Belarus Has Shut Down the Internet Amid a Controversial Election (wired.com) 120
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Internet connectivity and cellular service in Belarus have been down since Sunday evening, after sporadic outages early that morning and throughout the day. The connectivity blackout, which also includes landline phones, appears to be a government-imposed outage that comes amid widespread protests and increasing social unrest over Belarus' presidential election Sunday. The ongoing shutdown has further roiled the country of about 9.5 million people, where official election results this morning indicated that five-term president Aleksandr Lukashenko had won a sixth term with about 80 percent of the vote. Around the country, protests against Lukashenko's administration, including criticisms of his foreign policy and handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, grew in the days leading up to the election and exploded on Sunday night. The government has responded to the protests by mobilizing police and military forces, particularly in Minsk, the capital. Meanwhile, opposition candidates and protesters say the election was rigged and believe the results to be illegitimate.
On Monday, Lukashenko said in an interview that the internet outages were coming from abroad, and were not the result of a Belarusian government initiative. Belarus' Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, in a statement on Sunday blamed large distributed denial-of-service attacks, particularly against the country's State Security Committee and Ministry of Internal Affairs, for causing "problems with equipment." The Belarusian government-owned ISP RUE Beltelecom said in a statement Monday that it is working to resolve the outages and restore service after "multiple cyberattacks of varying intensity." Outside observers have met those claims with skepticism. "The truth of what's going on in Belarus isn't really knowable right now, but there's no indication of a DDoS attack. It can't be ruled out, but there's no external sign of it that we see," says Alp Toker, director of the nonpartisan connectivity tracking group NetBlocks. After midnight Sunday, NetBlocks observed an outage that went largely unnoticed by the Belarus population, given the hour, but the country's internet infrastructure became increasingly wobbly afterward. "Then just as polls are opening in the morning, there are more disruptions, and those really continue and progress," says Toker. "Then the major outage that NetBlocks detected started right as the polls were closing and is ongoing."
The disruption extended even to virtual private networks -- a common workaround for internet outages or censorship -- most of which remain unreachable. "Belarus hasn't had a lot of investment in circumvention technologies, because people there haven't needed to," Toker says. Meanwhile, there are a few anecdotal indications that the outages were planned, and even possibly that the government warned some businesses and institutions ahead of time. A prescient report on Saturday from the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets included an interview with a salesperson who warned journalists attempting to buy SIM cards that the government had indicated widespread connectivity outages might be coming as soon as that night.
On Monday, Lukashenko said in an interview that the internet outages were coming from abroad, and were not the result of a Belarusian government initiative. Belarus' Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, in a statement on Sunday blamed large distributed denial-of-service attacks, particularly against the country's State Security Committee and Ministry of Internal Affairs, for causing "problems with equipment." The Belarusian government-owned ISP RUE Beltelecom said in a statement Monday that it is working to resolve the outages and restore service after "multiple cyberattacks of varying intensity." Outside observers have met those claims with skepticism. "The truth of what's going on in Belarus isn't really knowable right now, but there's no indication of a DDoS attack. It can't be ruled out, but there's no external sign of it that we see," says Alp Toker, director of the nonpartisan connectivity tracking group NetBlocks. After midnight Sunday, NetBlocks observed an outage that went largely unnoticed by the Belarus population, given the hour, but the country's internet infrastructure became increasingly wobbly afterward. "Then just as polls are opening in the morning, there are more disruptions, and those really continue and progress," says Toker. "Then the major outage that NetBlocks detected started right as the polls were closing and is ongoing."
The disruption extended even to virtual private networks -- a common workaround for internet outages or censorship -- most of which remain unreachable. "Belarus hasn't had a lot of investment in circumvention technologies, because people there haven't needed to," Toker says. Meanwhile, there are a few anecdotal indications that the outages were planned, and even possibly that the government warned some businesses and institutions ahead of time. A prescient report on Saturday from the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets included an interview with a salesperson who warned journalists attempting to buy SIM cards that the government had indicated widespread connectivity outages might be coming as soon as that night.
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sometimes.
one is lucky enough to make other mistakes
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Ballots stolen (or too late?) (Score:2)
Yep. There are reports of ballots being stolen from the voting stations.
