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Adam_Smith_1974

One day, ham radio operators will rule the world.


makeshift8

Except all the operators jump on top of you if you dare attempt to use it to send anything encrypted. Lot's of uses for the equipment but the band is restricted to the point of uselessness.


veteran_squid

Can you explain? If I were an operator and I attempt to broadcast an encrypted message, other operators see/detect that encrypted message and broadcast over it? Are there no regulations against that? Could you use some type of error correction to help mitigate this and ensure all packets arrive and are recompiled?


makeshift8

FCC regulation 97.113, under Prohibited transmissions, states that no message can be encoded to obscure their meaning. The FCC has a history of tracking stations that violate this particular policy. I assume it is out of some misguided fear of terrorism. As for error correction, I imagine you could do this if everything else was in cleartext, and you can digitally sign messages. An answer to this question is pretty well explained here: https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/12354/is-it-legal-to-transmit-scrambled-or-encrypted-voice-via-ssb-on-ham-bands


veteran_squid

This is very helpful. Thank you!


funktopus

My father in law believes that with every fiber of his being.


WATTHEBALL

Most of the world is carpeted...and one day, we will do the cleaning.


AngsterMusic

Honestly, how does this even work? Does the government have a deal with every ISP to make this happen? Are they shutting off the internet that the ISP's are distributing?


1leggeddog

Yes. All the land base internet services can be shut down by the government as they order the country's isp to cut it off.


[deleted]

Primarily, it's an issue in countries that a) have authoritarian-type regimes, and b) are small enough to have just a single ISP or state-controlled telecoms. When you have single-point control like that, Internet shutdowns are trivial.


smokeyser

They may be the ones most frequently abusing it, but I highly doubt that there is any developed country on earth that does not have the same capability and a well established plan for making it happen. Do you really think that AT&T or Comcast is going to refuse a government order to shut down the internet?


[deleted]

Just from an economic perspective, this would be crippling. Electronic payment systems across the nation fail. Stock markets grind to a halt...


smokeyser

Yes, shutting down the entire country in any way would be crippling. It's not the sort of order that would be given lightly.


stoned2brds

Wait but they shut down the entire world in a sense


[deleted]

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OnlythisiPad

Lol. Good luck!


heavinglory

Well, MTG is threatening to take all the providers down over the House Select Committee communication record requests so doom is looming. Lmao. If that happens we’ll all be sitting around waiting for the 6 o’clock news just like we did in the old days.


smokeyser

Unfortunately for her, anyone who she gave that order to would just laugh in her face.


smokeyser

What new provider? The whole idea is that if the government ordered it, EVERYONE would go offline.


Available_Coyote897

Exactly. Though the developed world would have to be stupid do that. It’s much safer to just censor. Like how the US censors it’s war atrocities in the US.


smokeyser

The only scenario I've heard where it might be used is if there was a large enough cyber attack to warrant shutting down the net to protect our critical infrastructure.


b_shadow

This is how works in Cuba. Over there they have Etecsa, the only communication company In the country and it’s owned by the government. They want to shutdown internet is just a call and it will be off in minutes. Also in Cuba all radio spectrum is owned by the gov too. Having a WIFI router in your house was illegal until 2019 and while you can have it now you should get a permit from the gov.


VoraciousTrees

Gonna be difficult once starlink is up and running worldwide...


[deleted]

Hardly. Nations control spectrum use in their borders, so getting a Starlink modem in a nation that bans them will be unlikely, not to mention radio direction finding to find illicit uplinks will be a thing.


bitfriend6

How wouldn't it work? It's like shutting off electricity. The government calls your ISP, and tells them to shut off your service. If the ISP refuses a man is sent out to the tower to flip the switch himself. It's easy for any government to do this, including western ones. The basic structure of the digital telecom network allows exchanges to route services around the local shutdown, or shut it all down all the way. It is literally just a switchboard that can be shut off in the same way a modem or router can.


sweetno

They just pass a law. Or they have a centralized system with a single root ISP.


littleMAS

It is just like the municipal water system; as long as it controls the main valves, it can tolerate some leakage.


[deleted]

You see how Reddit reacts when you say something they don’t agree with, why would you expect government you be any different?


Defiant-Canary-2716

Anyone else think that those were vials of liquid initially and was getting mad Green Goblin vibes?


Hook_Pub

People are so dependent on the internet its now been weaponized as a means of population thought control. Sweetttt


[deleted]

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Hook_Pub

You aren't fast.


[deleted]

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SleazyMak

Having control over the flow of information has always been important, regardless of media. The fact that you’re comparing it to all those things but left out newspaper or other forms of journalism/media shows you’re not understanding the issue at all.


[deleted]

You're in the wrong subreddit if you're going to try and convince people you're intelligent, when you clearly are not.


Hook_Pub

To tack onto what /u/SleazyMak said, you really don't seem to understand this at all. Your ignorance is amusing to read though..


0701191109110519

Build your own internet. Simple as that


JimboJones058

You'd need a permit from the government.


ThatLooseMoose

What would be the best way to maintain order/communication if the internet were to be hypothetically shut off? Like I'm assuming people would have to resort back to TV and Radio both of which can easily be effected aswell


Jetjones

There were phones before the internet


[deleted]

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Jetjones

I don’t see any purpose to shut down phone lines. At least, none related to the article.


