Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#141

Post by drummer » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

geewee wrote: post #137

jmnicolas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First : except a YouTube account that I use to manage my videos playlists I don't use social medias at all. I still see what's going there and I find it appalling. Second : you don't know me. So don't assume who I am and why I lament the loss of freedom on the web. Lastly there are plenty of reasonable topics that are censored : you can't even emit any doubt about the COVID "religion" for crying out loud.

The Covid.. religion..?

See comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23762363

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#142

Post by baybal2 » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

gnarea wrote: post #94

varjag wrote: post #73

There is no plausible solution for multitude of reasons listed in other comments. What I suggest, perhaps as last ditch effort, is look in the opposite direction: attacking the remaining Beltelecom and mobile layer2/3 connectivity in the country. The only reason the limited networking is still up and running is not some residual generosity of the regime. It is because traditional PSTN and long range special comms ser…

> There is no plausible solution for multitude of reasons listed in other comments. > What I suggest, perhaps as last ditch effort, is look in the opposite direction: attacking the remaining Beltelecom and mobile layer2/3 connectivity in the country. Is that really plausible though? I'm sure it's technically doable, but I'm not sure it's realistic or even a good idea if you could pull it off. Who has the ability _and…

> Is that really plausible though? I'm sure it's technically doable, but I'm not sure it's realistic or even a good idea if you could pull it off.

I'd say a blackout may well pull more people to the street, and open more opportunities for spontaneous openings. The same was in USSR in 1991.

People are actually being attracted by the sound of gunfire, fire, and smoke, if all other decision making inputs are cut off.

Sounds of intense gunfire in a city often result in people being inadvertently "herded" into big crowds, and formation of street-to-street fronts, which result in assailants being surrounded.

Then, when people see enemies surrounded, and trembling in fear, human primal instincts kick in, and crazy things happen. Moscow 1991, Bishkek 2010, Kyiv 2014, Istanbul 2016 all demonstrated that effect.

How powerful can it be? There were historical precedents when such spontaneous crowds went on offensive again fully armed military forces, and won, with Istanbul, and Bishkek events being the most vivid.

In Bishkek, a column of smoke rising from a key government building, along with a comms blackout, was enough to instantaneously gather a crowd of 5000-6000 bystanders, and onlookers who in just 3-4 hours turned into am unstoppable human wave.

It were these complete randoms who then marched against an elite SF battalion, 10+ snipers, fire from 12.7mm, took 5 RPG shots (!!!), and, in the end, still managed to steamroll that battalion to the last man. Even the relatively tame footage that managed to escape Youtube censorship if still horrifying.

I cannot find the original Euronews footage on the net now, but here is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zUSe2peRE&t=30s (quite intense, be prepared.) Take a look at the footage starting at 0:30, and give attention to what happens after 1:05.

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#143

Post by jmnicolas » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #138

jmnicolas wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not free to post certain things on social media. We are not free to move wherever we want to go. We are not free to protest without being harmed. Those 3 things are proofs that there is no free world.

Well, there's freedom and there's liberty. We often use the former to include the latter, but they're completely different. We only have the freedom to do the right thing. We are not free to do evil things. We may have the liberty to do them, of course. Now in a liberal society like the US, we are at liberty to do many things we ought not which is partly motivated by either skepticism on the one hand and a wish to ma…

It's a long time since I've met someone lucid about what's going on, thank you !

> We might have to begin to have to resort to samizdats.

Do you think we already have lost ?

Frankly I don't want to live in this Communist 2.0 world, I know I won't be able to shut my mouth and go with the flow : I already lost all hope of career evolution at work because of my sharp tongue and that was for things much less polarizing than politics.

I guess I'll probably be in the firsts to try the new gulags.

Or should I expatriate while it's time ? But where to go ? It seems I can either choose between a "traditional" 3rd world dictatorship or the new Communism 2.0

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#144

Post by urza » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

gnarea wrote: post #65

urza wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the whole page and didn't find any information how it is supposed to actually work. The page compares Relaynet with Starlink and Ballons, but then it doesn't say how Relaynet work.

Hey Urza. There's a page and a corresponding video for each type of stakeholder: end users, service providers and couriers (who step in to restore connectivity with a secure sneakernet). Those are quite high-level on purpose. If you're interested in the cryptographic and networking details, the specs is probably what you want. At least the introduction to the core spec: https://specs.relaynet.network/RS-000

Hi, unfortunately I am not much wiser from the specs. It describes higher level network/app protocols, no mention on the underlying mechanism of communication. Can you give me example of the hardware on which it is supposed to run and how it would work in Belarus?

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#145

Post by punnerud » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

In Hongkong everyone with an iPhone enabled airdrop and shared “posters” with information: https://qz.com/1660460/hong-kong-protesters-use-airdrop-to-b...

Everyone should have an app like Canva, to easily add+edit text on images. This way people can communicate without any new technology.

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#146

Post by averros » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

geewee wrote: post #137

jmnicolas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First : except a YouTube account that I use to manage my videos playlists I don't use social medias at all. I still see what's going there and I find it appalling. Second : you don't know me. So don't assume who I am and why I lament the loss of freedom on the web. Lastly there are plenty of reasonable topics that are censored : you can't even emit any doubt about the COVID "religion" for crying out loud.