Upon request the official explained they were 'fraudulent" mail-in ballots that were "too late".
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Re:Fun fact (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, Tikhanovskaya has fled the country, apparently after being held for some hours and being forced to record a concession statement [bbc.com].
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It cannot — you just tried [usnews.com]. And failed, quite miserably, too. The "logic" of Trump — a Republican President — being responsible for the death of George Floyd in a city ruled by a Democratic Mayor under a Democratic Governor fell apart very quickly.
The difference is simple to formulate: in free countries, results of elections become known after the vote which makes voting an orderly, and peaceful means of changing government... In places like Belarus, Russ
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I am not sure if it would (or could) happen in this US. What I am fairly sure of is that as you stated, a lot of people aren't going to be happy no matter who wins.
I have a good idea as to the "bullshit why we don't", but it still baffles me nonetheless as to why we -- the US as a country -- can't amicably split into two nations. Right now *EVERYONE* is miserable except for the 1%, or maybe even the .1% .. how is that good? I know there would be issues with splitting into two independent nations, but in the
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And how would that work? Few states are so homogeneous that the split would even be sensible. Are you going to carve up Texas? Are some cities going to be split into pieces? Are you going to force some people out of their homes in some sort of 21st century version of the Partition of India. Red states aren't as red as you imagine, and blue states aren't as blue. Some hot button issues are only hot buttons for some factions of either party. Other than some demagogues and fantasists, I see no desire to split
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At least give people the option to live how they want. Some people absolutely don't want Government paid healthcare - some want it "because the rest of the world" has it. Same with gun control. Some people keep saying that we need to get in step with "the rest of the world". And a whole bunch of issues that are not weird niche positions within our political system - it's close to 50% regardless of if it flip flops between the 47% (we lost) and 53% (we won) mark.
Why not allow the people who want to live u
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Still wouldn't work. I'm from a red state. Doesn't mean I vote for the red candidate if there is a better choice available. There certainly were many in the last presidential election and I didn't vote red for that particular job.
I'm pro second amendment - I'd go so far as to say you could own a fully functioning and armed tank or an F-15 if you could afford it (hint - ridiculously few could). Everyone should be able to be armed and to carry their weapons if they wanted (hint - very few would - they're he
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I've considered a multi-tier singe-payer system as well. Make the lowest level "free" (perhaps with an income-based copay to discourage frivolous use) for everyone and cover the sorts of things that benefit public health and productivity: infectious diseases and simple things like broken bones and such that are fairly common and simple to fix, and can severely impair a person's ability to contribute to society if left untreated. And diagnostics of course, to determine what's actually causing your problem
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So under your system if you get lung cancer you're still fucked?
Holy shit just cover everything. People can still pay out of pocket for nose jobs if they want.
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I don't know - cancer seems like one of those common ones you might want to cover. And if not, you just have to pay for the coverage that covers it (possibly with the aid of low-income waivers), or pay for it out of pocket - at around 1/10th the current hyper-inflated price (in line with costs in other developed nations) that becomes a lot more feasible.
I'd much rather just do something like Medicare for all, but there is a ridiculous amount of resistance against that. So an alternative would be at least
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Do you even undstand what you're saying? You're asking for anarchy. Once you get rid of people who want Government paid healthcare, then you get rid of those who want to keep medicare, then you get rid of those who want social security, and so forth. Pretty soon you will have only two people left and they'll be fighting each other.
The solution is to not be completely pissed. You will never get a utopia, it's best to just accept that. People who have tried for utopia have failed. People who try for poli
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If simple disagreement resulted in breaking up the system, then sure, that might be the eventual result. However within the polar opposites things are less controversial. Note: I didn't say unanimous, but just less controversial.
For example, there are some die hard "small government" types that would want only private fire protection and private grammar schools, but they're unlikely to constitute more than 5% of right wingers (probably a lot less than that, though a proper number would require research).
