I’ve been meaning to write something up about the news that a group of, what the media calls “hackers”, but are probably more accurately termed scientists, who are planning on launching some satellites to provide censorship-free Internet connectivity to people in regimes that cannot get unfiltered Internet connectivity.
It raises a whole raft of interesting questions, but the one I thought of particularly is where the downlink will be. Satellites, on their own, cannot provide Internet connectivity. They are an elaborate mirror, allowing signals to be bounced between two or more points.
So, where is the ground-based Internet connection going to be? If there are a limited number of ground stations providing access to the rest of the Internet, these will be major targets for those regimes that want to control access to content. What better place to go to find out who your dissidents are?
How does a user of this censorship –busting network know:
- That they are connecting via a ground station that is in a friendly country, and;
- That the infrastructure hasn’t been compromised.
With such a concentrated amount of valuable information the temptation will be there for a number of states to covertly tap into this infrastructure and a lot of effort needs to be made to physically secure the environment that this data will go through, regardless of which country it’s in.
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