Hobby Hackers Plan Space-Based Internet

[SenseOfTumour]

Putting my tin foil hat on, I suggest about a week after SOPA passed and that satellite went into effect, the US would declare it a terrorist target and nuke it from orbit.

After all, once something is declared 'terrorist' who needs explanations or reasons, just destroy them!

However, I still have belief in the hacker side of the internet, that if stupid laws did ruin the internet there'd be some hefty attacks on the servers doing the blocking and censoring.

 

[Albino Boo]

These guys are totally ludicrous, the costs of the proposals are quite literately astronomical. The Iridium satellite phone network, which used the kind of technology that these guys are talking about, cost $8 billion to produce and provided the staggering low bandwidth of 28.8 kbit/s. That was admittedly that was 15 years ago but even if the costs are 90% cheaper and the bandwidth is quadrupled that is $800 million for a bandwidth of 100 kbit/s.

 

[Fasckira]

Hard to take them seriously when one of their goals is to put a hacker on the moon in 23 years. That and the part where they dont actually have any satellites or serious equipment yet. Its essentially still at the stage of "Wouldn't it be cool if....".

It would be cool if it all worked though, very cyber punkesque.

 

[Cowabungaa]

"So, theoretically it could be a place for illegal communication to thrive. However, the corollary is that any country could take the law into their own hands and disable the satellites."

I'm imagining some kind of Western-esque situation right now...IN SPAAAACE!!!

For god's sake, make that happen. I don't care how or when or how much it'll cost, I want my space cowboys.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Someone should pitch that to Sir Richard (Branson) of Virgin. I'm sure he wouldn't be blind to the prospect of insane amounts of money to be made with the evolved, legally fool-proof version of pirate radio/servers.

After all, his company *is* the leading provider of private space tourism.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Could this really work, though? The answers to that question seem to range from "no" to "probably not, no."

Why not? If these guys can build the satellite, there are private companies out there who can launch it if the price is right. SpaceX already has launch vehicles that can lift a significant payload into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit. And for cheaper than government sponsored launches considering that they can cut corners NASA and the ESA can't.

Putting my tin foil hat on, I suggest about a week after SOPA passed and that satellite went into effect, the US would declare it a terrorist target and nuke it from orbit.

After all, once something is declared 'terrorist' who needs explanations or reasons, just destroy them!

You cant just shoot down private satellites. That would violate god knows how many international treaties. Plus if a foreign national owns them, it would be an act of war under international law. Not to mention the debris it would create would create a significant hazard for anything in that particular part of the sky for quite some time to come.

No president will cause an international incident to placate a few companies who are in bed with congress.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

[image/]http://4funz.com/Funny-Pictures/random/img-brilliant-121[/IMG]

It is decided. The Internet will leave Earth and take with it only the chosen nerds to the promise land.

 

[Albino Boo]

Why not? If these guys can build the satellite, there are private companies out there who can launch it if the price is right. SpaceX already has launch vehicles that can lift a significant payload into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit. And for cheaper than government sponsored launches considering that they can cut corners NASA and the ESA can't.



You cant just shoot down private satellites. That would violate god knows how many international treaties. Plus if a foreign national owns them, it would be an act of war under international law. Not to mention the debris it would create would create a significant hazard for anything in that particular part of the sky for quite some time to come.

No president will cause an international incident to placate a few companies who are in bed with congress.

Spacex are launching 66 low earth orbit satellites of the type described by the hackers, and they are being paid $492 million to do it. Exactly were do you think these guys are going to get the best part of 1/2 billion dollars from?


Its also against international treaties to use parts radio of the radio spectrum without agreement. Otherwise things like the shf signal from maritime rescue beacons, radar used by air traffic control or indeed your bog standard wireless network being drowned out by the latest conspiracy theory by a bunch of Germans (I understand the Germans have somewhat of track record in that area)

 

[SilentHunter7]

Spacex are launching 66 low earth orbit satellites of the type described by the hackers, and they are being paid $492 million to do it. Exactly were do you think these guys are going to get the best part of 1/2 billion dollars from?

They have to have some kind of private backing. I can't imagine these guys are building the thing in their basement out of a circuit board and some spare wiring. With the right support, a half a billion can seem almost trivial.

 

[Albino Boo]

Spacex are launching 66 low earth orbit satellites of the type described by the hackers, and they are being paid $492 million to do it. Exactly were do you think these guys are going to get the best part of 1/2 billion dollars from?

They have to have some kind of private backing. I can't imagine these guys are building the thing in their basement out of a circuit board and some spare wiring. With the right support, a half a billion can seem almost trivial.

Why would anyone invest in with a bunch of German amateurs when there are already companies operating in the low earth orbit zone. All of which have at some point filled for chapter 11 causing the initial investors significant loses. The risk then becomes untenable when the intention is to circumvent national laws. Ask the online gambling industry what happened when congress banned credit card companies from paying out to them. The risk/reward on the investment makes it not a commercial option. The only poeple who would be willing to put up the money are ones with alterior motives, perhaps those nice gentleman from Al Qaeda or those equally nice men from the FSB.

 

[LorienvArden]

Even if SOPA passes (and it won't) this is still for naught. The pirates are ahead of the game even if SOPA were to pass.