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If 50% of the people in the US think they are living in tyranny then there is something seriously wrong with the country - not the leadership, but the idiot citizens! There i nothing whatsoever even remotely considered tyranny in this country. Oh, but boo hoo, we have to pay taxes, that makes it a tyranny. The left doesn't like Trump because he's an idiot, but he's not a tyrant and is effectively thwarted at his attempts to rule by decree, so those people are wrong. The people who love Trump on the othe
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That's how the system was originally designed. Go live in the state that has policies you prefer.
But the slow dismantling of the Republic as more and more power was claimed by the central government - and enabled by the SCOTUS - has caused broken the "50 laboratories" of social progress, leaving everyone fighting the Federal government for the right to impose their ideology on every state, and citizen.
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At least give people the option to live how they want.
We used to have that. It hid behind a term called "state's rights". But, then that became an ugly phrase, and all power had to be centralized in DC. The people are smarter there, you know.
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It might be more accurate to say they want socialism *to* their guys.
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Trump talks about vaguely socialist-populist policies but instead pushes through pro-wealthy/corporate agenda.
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No, it's just that given the choice between spending $1.5 Trillion more which shouldn't be spent and spending $3.5 Trillion more which shouldn't spent plus grinding the economy into dust under the Green New Deal, smaller government Republican voters opt for the first one over the Democrat's current attempt at the second one.
If smaller government Republicans want to actually get less spending, we understand that first we have to get a majority of voters to also want less spending, and that isn't happening ri
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How do you split when the two sides are mixed together. Trump supporter in the first house on the block, Trump hater in the second house, Trump fanboi in the third house, etc.
Splitting up is wrong on so many levels. It's like amputating an arm to fix a broken bone. It's better to learn together, to be a part of the same big family, instead of allowing petty differences to become blood feuds. Getting rid of those who disagree with you is the opposite of democracy. And once you get rid of all those pesky
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Nah! It's more fun to burn court houses.
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My take on things is we are more divided than ever because we are more specialized than ever. In 1776, there was just less "stuff" to disagree about. We probably had less goal, but a higher % of them were common (don't let the UK take us back over).
Now we have had so many advances in different directions, but not across the board. I can see why someone on the eastern side of NJ would favor legislation that funds publi
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*checks notes*
used since the civil war, and for all elections in the states of Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah
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> Mail-in voting (where you just send and receive ballots by mail to random voters) has not been used in the US ever for federal positions
Sorry, that's just not true. I've been voting by mail (not absentee) for at least the last three Presidential elections
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Don't worry. If the person who got your vote is unfit for office, Congress will impeach and remove him from that office.
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Don't worry. If the person who got your vote is unfit for office, Congress will impeach and remove him from that office.
Theoretically...
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You do realize that to vote by mail you are unable to continue learning about issues and candidates up to the actual voting date?
Possibly. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Large populations, having voted before a huge political reveal, would certainly cause campaigns consternation. A big reveal would have a chance to be inspected and debated if released too early. And if too late, it may miss some voters.
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Messes up one of the requirements for the election, that votes must be anonymous. To prevent intimidation or retaliation, or the fear thereof.
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No idea. I'm British. Our voting rituals are different.
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It's different in each state, but you usually only need to declare a party when registering to vote in a party's primary (some primaries are open to all). As far as I know no state's registration for the general election has requires you to claim an affiliation.
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Correct me if I'm wrong,
You are wrong.
but don't people in the US already have to register to vote under their party affiliation?
No. There is no requirement to declare a party affiliation when registering to vote anywhere in America.
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America has a primary system. In most states, voters declare a party affiliation so they can vote in their party's primary to select a candidate.
There is no requirement to do so, but if you don't declare an affiliation, you may be excluded from voting in the primaries.
This is not true in all states. Maine has ranked-choice-voting. California has open primaries (any voter can vote for any candidate regardless of party) for state and local elections, but not federal elections.
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Perhaps. And California is an interesting experiment in open primaries.
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which requires a notary of the public to certify you are a legitimate voter
As opposed to other kinds of voting which require no administrative tasks regarding the voter base? Oh, wait, all sane countries already have a list of citizens of voting age...
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No notary is required in Calif. It's pretty easy to cross-check with various databases to see if someone exists, lives at an address, and if they are voting more than once.
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Oh, wait, all sane countries already have a list of citizens of voting age...
