internally to the US, it would pretty much be business as usual, while the rest of the planet went dark.
The Admin and the Engineer
Imagine a little box with a mesh router in it, lithium power supply and solar panels. Then you fly over Cuba scattering thousands of them.
Satellite internet companies could just secretly agree with the US to "go international" and offer a "30 day risk free trial" of their service whenever someone wanted to sign up. What rioting and such lasts longer than 30 days? The only problem is getting the dishes into the country with international shipping. But at least that would make it look like the military wasn't just dropping wireless access points out of a helicopter or something. It'd just be capitalism :-D
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
If a fascist regime had the technology available to the countries in the west it would not need to kill the internet or put everyone in the Gulag.
With modern joined up database technology, CCTV, payment by card, communication by network etc. the modern fascist government doesn't have to lock you away or get out the lead cudgel. It has got you right where it wants you, going about your daily business. You can protest, write articles, hold placards, and generally moan about the government, but if you ever show a real sign of challenging the status quo you can be shut off, followed, tracked, and controlled.
You don't have any say in how the government runs the country. Your representatives run the country to suit themselves, their kith and kin. If they do something that appeals to you it is because your interests and their overlap, not because they represent your interests.
Fascism today is a more subtle, nuanced thing than the goose stepping hoards you imagine.
This is more about providing cellular access than internet access. And the Russian government also have this capability and have actually used it in war as recently as August, 2008. When Russian troops invaded Gori (Georgian town, birthplace of Stalin, etc.), Georgian cellular networks went silent, while Russian coverage was extended (by all sorts of means) to Gori. The residents got nice little text messages beginning with (the equivalent of) "Welcome to the Russian Federation...", just as if they have traveled to Russia in peacetime with their cellphone on. From that point on, people DESPERATE to talk to their loved ones paid nice fat roaming charges, which the Russian operator dutifully shared with their Georgian home networks (pursuant to roaming agreements in place). Thus, it is just a XXIst century way of collecting tribute from a conquered population.
Sure, it requires the cooperation of the conquered cellular operators, but there are more and better reasons for them to cooperate than not to:
- If they do nothing, just let their automated systems do what they would do, they cooperate.
- If they cooperate, they get a nice fat share of the tribute.
- If they do not cooperate, they piss off their customers.
- If they do not cooperate, but a competitor does, they piss off their customers even more.
- If they do not cooperate, they will have difficulties renewing their roaming contracts, when hostilities are over.
After the war, some people (from Gori) refused to pay their phone bills (or demanded their money back after their pre-paid accounts have been flattened), suing their cellular provider for trading with the enemy. Unfortunately, I don't know how those lawsuits ended.
And about as well scripted as a mid-90s magazine article on cyberpunk.
Have you not learned yet? "Human Rights" is just another weapon to use against your enemies if and when it suits you. "Freedom of speech" is only granted if you say whatever he who has the power to grant or withhold the freedom, wants to hear.
The rights and freedoms you have are the ones you can enforce for yourself. All others are at the whim of somebody else.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Why not? If a repressed nation needs twitter (or any other text-based communication), 9600bps - 60Kbps can handle that! And I'm pretty sure that, in times of dictator repression and government insolvency, Android's got an app for that.
Besides, anyone who's ever used an HTC Dream/G1 phone with an extended battery pack can easily grow accustomed to the satphone form-factor.
US Military to the rescue from the US military leaders that ordered the rescue!