Stick your head into the sand all you want, but you grossly underestimate the combined pull of the music-, film- and gamesindustry in the US.
Yes, quite a lot of people spoke up against those bilss, but fact is that senators have no clue about how many jobs those bills would cost. And don't kid yourself into believing they would care about your precious memes or freedom of speech. They don't. They care about their paycheck and about beeing elected. Pissing of two and a half major lobbies is a sure way not to get funded for next years blockbuster-election.

I can't begin to see how SOPA would stop something like usenet or private FTPs or anything other than a few select high traffic sites.

Jailtime. Hosting protected content until now was against copyright law which could carry a sentence if you did it for comercial purposes. With Sopa, hosting an amv with copyrighted content is a federal offense that the state HAS to prosecute. In Short: Hosting will become much more risky then before.

However, again, SOPA isn't passing. It's simply lip service to the entertainment industry that's shoveling massive amounts of money into the pockets of our government officials. Make no bones about it this thing is as dead in the water as it can get. Every year or so though the powers that be need to put on a good show for the people lining their pockets. Last year we had COICA and this year it's SOPA. Bottom line though it's all just for show.

Yea, sure... they will vote in the interest of the people because the industry that supports millions of jobs and a healthy investment into their parties isn't strong enough to make them make a decision about a matter they do neither understand nor really care about.
Sure.

On Topic: While an interesting idea, it will not help any of the business relying on the internet to garner fundraising capital or a critical mass of customers as not enough people would be willing to buy these groundstations.

 

[geizr]

It's a cool idea, but I think it is doomed to failure as the reality of the logistics of launching a constellation of satellites, obtaining non-collisional orbits, and dealing with the hand-off at the ground station between orbiting satellites, as well as the latency problems, comes to bear. Not to mention all the materials and construction costs, plus the costs of launching a payload to orbit.

This is not to say the effort is impossible; after all, major telecos do this sort of thing all the time. But, it does take a lot of capital and particular expertise to pull it off. While resources are out there to be found, waiting to be properly organized and focused to the task, I'm highly skeptical of a random group of hackers having the focus of will and organization necessary to pull-off something of such magnitude that doesn't involve just straight up coding or modifying existing electronics.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Why would anyone invest in with a bunch of German amateurs when there are already companies operating in the low earth orbit zone. All of which have at some point filled for chapter 11 causing the initial investors significant loses. The risk then becomes untenable when the intention is to circumvent national laws. Ask the online gambling industry what happened when congress banned credit card companies from paying out to them. The risk/reward on the investment makes it not a commercial option. The only poeple who would be willing to put up the money are ones with alterior motives, perhaps those nice gentleman from Al Qaeda or those equally nice men from the FSB.

It's not like they want to launch by the end of the year. Their website says they aren't aiming for a launch until 2034. That's a lot of time to develop the system, and pitch it to some upstart company looking to make it big.

 

[bootz]

as long as it isn't called Skynet. If they call it skynet we are screwed and the world would be over.

 

[Zagzag]

Dear BBC, please learn the meaning of the word hacker [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28programmer_subculture%29]. (No, the proper meaning.) The words "computer hackers" in the first sentance of the original BBC article just annoyed me, they were obviously not written by someone who knows that they are talking about. And I'm not some kind of BBC hating, Daily Mail reading scumbag either, I just want them to write articles that aren't irritating for people who know that they are talking about.

No idea why that annoyed me so much, I must be getting old.

 

[Supah]

I knew pirates would do everything to overcome censorship, copyright security and the like, but that's taking it a billion steps further.

Or maybe just one giant leap for man...

 

[SlugLady28]

Holy crud.

I don't know jack about how the internet works, but i had a feeling that if SOPA passes, some sort of underground rebellion would start up to fight it, cause y'know, that happens every time someone abuses copyright protection laws. I just... didn't know it would come so soon...

Underground Internet. Works for me.

 

[Albino Boo]

It's not like they want to launch by the end of the year. Their website says they aren't aiming for a launch until 2034. That's a lot of time to develop the system, and pitch it to some upstart company looking to make it big.

You don't seam to understand that you cant make money out of building a satellite network that circumvents national law. If the investing company is inside the jurisdiction of nations whose laws the intent is avoid they will simply be prosecuted and fined into oblivion. If you setup outside those jurisdictions, all governments have to do is to pass laws instructing banks and credit card companies to not pay them. Either way its quick way to lose a large amount money.

If you go the legal route you will end up subject to the laws that they were designed to avoid and compete directly with two existing networks both of which have been rescued from bankruptcy.

 

[weirdee]

Wouldn't most countries just block access to those stations through most providers? Nobody but the most reclusive, self maintained hermits would be able to use it, and they'd be fugitives if they live anywhere near civilization. It would be hideously expensive and this is all just for the right to access some stupid dvds of Ben Stiller's works or something.

 

[tetron]

This actually seems pretty cool, I wonder what a monthly fee would be for this ? Irregardless they should make it look like the internet on Cowboy Bebop.

"There's also the question of which national body, if any, would have jurisdiction over the project's proposed satellites."

None of them would... That's kind of the entire point of this little escapade =/