Yep. So they can be called to war when necessary, and to pay taxes when not.
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What I gather from this post is that just like in 2016, the groundwork is being laid in advance to discredit a possible Trump defeat.
Your singular declarations about what makes a ballot valid are worthless, since the US has fifty different standards. FWIW, my state has allowed mail-in voting for many years - but not for people under 65 years old. Those parameters are not changing for the 2020 election. So it seems mail-in voting is great, but only if you're likely to vote Republican.
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I think just about every election since maybe the early 90s I can recall some losing candidate has bitched and whined about it being unfair. Usually due to illegals being bused in or other irregularities that were never proven. This even happened during primaries when presumably the candidates are roughly on the same side of all issues.
It's a catch-22 though. You have to have an overblown ego to enter politics in the first place, but an overblown ego will refuse to admit defeat.
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Belarus was not some former soviet client state, it was an actual soviet republic. And I am sure many of you people have thought that this coronavirus situation, people snatched from the streets and so on also would never happen in the USA. Most things will never happen until they suddenly do.
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"people snatched from the streets and so on also would never happen in the USA." Do you mean an established plainclothes unit to enact arrest warrants in high risk situation or where uniformed law enforcement would provide warning for arrest warrant targets to flee or resist? Did you notice that uniformed police officers surrounded the plainclothes unit after they started securing the warrant-target to keep the crowd back? They either were informed prior to action or recognized law enforcement tell-tails
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And how exactly it is different from what happens in authoritarian countries? Or do you think it wasn't done by "established plainclothes units" or "uniformed police officers"?
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If trump loses, people will riot because he is still in the white house on nov 10th. They are that dumb.
Hopefully he won't send the FBI and the security agencies on an investigation into his opponent's collusion with foreign powers, and buy a house in DC so he can oversee the progress of the investigation after the inauguration.
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People are going to riot regardless. The question is how much rioting. Enough to be managable with the standard police response, or are we looking at temporary anarchy in some areas?
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First off we have a more robust bureaucracy than some former soviet client state
Yeah, we've seen that, what with EPA head repealing environmental protection, USPS head destroying USPS, etc. Very robust bureaucracy indeed.
Ballot Secrecy (Score:2)
I just voted by mail in the primary. Ballot secrecy is about as safe as it can be. Only a very few people actually remove the ballot from the inner envelope. The ballot itself does not contain any information about who cast the vote. The envelopes and ballots are immediately separated, in bulk and stored separately. It might be possible that a person doing the separation might recognize a single name and be able to glance at how they voted. But, any attempt to make information public about who voted for whi
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First off we have a more robust bureaucracy than some former soviet client state. So no it can't happen here. The election will NOT be delayed nor will the President refuse to concede IIF he has really lost.
You're very optimistic. Trump's USPS head has already made policy changes that will degrade the ability of USPS to deliver unusually large volumes of mail, and Trump has already announced his intention to deploy federal troops to blue cities in swing states (but not to blue cities in solidly-blue states... hmm). While I agree that nothing as blatant as what has happened in Belarus will happen here, I think it's entirely plausible that Trump may take actions that effectively depress the vote turnout in sele
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USPS is not up to the task? I will grant that people are mailing fewer Christmas cards than they were, but I suspect a November election deadline wouldn't be worse than Christmas. At least there wouldn't be as many garbage catalogs clogging the system like in late November and December.
Is Trump making a mess of the USPS too? Seems that way - although politicians have been doing that for decades. Yet another reason to vote for someone else this year.
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You better go talk to a few mailmen/postal-workers before making statements like that. Being ignorant of a topic like the load on postalworkers does not mean you understand how much mail is processed nor the working conditions of mail delivery.
Suggest you keep every single election related material you receive in your postal server for one year and see how much that really is to be handled individually from sorting, distribution, to actual delivery.
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Is Trump making a mess of the USPS too?
To be precise, Trump's appointed USPS boss has recently issues a policy barring USPS employees from working overtime to handle excess mail. This applies not only to home delivery but every step in the mail handling process. The reason given for this policy change is to cut costs, which it will do, but it will also make the USPS unable to handle spikes in mail volume, just as we head into an election that will probably be conducted mostly by mail, and in which Democrats will be especially likely to vote by m
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The USPS lost $8.8 Billion in 2019. At some point, they have to start cutting costs...
