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posted by
Cactus
on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:00AM
from the don't-panic-and-always-know-where-your-towel-is dept.
from the don't-panic-and-always-know-where-your-towel-is dept.
AnonTechie writes
Media Development Investment Fund, a New York based non-profit, is looking to offer a world-wide data stream free of charge.
Dubbed the 'Outernet', the network will broadcast a one-way data stream to the entire world via a network of mini satellites. The idea is to bridge the digital divide, offering some of the most important (and basic) information on the internet to people regardless of location.
Outernet has posted intention to deliver staples such as: local and international news, OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, Ubuntu, various educational courseware, and emergency communications systems for use when cell systems fail.
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Outernet - Information from Outer Space
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Funny) by nobbis on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:08AM
I wonder which country will be the first to shoot down one of these satellites, a kind of proactive firewall if you will.
It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bitshifter on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:31AM
Shooting down satellites may have international repercussions.
But they don't have to actually shoot them down, you know.
Soviet Union and other dictatorships used to simply block western radio transmissions with white noise.
This is not different.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:43AM
If the white noise is produced on earth, a parabolic antenna should be enough to select only the satellite signal. If necessary, continue the parabola until the focal point is inside, so it doesn't get any stray signals from the sides.
Radio transmissions could be effectively blocked because those senders could be located at the borders, that is, the white noise came from the same direction from which also the intended signal came.
Now you could certainly send white-noise satellite into orbit, but I doubt that you could easily restrict that white noise to a country (unless your country has the size of Russia or China, and you're willing to accept that close to the borders it doesn't work). As soon as the white noise disturbs reception in other countries, it may again have international repercussions.
(And BTW, if your country is too small, you may even have trouble with terrestrial white noise leaving the country at the opposite border.)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by AnythingGoes on Wednesday February 26 2014, @07:28PM
Or they can just make it illegal to listen to those transmissions and tell neighbours to inform on those who are listening to them...like how people of vaguely "middle eastern descent" are being reported by their neighbours now... sounds a lot like certain countries in the 50s-80s
(Score: 5, Interesting) by gishzida on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:52AM
KillSats are "expensive". There are very few States which have the resources and the infrastructure to launch KillSats. It's easier to outlaw the "receivers" and publicly "firewall" [which is to say "shoot"] the users discovered in the possession of "illegal foreign technology". A bullet used locally is far cheaper than a missile. This latter is the method that North Korea and some other "Failed" or "near Failed" states would probably use to suppress "free information" if this is actually developed.
Reading web pages of the organizations about selling "investment in emerging media markets" makes one think they are selling the ability to "propagandized" those same markets. This makes me wonder how "a New York based non-profit" would obtain the money and the permission to build such a satellite network. Could this be "government propaganda" dollars at work [Think "Voice of America" for the new century]?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:58PM
"firewall" because they are put up against the wall, and then someone shouts "fire"?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.