Fwd: [ NNSquad ] Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law

[Alex Gakuru]

Similar to Amateur Radio folk whom continue enjoying un-interfered
global radio communications.

On 1/4/12, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:
> It will happen, I'm sure.
>
> And its not that hard to do, many old satellites are just like mirrors in
> the sky, I saw a news clip last year about how truckers in Brasil use the
> satellites with home made parabolic antennas to communicate with their
> loved ones when deep inside the country.
>
> If used for computer communications, it would have a very low bandwidth,
> maybe unusable for serious downloads, but yet usable to chat and text
> transfer.
>
> (I also saw that the US had the brazilian authorities seize and inprision
> the criminals that used the satelites to exchange love messages with their
> wives, or to the drug lords who used it to communicate among each other).
>
> (Carlos was the name you give to the persons who did this? I know there was
> a name...)
>
> On 3 January 2012 23:46, Ginger Paque <gpaque at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Another approach, lacking realistic technical foundation and funding, but
>> interesting nonetheless:
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16367042?print=true
>>
>> Excerpt:
>> Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship: *Computer hackers
>> plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own
>> communication satellites into orbit.* *The scheme was outlined at the
>> Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. **The project's organisers said
>> the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground
>> stations to track and communicate with the satellites. **Longer term they
>> hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon. **Hobbyists have
>> already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief
>> periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for
>> low-budget projects. **The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls
>> for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the
>> increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project. **"The
>> first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let's take the internet
>> out of the control of terrestrial entities," Mr Farr said.*
>> Ginger (Virginia) Paque
>> Diplo Foundation
>> www.diplomacy.edu/ig
>> VirginiaP at diplomacy.edu
>>
>> *Join the Diplo community IG discussions: www.diplointernetgovernance.org*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 3 January 2012 17:15, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Alex.
>>>
>>> Indeed there are too many questions in these two issues. The first one is
>>> related to the narrow-sightnedness of law makers in these countries.
>>> Using
>>> an analogy, data and information are a lot like water - you need to
>>> control
>>> it (so you can use it for the right purposes), but if you lock it too
>>> tight, it will somehow find an escape route.
>>>
>>> I am very concerned that the example from Belarus may inspire other
>>> countries into doing the same.
>>>
>>> And the same reasoning is applicable to SOPA and PIPA, I think.
>>>
>>> These schemes are all but an invitation to build an underground Internet.
>>>
>>> Imagine you are in the US and you need to access a forbidden site. Say
>>> you type www.pirata101.org (to use the portuguese word for pirate). Your
>>> browser will tell you "Ops! BrowserX could not find www.pirata101.org"
>>> because it searched the DNS tree and the answer was that this name is not
>>> registered.
>>>
>>> But imagine that alongside with this, your browser does also tell you
>>> "Would you like me to try the alternative DNS database?" and answering
>>> yes,
>>> you would end up looking the name in an completely independent DNS
>>> system.
>>> It would not even had to have the same syntax. It could be something like
>>> www-pirata101-org or www~pirata101~global or whatever string you fancy to
>>> use (check http://www.dashworlds.com/).
>>>
>>> You would use the browser as an intermediate DNS broker, placing queries
>>> that could be answered by the software of the browser manufacturer, in
>>> the
>>> cloud, somewhere where your lawmakers could not get their teeth at. Your
>>> standard TCP/IP protocols would still be able to work because for these
>>> what really matters is the IP address (IPv4 or IPv6 address) of the end
>>> machine. And, in the event of the country firewall blocking the IP
>>> address
>>> (like many corporate firewalls do), even then, the content could be
>>> transmitted through changing IPs (not too hard to do in the IPv6 space)
>>> or
>>> though a general purpose gateway somewhere in the cloud.
>>>
>>> I tried to talk about this sometime ago - I sincerely believe that the
>>> fate of ICANN and of the DNS structure relies in the hands of the browser
>>> manufacturers or, in the hand of software developers who can build
>>> extensions that circumvent or complement the current DNS query system.
>>>
>>> For me it boils down to this: if politicians and lobbies try to control
>>> (own) the Internet like they seem to be so eager to do, this will happen
>>> sooner or later. Let me give you a hint: every rookie knows that if you
>>> want to find a movie to download, Google is not the place to start
>>> looking
>>> for it.
>>>
>>> Now, we are on the verge of disrupting the Internet status quo. I'm not
>>> sure if this is good or bad in itself, but, it will surely be a whole lot
>>> different.
>>>
>>> Getting back to Alex's question: in Africa, as well in developping
>>> countries (I've been teaching a PhD course in Addis Ababa last year -
>>> what
>>> an enriching experience!), using a free and coherent Internet is a
>>> powerful
>>> tool for development (I can't even imagine what is the idea on the
>>> Belarus
>>> politicians' heads). I remember my early college days - we used a pirate
>>> copy of Borland's Turbo Pascal (sorry Borland, than you for that!). And I
>>> can surely tell you that while I do not advocate for piracy at all, I
>>> share
>>> the thoughts of a policeman who fined me 250 euros last month: "I rather
>>> see a person in the street selling a counterfeit t-shirt, than see it rob
>>> a
>>> person at the point of a gun". I would add, I would rather see that
>>> person
>>> in a regular job, or in school, but helas, our world is not perfect.
>>> Sometimes (many times) because of politicians like the ones behind
>>> Belarus
>>> laws and SOPA or PIPA projects.
>>>
>>> Warm regards to all, and please enjoy the New Year,
>>>
>>> Nuno Garcia
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3 January 2012 20:07, Alex Gakuru <gakuru at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks Nuno. Coudn't help reflect on "What does SOPA/PIPA mean for
>>>> Africa?
>>>>
>>>> http://codepolitical.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-sopa-pipa-mean-for-africa.html
>>>> Regards, Alex.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all.
>>>>>
>>>>> Geographically Belarus is part of Europe.
>>>>>
>>>>> And these are extremely bad news.
>>>>>
>>>>> BR,
>>>>>
>>>>> Nuno Garcia
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>>> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com>
>>>>> Date: 3 January 2012 17:54
>>>>> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane
>>>>> Law
>>>>> To: nnsquad at nnsquad.org
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Belarus Is Now Home to the Internet's Most Insane Law
>>>>>
>>>>> http://j.mp/xIK0Vk  (Gizmodo)
>>>>>
>>>>>   "Belarus: small. Proud. Kvass-drinking. A long history of dubious
>>>>> human
>>>>>    rights and piddling dictatorship. And now, bound to a law that makes
>>>>>    it illegal to browse foreign websites."
>>>>>
>>>>>  - - -
>>>>>
>>>>> --Lauren--
>>>>> NNSquad Moderator
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> nnsquad mailing list
>>>>> http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>