Hackerspace Global Grid to make an Uncensorable internet in space?

Gary Richmond wrote:There are massive technical and legal issues here but you can't fault these guys for thinking big.

The legal and technical issues actually are pretty small, I would think, compared to the financial issues. Satellites aren't cheap, and launch costs are still quite high. On top of that, there's bandwidth costs; the ground support stations still have to connect to the terrestrial internet somewhere, and that's not free either.

Once those are overcome, however, I don't see how legal issues would be much of a problem; the whole point here is to overcome censorship, so obviously in any country that practices oppressive internet censorship, such as China, North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, and soon the USA, using these satellites will simply be illegal, since the government can't control it. But that's not that much of a problem; with the right hardware (and presumably, they'll even give away plans to build the needed hardware), you can access these satellites with your computer without anyone knowing (as long as you keep your little dish antenna well-hidden).

Since ham radio satellites are OSCAR (Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio), maybe this should be Extended Linux Mesh in Orbit.

LOL @ cr.

*shudder*

Uhm,... the launch of any satellite, or its operation would be governed by the Nation from which the ownership of that satellite is from. Plus, use of radio frequencies in the USA are regulated by the FCC. So, you can pretty much not count on an unregulated satellite Internet, at least in any country that signed & ratified the Outer Space Treaty of 1967,... which is most of the developed world.

Not to mention "accidental" damage from whatever government determines that they don't like it.

As much as I applaud a group with laudable aims trying to keep communications free of control, I can't help but think that this is doomed to failure. There are too many governments around the world that would prefer this to not happen. And I'm not just thinking of the non-democratic governments here either.

@JaseP: There's a big difference between the law, and how it's implemented. It doesn't matter if the use of radio frequencies in the USA is regulated by the FCC; if you set up a small satellite uplink in the woods behind your back yard, how are they going to know unless they fly a plane around looking for emissions in that frequency band? Also, as I understand it, satellite uplink transmissions are highly directional, so they should be hard to detect unless, again, you're flying a plane around in a grid search looking for transmissions from the ground. So, in the very worst case, where planes really are flying around looking for uplinks to FreeSat, and anyone caught with this illicit equipment connecting to a non-filtered internet is arrested and disappeared, you just need to restrict your use to times when you're outside with your uplink antenna, keeping an eye out for planes overhead and shutting down your equipment if you see any. Of course, if things get to that point, I'd be really surprised if the government didn't just launch an anti-satellite missile at FreeSat.