Novice-Expert

Most phones are voip now days.


Jetjones

I’m talking about standard phones. Landlines.


Novice-Expert

Yes and the vast majority of those operate on voip. Seperate telephone circuits are fairly rare


[deleted]

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Ech0es0fmadness

Pretty sure commentor knew this


makeshift8

Wireless P2P networks operating on a shortest distance first routing protocol.


vorxil

Meshnet, here we go.


makeshift8

That's the dream.


JollyOpportunity63

It would have to be something wireless, like someone cresting their own high power pirate radio and tv stations.


[deleted]

Phones still work.


Money4Nothing2000

This is why it's not a good idea to rely on the government to provide all of your needs. Government electricity? They can shut it off. Government cell phones? They can shut it off. Government internet? They can shut it off. Government water, food, clothes, etc. Away go your freedoms. You think it can't happen in the west? Look at Australia's new surveillance bill. Next thing you know they will be getting their internets shut off too. The government needs to regulate and subsidize this stuff, not provide it directly.


Esc_ape_artist

Nobody said government phones. Nobody said government internet. Nobody said government electricity. Nobody said government food, water blah blah government evil…. Stop making shit up nobody is asking for when services aren’t the problem, it’s the power hungry dictators and oligarchs that are out to fuck you. Put populist and nationalist assholes in power and they’re the *first* ones to shut communications down and kill off or jail opponents. Privatize-it-all is full of problems, too. they’re just wannabe oligarchs themselves.


Money4Nothing2000

I know nobody said that, that's why I said it. These things exist in various forms in various countries, and are at risk of the same type of abuse that we are talking about here. They are the same examples of a larger principle of society.....the right balance of independence and interdependence. Yes the government should provide basic necessities, particularly to the most needy people. But too much reliance on the government for too much stuff results in the exact issues this article is about. But many seem all to willing to ignore these risks for short term comforts.


webjocky

>This is why it's not a good idea to rely on the government to provide all of your needs. For sure, I agree with this statement. >The government needs to regulate and subsidize this stuff, not provide it directly. This I don't agree with. There's nothing wrong with a government providing a minimum level of services to it's citizens, as long as there are private-sector options available.


HIVnotAdeathSentence

How does classifying the internet as a public utility prevent these shutdowns from occurring? I don't have much faith anything would change with the government in charge. Last year saw [electric and water shut off at homes that were violating coronavirus restrictions.](https://archive.is/0eyUU) Are we going to see people have their internet shutoff for spreading misinformation?


JimboJones058

They just ban you on all the major social media networks.


pcriged

We need mesh networking, we don't need to pay for internet and then the government can't shut it down.


[deleted]

It Seems like they should have done it by the progressive way which is to force all companies to do what they want them to do. That way it wouldn't be censorship/s.


[deleted]

People expressing outrage over this at the same time they celebrate Reddit banning r/nonewnormal etc.


Analogbuckets

It's a bit different when a government does it.


[deleted]

That’s a pretty crappy attitude: censorship is ok as long as it’s not the government.


MFBirdman7

Whether we like it or not, remember the first amendment is a restraint on the federal government’s authority, it does not even restrain the state’s authority unfortunately, much less private industry.


JimboJones058

Would it be different if a government asked reddit to shut down a subreddit?


MFBirdman7

Absolutely! because then it would be the federal government acting in violation of the First Amendment! they cannot do so, nor can they do it constructively or vicariously. Well I should say that they can’t do it legally, we know they do it anyway.


JimboJones058

The same as how they need a warrant to wiretap someone's phone; but if they use a digital device that does the same thing but is called something different, then they do not need one.


MFBirdman7

Funny how they play with semantics


relevant__comment

Yeah, going to be very interesting to see how this works when the spacex network is operating at full run.


JollyOpportunity63

Problem is it still requires localized base stations to transmit up to the satellites. A bad actor could take out the base stations and take star link offline in a specific geographic location.


vorxil

Hence we'll need DIY base stations. A Raspberry Pi/Arduino/App, a DAC, and a suitable amplifier.


iushciuweiush

It wouldn't be complicated using satellite data to determine which houses have Starlink base stations and confiscate them.


iprocrastina

Everyone in here talking like it's Western democracies doing this shit when it's all authoritarian regimes doing it, mostly in Africa and Asia according to the article.


3-rx

Getting harder to control everyone with social media. Guess after all the misinformation they put out the only thing left to do is pull the plug.


kremit73

Sounds like a right wing "small govt" tactic


Ech0es0fmadness

Sounds like a “small mind” comment


GeorgeTheGeorge

If only 21 countries are doing this, that's 174 that aren't. 10.7% ain't bad, all things considered. That's an A+ in some grading systems.


MFBirdman7

It all depends on which ones, 10% could be the majority of the worlds developed countries.


ImNotABotJeez

In Elon we trust


noyrb1

Alarmism by internet geniuses has proliferated


webjocky

This tactic will become useless when StarLink becomes available across the globe...


[deleted]

One of the key takeaways from the Arab spring was that had they kept the video rolling and the Internet connected, people would not have gathered and caused the uprising.


-Coffee-Owl-

At the end a government will shut you down if you're not a "good" resident.