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The USPS lost $8.8 Billion in 2019. At some point, they have to start cutting costs...
Okay. Why is that? Do you know? Hint: It had basically nothing to do with overtime.
Re: Fun fact (Score:1)
By definition, the losses have to do with everything from a few billion in pension contributions, to being unable to raise prices, to inefficiencies like overtime, and inability to compete well in the few areas they're allowed to have legal competition.
In other words, all of their expenses and revenue offsetting.
I get that the media pushes a narrative that it's all one thing, but that's simply not true.
Re: Fun fact (Score:2)
It only more people thought like you we would be surving some king or queen yet.
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Is the extra "I" in "IF" placed there because you want him to be able to define "lose" in his own special way rather than actually accepting defeat in the electoral college?
Yes exactly ; if the election is not carried out according the LAW as existed and understood before the election in each respective state, he should not concede, because it won't have been a fair election.
That is a level of hyperpartisanship there that I rarely encounter directly. Encouraging the president to change the rules on his own behalf is - to say the least - frightening. Democracy goes out the window when you do that.
The laws are already on the books. The biggest question at this point is how far some actors will go to circumvent the law so they can deliver their state or jurisdiction to their preferred candidate. We saw it in the 2000 and 2004 elections in particular and I have no doubt we
"Controversial" is the understatement of the year (Score:5, Interesting)
More like outright fraudulent.
In several polls Lukashenko had outcomes so low he had acquired the nickname "Sasha 3%".
Lukashenko is behind the curve on technology (Score:2)
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Fits the image. Lukashenko styles himself as an old-fashioned country bumpkin stuck in the last days of the Soviet Union.
Argument for sattelite and tor (Score:3)
The more government try to go totalitarian on their internet infrastructure and against VPNs,
the more it gives argument for satellite internet constellations like Starlink(*) and for Tor.
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Yes, I know that currently Starlink is the only constellation up in the sky, and currently they are only short ground->sat->ground loop, no inter-satelite hops, and thus directly depend on what infastructure is available on the ground right underneath.
Currently: no internet in a country, no relayable internet on starlink.
But eventually, hops will be enabled, and it will become a possible workaround when the local infrastructure is lacking:
ground(Belarus) =(uplink)=> sat =(hop)=> sat =(hop)=> sat =(hop)=> sat =(download)=> ground(Germany).
Also, the other problem is that even being LEO, such sat still require a non miniature antena. (Pizza box sized according to Musk's tweets), and these are going to be more difficult to hide (compared to a 5G phone) if a government decides to go full on totalitarian, search people's houses and shoot anyone found in possession of internet sat constellation antennas.
Argument for wireless mesh net (Score:4, Interesting)
There are easier ways. When North African countries were almost cut off, people made their own internet using wifi routers. This will not allow you to see the foreign sites, but it does allow for communication channels to organize protests and warn for police raids.
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Also, the other problem is that even being LEO, such sat still require a non miniature antena. (Pizza box sized according to Musk's tweets),
I keep hearing this, but I have yet to understand the why behind it. Iridium phones also connect to a LEO constellation, and they have fold out antennas the size of a felt-marker, or magnetic roof antennas that are even smaller. What is it about an internet constellation that requires a much larger antenna for such a similar purpose?
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At ~680kg, Iridium satellites [wikipedia.org] are ~3x larger than Starlink satellites [wikipedia.org]. I imagine that correspondes to a >3x increase in their ability to transmit and receive data. By having a bigger transmitter/receiver in space, perhaps you can have a smaller transmitter/receiver on the ground? Probably also has to do with relatively small amount of bandwidth needed for a voice call.
This is an educated guess. I can't cite a source.
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Size of the satellite is a possible contributing factor if it also corresponds to lower power output (possibly due to smaller solar panels) or to smaller antennas (antennas IMO would be a stupid place to cut corners though!)
