Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Belarus has shut down the internet amid a controversial election

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 295 posts

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

#221

Post by skissane »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #35
gpm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* International treaties and national laws prohibit sending radio signals into the country if the countries government doesn't give you permission. Space ISPs are very unlikely to do so without permission except at the behest of their home government.

Yeah, I continue to be baffled by this argument that starlink et all are going to somehow crack open totalitarian states. There's not a chance in the world of any of these companies risking their licensing and relationship with the ITU. No one is going to be smuggling in ground terminals, let alone macgyvering their own, because the network isn't gonna talk back.

> There's not a chance in the world of any of these companies risking their licensing and relationship with the ITU

SpaceX doesn't have to worry about the ITU. All they have to worry about is (1) keeping the US government happy (2) avoiding conflict with powerful foreign countries like Russia, China, etc

So long as they obey US laws and keep the US government happy, and avoid making unnecessary enemies of powerful foreign countries, SpaceX can completely ignore the ITU

(Belarus is a complex situation because it is right next to Russia. If SpaceX was helping the US install a pro-US regime in Belarus, that is going to offend Russia, and it would be dangerous for SpaceX to offend Russia. But if we were talking about some other country which was not immediately bordering a major world power, that consideration would not apply.)

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

#222

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

frank2 wrote: post #212
ryanmarsh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Just look what happened when Iridium failed and became propped up by government users who wanted its capabilities.

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

#223

Post by 0xy »

dmix wrote: 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…

Independent polls including from Pew Research support the 97% figure. I believe Pew polled at north of 90%.

High polling numbers are not automatically suspicious.

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

#224

Post by anonymfus »

mimi89999 wrote: post #195
yabones wrote: post #190

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…

Maybe protesters should set up some mesh to keep the information flow and coordination if the internet will be cut completely.

Currently there is no need for this as Telegram messages still work and Telegram channel network NEXTA (https://t.me/nexta_tv, from Belarusian word Нехта (someone), pronounced [ˈnʲexta](nyekhta), see https://be.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сцяпан_Аляксандравіч_Пуціла ) became the main tool for spreading news and coordination.

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

#225

Post by stjohnswarts »

Waterluvian wrote: post #218
yabones wrote: post #190

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.

The Chinese are also rather good at shutting down the internet as well. why not blame all possible parties?

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

#227

Post by justinclift »

yabones wrote: post #190

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…

If udp connections are working, it may be feasible to proxy something over that.

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

#228

Post by notatoad »

enkid wrote: post #14
obogobo wrote: 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

I don't see Starlink shutting down subscribers if the Belarussian government asks them to, at least not very quickly. If the terminals are available, this is going to make all of the national internet projects (Russia, China, Iran) much more difficult to pull off.

Starlink requires a proprietary receiver, right? I suspect these authoritarian regimes won't be allowing starlink installations on the ground unless they get to have a kill switch.

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

#229

Post by Scoundreller »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #225
Waterluvian wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Chinese are also rather good at shutting down the internet as well. why not blame all possible parties?

Does China sell/license/supply their GFW tech to anyone? Sandvine seems to sell to anyone that tear gas fabricators will sell to (Oh, you'll use this against your own citizens and that's legal because you wrote the law? Great, just check this box!).

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

#230

Post by qserasera »

US foreign policy on telecoms, freedom of speech, ect is full on clown car right now.

Special interests are so cram packed we cant even see the windshield of the car we're driving.

Im starting to agree that US should or potentially could have a larger share on the legwork for telecoms, fiber, and community servicing. I'm not sure how long starlink ect will be competitive with the bandwith, total information speeds in the future.

Post reply on HN