Ask Slashdot: Could We Reconnect Eastern Libya?

GrumpyBagpuss writes "We all know that the internet is supposed to route around damage, but currently eastern Libya is off the net because all their connectivity goes through Tripoli. How difficult would it to be to reconnect eastern Libya via a microwave link to Crete? It's less than 200km away, on the Libyan end there are mountains up to 850m and on Crete they're higher than 2000m. People have achieved distances of over 300km with simple WiFi equipment, but would it be possible to increase the bandwidth to handle a whole, or at least half a country? How would you connect the link at both ends? What other problems would there be? How many Pringles cans would we need?"

Comments

Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[daninaustin]

It's turned into a civil war. It might be better shipping the rebels AK's, anti tank weapons, man portable SAMS and lots of ammunition. Sat phones would be nice for communications but I'm not sure twitter and facebook are really all that important anymore.

Re:Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[morcego]

Yes, Im sure more weapons is the way to solve it. Specially in the hands of people not trained to handle them.

I mean, what could go wrong ?

Re:Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[AffidavitDonda]

Starting with WWII every single war of the 20th/21th century was won with the help of computers and communication. Its not about propaganda, but to allow rebels to exchange important strategical information.

Re:Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[maverickapollo]

The "Civil" part.

Re:Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[BasilBrush]

Ghandi took India back from the British without any weapons.

America supplying weapons into the worlds trouble spots has rarely produced a good result. Take your Texas solutions and stick them up your ass.

Re:Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[Elldallan]

Yes because the British would rather loose India and maintain somewhat good relations with the new country than to massacre the rebellion and alienate a sizable part of India. despite this it took Gandhi and his likes some 30 to 40 and two world wars years to accomplish this.
Muammar Ghaddafi has already shown that he is very much willing to use whatever force necessary to keep himself in power.
The two situations are simply not comparable, it would be more along the lines of trying to convince someone like Joseph Stalin to step down trough peaceful non-violence demonstrations.

Re:Not sure this is the time to work on internet

[symbolset]

It wasn't a battle for democracy, it was a battle of liberation.

One man's liberation is another man's occupation.

Afghanis don't care that the invaders changed from The Soviet Menace to Pakistani Taliban to American Freedom Police any more than they did when it shifted from the Achaemenid Empire under Darius to Alexander The Great and then the Greeks for Eucratides. They've been "liberated" in turns by every empire that ever came near their corner of the planet. But they're still there. Resistance has become what they are. Foreign peoples have, for no discernable reason, been fighting over nominal ownership of that arid patch of sand for far longer than history records.

It may be that because of their history Afghanis don't believe in self-government for themselves as a desirable goal. They've evolved an efficient system of being invaded and milking resources out of the invaders that for them it's actually their economy. It's a system. It works. For Afghanis a peaceful time is when warring invaders are fighting each other so much they don't have time to actively oppress the locals and locals can make their industry gleaning the fields of the fallen. Stubborn folk. Got to admire their grit.

You would think after a few thousand years the rest of the world would get the hint and leave them alone. But no...

Satellite perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with microwave links, cables, mountains, etc. when you can drop a few hundred satellite modems with wifi. I guess they have satellite dishes already, all they need are a modem and an omnidirectional antenna in each neighborhood.

Re:Satellite perhaps?

[ogl_codemonkey]

Yeah, +1 Ask The Right Question... A fixed microwave station on the side of a mountain is an obvious and easy target for anybody looking to suppress the flow of information. Satellite phones, like cell phones, typically function as modems as either a configurable menu option; or via Plug-n-Pray USB. Couple of hundred dollars plus the plan, and you can stash it in a book, rock, or body cavity. Seems a lot easier and less risky (in an "if-we-see-you-subverting-us-we'll-shoot-you" way) than whatever it is the OP is implying.

Re:Is it worth it?

[Ceriel Nosforit]

There's usually a lot of noise and very little signal at interconnects. However, signal propagates to peers while noise does not. Without carrier, there is neither signal nor noise.

Re:It can be done

[Yaur]

its a sad day when people no longer know why "multiple hops" between Libya and Crete might be a problem.

Re:Please Don't compare Libya to Alabama

[gnapster]

Why are we talking about Eastern fucking Libya on Slashdot again?

your description of the people of Libya applies to Alabama too.

Except I cannot recall the last time I saw Alabama mentioned on Slashdot.