Amount of bandwidth doesn't make much sense to me though as an explanation as I don't see any advantage to a larger antenna from an amount of bandwidth perspective. (I'm not saying there isn't such an advantage, just that I don't understand it if there is)
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Somebody will find a material that is transparent to satellite frequencies but opaque in the optical range.
That will force the cost to be meters that look for the transmission frequencies.
The solution here is numbers. In some countries satellite TV is illegal and dishes are on every apartment. They can't arrest everybody. So communication libre will become the new normal. Tyrants could shut off the Internet from 1990-2022, but after that it became technologically infeasible.
Amazon's constellation, if New
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Somebody will find a material that is transparent to satellite frequencies but opaque in the optical range.
Already exists. Vinyl is commonly used, but there are other plastics that work as well.
That will force the cost to be meters that look for the transmission frequencies.
Yeah, but they will automate it and make it cheap with drones.
In some countries satellite TV is illegal and dishes are on every apartment. They can't arrest everybody.
No, but they can use selective enforcement.
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Somebody will find a material that is transparent to satellite frequencies but opaque in the optical range.
"Plastics" [youtu.be]
Technology? (Score:3)
Discussing technology? On /.?
I thought this was a place to loose your shit over whatever political/social/cultural non-issue that crosses your social medial overloaded hyperactive brain????
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Pizza box phased array has been cancelled or delayed and the current solution is a "ufo-shaped" unit which presumably uses motor tracking.
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Sounds like making a beacon for the secret police to come and get you?
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Even with a little antenna, they will see your RF transmissions.
When we wanted to send unseen messages, we did it through the Sunday classifieds. Even during wartime there's somebody who wants to sell their old washer/dryer...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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haha, no. StarLink depends on ground stations, which will get their plugged yanked by any government that doesn't like them.
Elan Musk doesn't "save humanity", he toots his own horn. Chemical rockets aren't green.
Ground Station (Score:2)
One government can take down one ground station. It's a lot more difficult when there are dozens of ground stations placed all over the world, including some floating in the middle of the ocean. You'd have to take down all of them.
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oh really? your laptop wifi can reach station in ocean?
No it can't, dumbass.
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No, your laptop only has to reach the satellite, which is about 400KM away. Your laptop wifi isn't going to do that, but a moderately-expensive external radio unit will.
Satellite internet works. It's a well-established technology. It's just never caught on because it's expensive to operate, so use is limited to people who need communications in remote and mobile locations. Good for shipping. Good for Australian farmers. Good for polar expeditions. Good for film crews or surveyors traveling the deserts of th
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not denying that but that's not what Starlink is, it works with ground wifi-stations. A government only need take out those stations.
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haha, no. StarLink depends on ground stations, which will get their plugged yanked by any government that doesn't like them.
For satellite Internet users in small countries, satellites will easily be able to relay to a ground station in an adjacent country that hasn't pulled the plug. For large countries, or countries whose leaders have the support of adjacent countries, that probably isn't possible. But if the Starlink satellites can bounce the packets through a few peer satellites they should still be able to reach a ground station with connectivity. According to the FCC filings, Starlink satellites will have this capability, u
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launching Starlink might be the most important.
I'm not sure how you came up with that utterly moronic statement. Starlink replaces the last mile. It does not alleviate government control. It does not help us stop fucking up the environment (hell space is an environment and if anything it's fucking up future science prospects in it). It does not help move people. It does not improve congestion. It does not bypass banking monopolies, or disconnect people from reliance on utilities. It does not help design cutting edge space tech which is increasingly look
Comming soon (Score:2)
Belarus is actually a nice little country (Score:2)
Another "color revolution", eh? (Score:1)
Whose side are we on?
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Well, somebody's raising a fuss over there, something must be up that's bound to affect the tourist industry.
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> What more do you want?
Not being disappeared in the night for not wanting to live in a dictatorship would be pretty cool, you know, like any civilised country, such as Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria that you listed.
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How about the one that doesn't have a literal KGB [wikipedia.org] on it?
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Eh, branding... Which side is going to offer the juiciest contracts?
For an election? (Score:3)
Algeria switches the internet off each year for the high-school-exams.
Five-term president... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a nominal president. The correct term is "dictator".