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The Internet during world war

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Re: The Internet during world war

#21

Post by 4gotunameagain »

retrac wrote: post #16
kristopolous wrote: post #4

The policy suggestions are fine but the reasons are kind of silly. I've never been in a conflict zone but I'd assume securing food and water is #1. Reliable electricity access might be a distant nice to have and cell phone or wifi signal? I'm guessing that's a no. Decentralize, increase redundancy, eliminate single points of failure, sure all good. But if we're really talking about internet like communication during…

It is not feasible to either fight a war or do basic things like ship food without communications. During World War II, to coordinate the UK and United States war efforts, at the peak several thousands of teletype channels, were in continuous operation across the Atlantic (something like ~10 kilobytes of text per second) and priority mail shipments by plane (often shrunk to microfiche to reduce weight) were measured…

> The SIGSALY terminal was massive, consisting of 40 racks of equipment. It weighed over 50 tons, and used about 30 kW of power, necessitating an air-conditioned room to hold it. Too big and cumbersome for general use, it was only used for the highest level of voice communications.

And now I can whip something similar in one afternoon, and run it on my phone. Nuts.

Re: The Internet during world war

#22

Post by jldugger »

taneliv wrote: post #17
kristopolous wrote: post #4

The policy suggestions are fine but the reasons are kind of silly. I've never been in a conflict zone but I'd assume securing food and water is #1. Reliable electricity access might be a distant nice to have and cell phone or wifi signal? I'm guessing that's a no. Decentralize, increase redundancy, eliminate single points of failure, sure all good. But if we're really talking about internet like communication during…

It's an interesting thought experiment! What would happen if electricity ceased suddenly. If there was no electricity where I am at, the apartment would soon start to cool down. It is right now something like -6°C outside. I think it would take some days to cool down to that level. Electricity keeps my food refrigerated and frozen, both at home and in the shop. Well, I should put the frozen food out on the balcony (a…

> If there was no electricity where I am at, the apartment would soon start to cool down. It is right now something like -6°C outside. I think it would take some days to cool down to that level.

I mean, I lived this during finals week in college. During the day solar heating helps some. At night, with good insulation in the home it'll take some time to match outdoor temps, and a winter rated sleeping bag helps at night. One of my idiot roommates was using a sleeping bag as a comforter and complained at how cold it was on night 1. After I pointed out what the zipper was for, he reported it was toasty warm on night 2. You can do the same thing without a zipper, its just slightly less effective.

Also helps: the water heater runs on gas. So you can take a warm shower. In the dark, since most bathrooms have no windows, just exhaust fans. But the furnace, while it needs gas to heat, required electricity to move air. I'm not sure why, but water mains don't usually freeze despite the usually cold winters (though indoor plumbing requires certain precautions in the cold).

Cellphone towers usually have some batteries and backup plans in these situations, which was less useful back then before data plans existed, but meant you could still reach friends in case their power was on.

Finally: emergency generators are a thing. So as long as it isn't so cold that diesel freezes, emergency services will be available to the community in a school or something. In cold climates there are enough of these that in the lead up to the ice storm that caused the mess there were PSA campaigns to get them tested and vetted ahead of time -- if you just energize the lines without installing a cutoff switch, it can kill line workers trying to repair.

Re: The Internet during world war

#23

Post by kristopolous »

aidenn0 wrote: post #18
retrac wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not feasible to either fight a war or do basic things like ship food without communications. During World War II, to coordinate the UK and United States war efforts, at the peak several thousands of teletype channels, were in continuous operation across the Atlantic (something like ~10 kilobytes of text per second) and priority mail shipments by plane (often shrunk to microfiche to reduce weight) were measured…

I don't think GP was downplaying the importance of communication for waging a war, I think they were saying civilian internet access would not be feasible during a war.

It was more about whether these legitimate concerns deserve to be columned under war planning.

I know military science is its own field with many long running scholarly journals, precisely 0 of which I've read. I fully acknowledge I speak from a point of ignorance, I'm just surprised and would like to know more

Re: The Internet during world war

#24

Post by nine_k »

numpad0 wrote: post #13
kristopolous wrote: post #4

The policy suggestions are fine but the reasons are kind of silly. I've never been in a conflict zone but I'd assume securing food and water is #1. Reliable electricity access might be a distant nice to have and cell phone or wifi signal? I'm guessing that's a no. Decentralize, increase redundancy, eliminate single points of failure, sure all good. But if we're really talking about internet like communication during…

What the war in Ukraine and protests in China have showed the world is, democracy in desperate times survive on Wi-Fi, AirDrop’d screenshots, and dozens of single port phone chargers hanging off power strips. They don’t even bother to use multi-port chargers, let alone DC to DC converters, or cars rigged for power generation. Not to mention open-source encrypted software-defined self healing mesh network microwave ra…

You assume the presence of electric power.

