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Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

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331–340 of 437 posts

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#331
post #6

I would like to believe there is a future where blocking access to the internet is unilaterally impossible. Major powers being able to pull the rug on what has become a foundation of modern society like this is too scary of a thing to allow. What could the answer be? Satellite-powered relays and DIY-able user devices to talk to them?

What you suggest is impossible, because you are attacking a wrench on the head problem with a coding solution. You can always get a dish and connect to your choice of orbital provider, if your ISP - which is regulated - is blocked. The problem is, guys with guns will come to your door, beat you with a wrench, and put you in jail. Now if we solve for the real issue - lack of freedom because of a ruling class, the tech…

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Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#332

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me why the military keeps intervening. Is this basically the same situation as Turkey had where the military was commanded on Turkey’s founding by the Ataturk to prevent a religious fundamentalist takeover of the country, and so whenever they felt the elected government was becoming too “religious”, they deposed the government (now of course erdogan is in control, because he ensur…

I am sorry to say but at this point Pakistan is a failed state. It’s fascinating to see how India just leaped ahead of Pakistan even though they both got independence at the same time and were essentially the same people divided based on religion. I hate to say this but maybe there’s something to be said about religion here.

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Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#333
post #6

I would like to believe there is a future where blocking access to the internet is unilaterally impossible. Major powers being able to pull the rug on what has become a foundation of modern society like this is too scary of a thing to allow. What could the answer be? Satellite-powered relays and DIY-able user devices to talk to them?

Something like a LoRaWAN meshnet node built into every smartphone may be practically unstoppable. But there are many approaches to censorship, and app stores are a potential one. Really depends on the adversary.

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#334
post #28
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really a technical issue, per-se. It's a social one, because social means are what are used to enforce the lockdowns - and those social means exist because of socially justified purposes in the societies. Unless it was literally impossible to block internet access at all (some kind of unjammable starlink with undetectable receivers/transceivers?).

Generally speaking, any kind of radio transmission is detectable. It's why radio silence is a thing when stealth is important.

Spread spectrum, and especially pseudo-random noise codes are pretty hard to detect i think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-sequence_spread_spectru...

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#335
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU citizens have no freedom of speech I was thinking exactly that the other day, while watching a TV show on national publicly funded television, where a variety of pundits where discussing the first year of the present term of the ruling president, and the on-set comedian summed up the situation : "the panel and the country is split in two : those that don't like the ruler, and those who hate him". The youngest pa…

I believed this as well. Then came covid-19, and I had to learn that power corrupts people, same for those on the left as well as those on the right. Since then, I basically lost all believe in the narrative of democracy that I have been fed with my entire life. Its all a lie.

Emergencies and wars are bad for démocraties. The question is how fast and bad you come out of them.

Societies stood, jails are not flooded with opponents, I get the weekly interview of an antivax/covidsceptic/whatever on the radio because they're on the "right" political team, the governments are paying the political prices of their handling in the ballot boxes.

This is not perfect and never was meant to. Sorry if you were told otherwise.

Tides turn. People you agree with will be in the ruling majority some day. This will hurt even more ;)

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#336

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me why the military keeps intervening. Is this basically the same situation as Turkey had where the military was commanded on Turkey’s founding by the Ataturk to prevent a religious fundamentalist takeover of the country, and so whenever they felt the elected government was becoming too “religious”, they deposed the government (now of course erdogan is in control, because he ensur…

[dead]

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#337

Can someone knowledgeable explain to me why the military keeps intervening. Is this basically the same situation as Turkey had where the military was commanded on Turkey’s founding by the Ataturk to prevent a religious fundamentalist takeover of the country, and so whenever they felt the elected government was becoming too “religious”, they deposed the government (now of course erdogan is in control, because he ensur…

Those seem like very ideologically pure motives to attribute to a political decision. Maybe the generals just think they'd like to run the country for a while, and they've promised their colonels positions of power, and the colonels have promised their lieutenants promotions, and so on all the way down.

These personal reasons would always exist. I’m curious about the justification they would provide to the rest of the world about why they intervened? That gives the moral basis for their use of power. I personally think, even if good rewards existed without a justification to provide that is consistent with their morality/ history of the country it would be very hard for the military to depose a government like they do in Pakistan. Though I suppose now that it has happened so many times in Pakistan, there is good precedent and this justification is less necessary.

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you are trying to say here, but it didn't have to be violent and persist after too, that's exactly what I was saying by "drifting apart". If they felt safer as a separate nation to have their interests protected that shouldn't be the cause of bitterness. Jinnah and Nehru had both been adamant on their stances, former was proponent of federal governance while later a central. India had several bifurc…

You are equating bifurcation of states for political & administrative reasons, within the same country, to splitting a country into two ! When a country is split, crimes committed against those who are migrating to another country will not be prosecuted by the home country, and will not be possible to be prosecuted by the split country. Land, Houses and other immovable assets will be stolen from those who are forced…

>The origin was from the muslim community, whose political leaders realized that for them to seize power, a democratic setup with majority Hindu population will be impossible.

Or put in other words, muslims being a minority in India didn’t want to now have new rulers as India got independence from the British.

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to say but at this point Pakistan is a failed state. It’s fascinating to see how India just leaped ahead of Pakistan even though they both got independence at the same time and were essentially the same people divided based on religion. I hate to say this but maybe there’s something to be said about religion here.

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"I would rather live in Pakistan despite it allegedly being a “failed state” according to you over India any day of the week."

Can you give reasons for this? I have never been to either country, but I know many people who travelled all over india, but allmost none, who traveled in Pakistan, because as a westener you cannot even travel in many places there at all, or in others without police guiding you (and you paying them).

Re: Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to say but at this point Pakistan is a failed state. It’s fascinating to see how India just leaped ahead of Pakistan even though they both got independence at the same time and were essentially the same people divided based on religion. I hate to say this but maybe there’s something to be said about religion here.

[flagged]

>I would rather live in Pakistan despite it allegedly being a "failed state" according to you over India any day of the week.

That's understandable if you're Pakistani and have a nostalgia for home, or perhaps some special affinity for their cuisine, but is nonsensical otherwise.

>I’m sure many Indians will agree.

So you might hear sometimes in Indian social media or op-eds the phrase "I'd rather live in Pakistan" (and to a greater degree "You should go live in Pakistan") but that's almost always used provocatively, because of how ridiculous it is. I don't even think that most Indian Muslims would prefer Pakistan over India.

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