31–40 of 189 posts
The post is mainly just a CTA against further internet centralization and government control of core infrastructure, which is fine. We need more of these, and we need more examples of their harms for folks to draw on. HN often gets distilled down to a singular cause - EU's Chat Control, Elon's shutdown of Starlink over Ukraine, a regional outage of a public cloud provider - but generalized topics like these aren't re…
One more reason to resist the fragile lifestyle that requires constant internet access. Even if you don't live in a totalitarian country where shutting down the net would be easy and probable. Some time ago someone posted in Twitter a letter of Theodore Kaczynski giving life advice, one point being not to use internet for more than one hour a day. Too bad I couldn't find it anymore.
why is this flagged? (maybe Theo? I don’t know this person). Its absolutely a good argument against fragile IoT devices that have no local/offline mode and the ever increasing lurch of internet requirements for our daily life. I’m not sure my phone does much of anything without an internet connection. Yet it is my primary banking and authentication method (via BankID). EDIT: Theodore Kaczynski is the unabomber… well,…
Yes, you're not at risk from being cut off from the world if you're not connected to it in the first place. That's not a state most of us want to exist in. Ted Kaczynski lived in a small cabin in the woods away from humanity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Starlink-style connectivity Note that one of the higher-profile deliberate internet shutdowns was Starlink itself shutting down internet connectivity in Ukraine.
Ultimately it just becomes a question of where you want the choke point to live — in a state actor, or in a private operator. Neither option is risk-free; the failure modes simply differ. A government can shut you off for political reasons, a corporation can shut you off for contractual or geopolitical ones. As long as the system assumes centralized stewardship for safety or reliability, someone will inevitably hold…
multiple satellite operators are coming on line. what are the odds all of them coordinate to shut down in one region invalidating using the other providers as fail over?
The post is mainly just a CTA against further internet centralization and government control of core infrastructure, which is fine. We need more of these, and we need more examples of their harms for folks to draw on. HN often gets distilled down to a singular cause - EU's Chat Control, Elon's shutdown of Starlink over Ukraine, a regional outage of a public cloud provider - but generalized topics like these aren't re…
"In February 2022, two days after Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine requested that the American aerospace company SpaceX activate their Starlink satellite internet service in the country, to replace internet and communication networks degraded or destroyed during the war.[2][3][4] Starlink has since been used by Ukrainian civilians, government and military.[3][5] The satellite service has been employed for humanitarian purposes as well as defense and counterattacks on Russian positions.[6]"
"In 2022, Elon Musk denied a Ukrainian request to extend Starlink's coverage up to Russian-occupied Crimea during a counterattack on a Crimean port, from which Russia had been launching attacks against Ukrainian civilians; doing so would have violated US sanctions on Russia.[18] This event was widely reported in 2023, erroneously characterizing it as Musk "turning off" Starlink coverage in Crimea.[19][20]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...
The post is mainly just a CTA against further internet centralization and government control of core infrastructure, which is fine. We need more of these, and we need more examples of their harms for folks to draw on. HN often gets distilled down to a singular cause - EU's Chat Control, Elon's shutdown of Starlink over Ukraine, a regional outage of a public cloud provider - but generalized topics like these aren't re…
Do unions work against corporate mergers? I’d imagine they do as they tend to work against corporate interests in general but I’m not that well versed in this sort of history.
If anything, this just highlights the need for Starlink-style connectivity and off-grid power. Of course, once jamming enters the picture, even that lifeline disappears.
If anything, this just highlights the need for Starlink-style connectivity and off-grid power. Of course, once jamming enters the picture, even that lifeline disappears.
> Starlink-style connectivity Note that one of the higher-profile deliberate internet shutdowns was Starlink itself shutting down internet connectivity in Ukraine.
Probably because it's not actually a truthful characterization of what happened! I know it's popular to find every possible reason to bag on Musk, but you don't need to resort to disinformation to do it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Starlink-style connectivity Note that one of the higher-profile deliberate internet shutdowns was Starlink itself shutting down internet connectivity in Ukraine.
Ultimately it just becomes a question of where you want the choke point to live — in a state actor, or in a private operator. Neither option is risk-free; the failure modes simply differ. A government can shut you off for political reasons, a corporation can shut you off for contractual or geopolitical ones. As long as the system assumes centralized stewardship for safety or reliability, someone will inevitably hold…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately it just becomes a question of where you want the choke point to live — in a state actor, or in a private operator. Neither option is risk-free; the failure modes simply differ. A government can shut you off for political reasons, a corporation can shut you off for contractual or geopolitical ones. As long as the system assumes centralized stewardship for safety or reliability, someone will inevitably hold…
> in a state actor, or in a private operator. multiple satellite operators are coming on line. what are the odds all of them coordinate to shut down in one region invalidating using the other providers as fail over?
Starlink is often treated as the reference point not because it is perfect or fully resilient, but because there is no second network at a similar scale that could realistically serve as a failover today.
If we imagine a hypothetical future where three mature operators exist, then yes — absent coordinated political or geopolitical action, at least one network might remain online.
However, even that surviving operator would not necessarily provide full coverage of the affected region. Global redundancy is extremely hard in practice, because maintaining continuous, worldwide LEO coverage is not free — it requires massive capex and opex, ground stations, regulatory permissions, and local political approval.
True worldwide failover remains more of a theoretical construct than an operational reality.
The post is mainly just a CTA against further internet centralization and government control of core infrastructure, which is fine. We need more of these, and we need more examples of their harms for folks to draw on. HN often gets distilled down to a singular cause - EU's Chat Control, Elon's shutdown of Starlink over Ukraine, a regional outage of a public cloud provider - but generalized topics like these aren't re…
[flagged]