My acquaintances in Ukraine report using various batteries, and converting UPS devices to run on larger batteries, car batteries, etc. Electric power is now intermittent there, even in the capital, because Russian strikes are especially targeted to destroy the electric infrastructure.

Re: The Internet during world war

#25

Post by GoodbyeMrChips »

numpad0 wrote: post #13
kristopolous wrote: post #4

The policy suggestions are fine but the reasons are kind of silly. I've never been in a conflict zone but I'd assume securing food and water is #1. Reliable electricity access might be a distant nice to have and cell phone or wifi signal? I'm guessing that's a no. Decentralize, increase redundancy, eliminate single points of failure, sure all good. But if we're really talking about internet like communication during…

What the war in Ukraine and protests in China have showed the world is, democracy in desperate times survive on Wi-Fi, AirDrop’d screenshots, and dozens of single port phone chargers hanging off power strips. They don’t even bother to use multi-port chargers, let alone DC to DC converters, or cars rigged for power generation. Not to mention open-source encrypted software-defined self healing mesh network microwave ra…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Internet during world war

#26

Post by TheGhostOfBoris »

numpad0 wrote: post #13
kristopolous wrote: post #4

The policy suggestions are fine but the reasons are kind of silly. I've never been in a conflict zone but I'd assume securing food and water is #1. Reliable electricity access might be a distant nice to have and cell phone or wifi signal? I'm guessing that's a no. Decentralize, increase redundancy, eliminate single points of failure, sure all good. But if we're really talking about internet like communication during…

What the war in Ukraine and protests in China have showed the world is, democracy in desperate times survive on Wi-Fi, AirDrop’d screenshots, and dozens of single port phone chargers hanging off power strips. They don’t even bother to use multi-port chargers, let alone DC to DC converters, or cars rigged for power generation. Not to mention open-source encrypted software-defined self healing mesh network microwave ra…

> democracy in desperate times survive on Wi-Fi, AirDrop’d screenshots, and dozens of single port phone chargers

Democracy is utterly dependant on a well informed population.

If the fair and balanced media fails (or access to it fails), then democracy is in peril.

Re: The Internet during world war

#27

Post by nine_k »

nerdix wrote: post #12
tehchromic wrote: post #6

Fascinating. I think that the capacity of nuclear weapons and MAD decreased the likelihood of future world wars to so low as to be effectively none. But this article kinda opens the possibility of world war taking place entirely in the data/communications realm.

I think future World Wars are definitely possible with a few caveats: 1. There can be nuclear combatants but the fighting is primarily on the soil of non-nuclear countries. 2. Because of #1, the war more like World War 1 than in World War 2: some sort of peace treaty that doesn't stipulate unconditional surrender. There is no regime change nor post-war occupation of nuclear powers. 3. There is an unprecedently high l…

> no regime change

I suppose a regime change can come from within, as a consequence of a lost war and economic hardships. I suppose Russia has a fair chance to experience just that, once it loses.

Re: The Internet during world war

#28

Post by Dah00n »

pjscott wrote: post #11
throwaway4aday wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think many lessons about a potential world war could be gleaned from Ukraine. A world war is going to necessarily pull in all of the major powers which means that there won't be a single front, navy and air force will be involved and strikes deep into territory on all sides will happen via missile, bombers, and drones. In short, it would be chaotic and fast moving with destruction happening everywhere. The in…

There are over 3000 satellites in the Starlink network alone. How many anti-satellite missiles are there? Would taking out all those satellites be worth the cost?

After a few the rest would likely go down by debris. Not that it would matter as a world war would already have caused so much debris from destroyed satellites that nothing up there would work anyway.

Re: The Internet during world war

#29

Post by datameta »

nine_k wrote: post #24
numpad0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the war in Ukraine and protests in China have showed the world is, democracy in desperate times survive on Wi-Fi, AirDrop’d screenshots, and dozens of single port phone chargers hanging off power strips. They don’t even bother to use multi-port chargers, let alone DC to DC converters, or cars rigged for power generation. Not to mention open-source encrypted software-defined self healing mesh network microwave ra…

You assume the presence of electric power. My acquaintances in Ukraine report using various batteries, and converting UPS devices to run on larger batteries, car batteries, etc. Electric power is now intermittent there, even in the capital, because Russian strikes are especially targeted to destroy the electric infrastructure.

I think GP was referring to the photos that circulated of liberated Kherson with rows and rows of fully populated power strips charging peoples' phones as many of them use them. This was prior to the concentrated energy infrastructure strikes.

Re: The Internet during world war

#30

Post by datameta »

Dah00n wrote: post #28
pjscott wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are over 3000 satellites in the Starlink network alone. How many anti-satellite missiles are there? Would taking out all those satellites be worth the cost?

After a few the rest would likely go down by debris. Not that it would matter as a world war would already have caused so much debris from destroyed satellites that nothing up there would work anyway.

Kessler Syndrome prevention pacts would function similarly to MAD policies, I imagine.
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