The Covid.. religion..?

You can't call the COVID masquerade "science", for a simple reason: it isn't. The science on the subject of masks is actually pretty much settled: they have exactly zero effect on transmission of airborne viral diseases. Dozens of studies, some are largish RCTs. No effect.

Must be a religion, then. Cult of State Almighty or something.

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#147

Post by averros » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

Here's how it gets done under a totalitarian regime.

Full disclosure: I was a co-founder of Demos.

http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/articles/relcom.htm

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#148

Post by komali2 » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #138

jmnicolas wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not free to post certain things on social media. We are not free to move wherever we want to go. We are not free to protest without being harmed. Those 3 things are proofs that there is no free world.

Well, there's freedom and there's liberty. We often use the former to include the latter, but they're completely different. We only have the freedom to do the right thing. We are not free to do evil things. We may have the liberty to do them, of course. Now in a liberal society like the US, we are at liberty to do many things we ought not which is partly motivated by either skepticism on the one hand and a wish to ma…

I think it's very interesting that you delineate a line between freedom (you can say nazi stuff in the usa without going to jail) from liberty (that doesn't mean you won't get kicked out of walmart for saying nazi stuff inside the store), but then you turn around and say

> As a result, laws that constrain liberties along traditional lines have been eliminated over the course of the last century, replaced with new ones reflecting leftist norms.

I have no idea what "traditional lines" could mean here. Cause I could take it, for example, the traditional values of women and black people being less-than and thus their liberty to vote being illegal, has been "eliminated." Is that what you mean? What "traditional constraints" are being eliminated, and why do I get the sense from your post that this is bad? Furthermore, what new laws are being passed that "constrain liberties" along "leftist norms?" For focus, maybe we can stay on-topic in the USA, where I can only think of the removal of restrictive laws across the board: gay people can get married, more states have laws explicitly allowing open-carry, for a brief period women's bodily autonomy was being restored (though this is being restricted again) (I'm talking about abortion here), etc.

> As people are booted off YouTube and Twitter by an increasingly severe leftist standard, a new market opens up for alternative services.

Do you mean services like Voat? I mean... I guess if that's the ideological standard you want to align yourself with, go for it lol.

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#149

Post by komali2 » Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

jmnicolas wrote: post #143

bobthechef wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's freedom and there's liberty. We often use the former to include the latter, but they're completely different. We only have the freedom to do the right thing. We are not free to do evil things. We may have the liberty to do them, of course. Now in a liberal society like the US, we are at liberty to do many things we ought not which is partly motivated by either skepticism on the one hand and a wish to ma…

It's a long time since I've met someone lucid about what's going on, thank you ! > We might have to begin to have to resort to samizdats. Do you think we already have lost ? Frankly I don't want to live in this Communist 2.0 world, I know I won't be able to shut my mouth and go with the flow : I already lost all hope of career evolution at work because of my sharp tongue and that was for things much less polarizing t…

Interesting - let's take a look:

Absence of social class structure. Absence of currency. Public ownership of the means of production. Absence of state.

Which of those values are compatible with what you appear to fear? We know that the traditional conservative Monsters such as China and the Soviet Union weren't Communist - they had social classes, currency, and a state, after all, so that's obvious. Are you operating on the Bad Faith interpretation? In that case, let's be lucid: You fear Authoritarianism and Fascism, not Communism. It doesn't make sense to use the wrong words to describe things.

> I already lost all hope of career evolution at work because of my sharp tongue

This brings us back to liberty. Right now the USA is capitalist. Therefore companies have rights and liberties, just like people. If you have a relationship with a person, and they call you a subhuman, do you believe it's ethical to use law to enforce that the insulted person must remain in that relationship? No? Then clearly there's no issue with companies firing people for, say, dropping n-word bombs and the like. There's some differences, in that we at least don't legally allow companies to be racist or sexist in their policy anymore.

To be frank, whenever I get in conversations with people that bemoan their loss of freedom of speech, talk about having a "sharp tongue" and losing hopes about career progression because of it, I find myself talking to a person that wants to be allowed to demean and bully at work. I find myself talking to a Linus Torvalds type at best, and at worst a sexist, racist, or homophobe (or all 3 combined! :D). So it's very, very hard to engage in good faith, because I can't imagine what you could be saying at a US company that's preventing your career progression, that isn't despicable and causing you to get exactly what you deserve.

Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?

#150

Post by kova12 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

gnarea wrote: post #94

varjag wrote: post #73

There is no plausible solution for multitude of reasons listed in other comments. What I suggest, perhaps as last ditch effort, is look in the opposite direction: attacking the remaining Beltelecom and mobile layer2/3 connectivity in the country. The only reason the limited networking is still up and running is not some residual generosity of the regime. It is because traditional PSTN and long range special comms ser…

> There is no plausible solution for multitude of reasons listed in other comments. > What I suggest, perhaps as last ditch effort, is look in the opposite direction: attacking the remaining Beltelecom and mobile layer2/3 connectivity in the country. Is that really plausible though? I'm sure it's technically doable, but I'm not sure it's realistic or even a good idea if you could pull it off. Who has the ability _and…

It might be much more plausible than you think. A single rogue engineer can put it down so well that it would take days to detangle in even normal circumstances.