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Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

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Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get how XOR helps here? Isn't this stuff based on timing + length information?

Well, it does more than just XOR but the goal is to just scramble the traffic enough that it looks like a bunch of nonsense rather than a TLS handshake. The actual VPN provides the encryption, this layer adds a socket on top that garbles up the data.

Ah ok that makes more sense, thanks.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#212
post #7

wondering what / if any impact "the space internet" (or like networks) will have on national government's ability to disrupt comms. or if it just shifts the goalposts to a different network operator

Imagine a US company of strategic importance becoming the defacto internet provider for much of the developing world. There's no way Starlink is happening organically or in a policy vacuum. This is like a CIA/NSA wet dream. Also, people forget that low latency global internet is a requirement for next generation drone operations, particularly removing pilots from high performance aircraft. Again, this is strategic an…

I always thought the Pentagon has had a robust global satellite communications network for decades already.

(I don't know whether it is Internet-protocol based. My guess is yes.)

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#213

This is why I’m excited about Starlink.

Starlink would have to violate international laws, via the ITU, to serve other countries. If they violate it, and the US allows it, causing the ITU to collapse, there’s nothing to stop foreign companies from broadcasting/jamming signals over here.

There are some specific exemptions for government/military (eg GPS), but Starlink won’t help here.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#214
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a constellation as large as starlink, that would probably require a lot of missiles, even accounting for Kessler effects. Also, doings such a thing to an American corporation that's only one or two degrees of separation from the USDoD may prove to be a costly mistake. I think Belarus would need to depend on the strength of their relationship with Russia to avoid retaliation. That hasn't protected Syria though, so…

I doubt Belarus has the infrastructure to shoot them down, them asking Russia to and giving Russia the excuse that the US violated the Outer Space Treaty first might do the trick though. Depends on how much of a war monger Russia wants to be at the relevant point in time. They are spread out with many satellites over a small number of orbits, pretty ideal for Kessler, or pretty ideal for another satellite to pass by…

I dislike Putin, but I think he's too smart to start shooting down hundreds of American satellites (barring WWIII.) That's far brasher than anything else they've done in quite a while.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#215
post #104

I've noticed this in other countries where there are accusations of rigging the results that the ratios always super high, in this case 80%. If you're going to fake an election result that had some legitimate measurable opposition, why make it so extremely high? Does that mean nearly every vote counting place is rigged and it's so bad they don't even bother hiding it? Just like when Crimea voted to join Russia it was…

Just thinking out loud here —

1. I think it's a lot harder to rig something to look good vs. like a landslide.

2. Making it "close" could potentially open up risk if something the victorious/controlling party didn't account for it (eg. uncounted ballots are uncovered due to a legitimate accident)

3. Suspicions don't really matter when you can just jail your opponents for arbitrary crimes.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#216
post #204
post #104

I've noticed this in other countries where there are accusations of rigging the results that the ratios always super high, in this case 80%. If you're going to fake an election result that had some legitimate measurable opposition, why make it so extremely high? Does that mean nearly every vote counting place is rigged and it's so bad they don't even bother hiding it? Just like when Crimea voted to join Russia it was…

>Just like when Crimea voted to join Russia it was 97% [1]. In Crimea's case the majority of the population being ethnically russian, the neglect from Ukraine, anger over the maidan, russia promising pension payments and infrastructure investment and the opposition boycotting the vote probably all contributed to this result. As far as I know the main thrust of the argument against this vote from the EU and Ukraine wa…

Also, let's not forget, the Ukrainian government was just over thrown by a western-backed coup. Of course, you won't know that from the Wikipedia cliff notes, but that's what happened.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#217
post #164
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to a specific treaty? Radio Free Europe has been doing it for decades. Photons don't stop at national borders, and the footprint of a satellite is likely going to mean that Belarus will have transmissions from satellites, even if no one wants that to happen.

Article 18.1 or the ITU Radio Regulations (a binding treaty) states that > No transmitting station may be established or operated by a private person or by any enterprise without a licence issued in an appropriate form and in conformity with the provisions of these Regulations by or on behalf of the government of the country to which the station in question is subject (however, see Nos. 18.2, 18.8 and 18.11). SpaceX…

While the first iteration of Starlink requires a ground station somewhat close (hundreds of kilometers) to the user, once they deploy intersatellite links, the only ground station required will be close to the destination IP, far away from the censoring country.

While radio licenses will probably prevent them from operating in geographically large countries like Russia, information can seep in through regions several hundred kilometers away from the border.

Take a look at this map representing current coverage: https://satellitemap.space/

Belarus is covered by a single satellite.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#218

I have some close acquaintances in BY, so this has been hard. We saw that (at least as of 8 PM UTC) outbound connections to HTTP servers wasn't really a problem. A fresh ec2 box with a basic web server wasn't effected. So, early yesterday I set up an OpenVPN server on ec2 (eu-west-1) to try to get some slow but functional internet access. What we saw was that about 15-30 seconds after the TLS handshake the connection…

What are the odds this is some western commercially packaged product that lets them do all this? Like some Sandvine stuff or whatever.

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#219

I have some close acquaintances in BY, so this has been hard. We saw that (at least as of 8 PM UTC) outbound connections to HTTP servers wasn't really a problem. A fresh ec2 box with a basic web server wasn't effected. So, early yesterday I set up an OpenVPN server on ec2 (eu-west-1) to try to get some slow but functional internet access. What we saw was that about 15-30 seconds after the TLS handshake the connection…

What are the odds this is some western commercially packaged product that lets them do all this? Like some Sandvine stuff or whatever.

100%

Re: Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

#220
I wonder how satellite links and p2p devices could circumvent state-controlled ISPs. For instance I saw some interesting work on how to make HAM radio into packet radio. On the other hand, there was a dark time in Norway when you could be sentenced to death for owning the wrong type of radio.
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