Stealth Satellite TV Defeats Iran's Internet Blackout
2d 8h ago by lemmy.nz/u/throws_lemy in technology from spectrum.ieee.org
Satellite TV signals became a hidden pipeline to circumvent Iran's government-imposed internet shutdown, jamming efforts fail to fully block satellite-based data delivery
We need to make it impossible for any group (including governments and corporations) to turn off the internet for another group of people. Everyone deserves to be able to tell the world what's going on in their lives. Especially if what's going on is real bad.
While I agree, I can’t think of a practical way to ensure this beyond direct physical intervention. Which I admit may have been what you meant, but it sounded more like “we need to make it impossible to block the internet at a technical level”.
The best way to do this would be to have an international organization operating something like starlink, but not operated by a nazi, and instead provided for free for everyone.
Unless places like North Korea and Iran start blasting hundreds of satellites out of the sky, there is far less that any country could do to prevent people from making transceivers at home.
The problem is that no such international organization would ever be funded and independent.
So, I get where you’re going with this. There’s a problem with it though, albeit one that shouldn’t necessarily discourage the idea. Starlink and such devices can be found when in use. It’s not a passive connection, you need to send data out.
In fact, I believe an individual was convicted in Iran for using starlink recently?
You’d need a forceful reason for governments to leave the people/connections alone.
Satellite can also be disrupted instead of destroyed. Though that’s admittedly a little difficult to accomplish at the scale of an entire country.
For sure there are still problems with it. But IMO the benefits of such an organization would outweigh any of the drawbacks.
A ton of countries wouldn't go through the effort to block it, it would help those in impoverished areas to connect, etc.
And for those in places that would actively try to stop such a connection, people wouldn't be trying to connect if they didn't find it worth the risk. I heard about the starlink/iran one as well.
I do mean the latter. If not impossible, then as technically and economically infeasible as possible. I think it would be difficult and complicated to implement, and would require multiple layers that mutually cushion against attacks on any one layer. I think an international treaty around satellite internet that stipulates that any person can connect to it would be a start. That of course would be vulnerable to DOS attacks by nation-states or regional powers (which should be defined in the treaty as a crime against humanity), so there would also need to be robust and redundant ground-based networks and reserved citizen-band spectra that supplement the satellite coverage.
Historical note.
Back in the day, the Shah wouldn't let people read radical Muslim newspapers.
The Muslims got around that by making cassette recordings of their speeches which would be played, re-recorded, and passed hand to hand.
Just funny that the people who were censored in the past are censors now.
Hmm a satellite dish is pretty hard to hide because it needs to be fairly big, pointed at a specific known point in the sky and has to have good visibility of the sky.
This doesn't make it ideal for censorship avoidance because a hostile regime can arrest everyone with a dish.
I applaud what they're doing doing though but it's not without risk for the receivers.
We had this satellite tech too 20-30 years ago. People without broadband could use dialup to request large files and they'd be streamed through satellite through the night. It was too high latency to use interactively but for a receive-only solution of a curated package it's pretty good. Just too bad the antennas are so easy to spot. Camouflaged ones exist but I don't think they are available at Iran-friendly price points.
there are ways. for example, put a fake hot water barrel on the roof, made from fiberglass or polypropylene or what have you, but not metal, and put dish inside, or in any variety of inconspicuous containers or boxes made from plastic or wood or fabric. some other antennas can be camouflaged as fake chimneys or gutters or water piping or many other things
Aircraft with millimetre-wave radar could detect them easily. And under a totalitarian regime like Iran, mere possession would be a capital crime.
Could, sure, but I feel like Iran has bigger fish to fry right now.
that mmwave radar would have to be attached to a drone, because their manned aircraft are unbelievably obsolete. it means smaller size meaning low resolution, and as starlink emits pinpointing them would be very easy when active, much easier than any passive sat dish, and starlink is still in use. i've seen some advice on hiding starlink that includes turning off starlink wifi and using wired connection, because irgc is looking for 2.4 ghz signal (from ground?) and not for 14-ish ghz uplink, so they probably dont have a lot of flying ew/radars
i'm not saying that iranian air force has definitely none of that, but i would be decently surprised if they do have more than 2
The title is overly optimistic imo. This is more of a life support system for a comatose patient. The work done is great and keeps some people informed and provided with at least some international news and tools, but this is far from defeating the internet blackout.
I'm also somewhat surprised iran isn't shooting down the satellites. The article mentions previous full jamming practices were stopped in fear of sanctions, but not like that's a concern anymore, especially considering iran is in russia's little fascist club.
To the people living in the rest of the world - start taking ID verification threat seriously before this is your reality where the only outside news you get is from a USB stick you buy on a shady open market for 30 bucks from a guy who has a satellite dish out in the mountains.
Shooting down a satelite is hard, iran cant even put own satelites up there they have to lease chinese satelites.
I'm already mentally preparing to make an NNCP relay network if it comes to that. Multi day email would suck but requiring files would move OK.if you're patient