by stego-tech
12 subcomments
- The post is mainly just a CTA against further internet centralization and government control of core infrastructure, which is fine. We need more of these, and we need more examples of their harms for folks to draw on. HN often gets distilled down to a singular cause - EU's Chat Control, Elon's shutdown of Starlink over Ukraine, a regional outage of a public cloud provider - but generalized topics like these aren't really discussed all too often I find, or are often flagged for a variety of reasons and shutdown.
As technologists of multiple stripes and disciplines - programmers, developers, engineers, architects, designers, product managers, etcetera - we need to collaborate more on the direction of our industry as a whole, rather than just specific niches we find appealing. From my specific perspective in IT, the increasing centralization across every vendor category (three major x86 server manufacturers, two CPU vendors, two GPU makers, three global-scale public clouds, ISP mono- and duopolies, a handful of commercial operating systems, a near-monopoly EUVL supplier - the list goes on) is a dire threat to not just the open internet, but open technology in general.
We need to be better advocates for and champions of the technological future we envision, rather than just blindly celebrate startups and tech fads all the time. Mr. Schneier is merely the latest and largest canary in the proverbial coal mine.
- The normalization of internet shutdowns as a "riot control" tool is deeply concerning, especially given how technically unsophisticated most implementations are. In many cases, governments aren't doing surgical BGP manipulation - they're literally ordering ISPs to turn off infrastructure or block DNS at the national level. This is the equivalent of cutting power to an entire city to stop a protest in one neighborhood.
What's particularly insidious is the asymmetry: governments can coordinate offline through military/police radio while citizens lose all communication infrastructure. The $1.5B average economic impact cited in the article is conservative - it doesn't account for destroyed business relationships, lost international contracts, or long-term reputation damage from being seen as "internet shutdown country."
The technical countermeasures are evolving but limited. Mesh networks like Briar or Bridgefy work peer-to-peer over Bluetooth but have tiny range. Satellite internet (Starlink) requires hardware that's easy to detect/confiscate. eSIM switching only works if neighboring countries' towers reach across borders. The hardest problem is the "last mile" - even if you can get data out via satellite/mesh, how do you distribute it locally when cellular is down?
We need international frameworks treating internet access as critical infrastructure with humanitarian protections, similar to water/electricity during conflicts. The ITU could mandate technical transparency - requiring governments to publicly log shutdown orders with specific geographic/temporal scope rather than blanket national blackouts. That wouldn't prevent shutdowns but would create accountability records.
- I thought this would be advocating "chaos monkey" style intentional shutdown to test institutions for resiliency in an outage situation. Might not be a bad idea. Maybe once every four years on leap day or something.
by bdcravens
2 subcomments
- While it may not be practical from a technical perspective, the current US president has suggested shutting down parts of the Internet to ostensibly combat terrorist recruiting.
https://time.com/4150891/republican-debate-donald-trump-inte...
by wereHamster
2 subcomments
- I just recently learned of Meshtastic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshtastic) and MeshCore (https://meshcore.nz/), which provide a platform for private and group messaging over P2P LoRa. They don't depend on internet, rely on the community to provide routing nodes, and thus harder to block for governments. It's gaining steam in Europe and can already be used for messaging across wide distances. It's slow though, so forget streaming videos or images. It can only carry messages. But that's often enough to coordinate or spread news.
- Its become clear that the axiom “The Net Interprets Censorship As Damage and Routes Around It” as no longer true. It hasnt been since before 2010 anecdotely but the data Schneier presents here is undeniable
- It's strange to read so many countries listed in an article about deliberate internet shutdowns, and even India called out as the world's shutdown capitol, and not one mention of China. Internet shutdowns during important political events, or even just national holidays, are common practice in China, have been for decades, and this is widely known. How is it not China that wins the great prize here?
- If anything, this just highlights the need for Starlink-style connectivity and off-grid power.
Of course, once jamming enters the picture, even that lifeline disappears.
- > In the US, for example, shutdowns would be hard to enforce.
Is that really? US government has tanks, bombers, missiles and tactical nukes while "a well regulated Militia" have petty rifles and motolovs.
It's very easy for US government to cause state-wide power blackout, effectively shutdown Internet.
- Its been happening a lot and its becoming more prevalent. This coverage from 2022 is still highly relevant and digs into some details:
https://restofworld.org/2022/blackouts/
- The recently released One Battle After Another reinforces the impotence of legal rights against a corrupt government entity. In the situations Schneier envisions, corruption will almost certainly be at play.
- Which reminds me that I've let my connection to this group lapse for... about a decade: https://air-stream.org/
Covering Adelaide, South Australia. Such communities should exist in most cities.
by loweritnow
0 subcomment
- I am going to be the odd one out here and say that internet should be cut off during protests and other unrests. It might even slow down colour revolutions and give the state some breathing space to manage public sentiment.
- I’m against internet shutdowns, but I cringe at the phrase “international community.” Who does that even include?
- According to Gigazine (Osaka, est. 2000), "In 2024, there were 296 internet shutdowns in 54 countries around the world, with Myanmar, India, Pakistan and Russia accounting for about 70% of the total."
https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20250228-internet-shutdowns...
- Related: this is an interesting case study https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/world/asia/15china.html
by vivzkestrel
1 subcomments
- did you see the data i posted earlier on how many shutdowns have happened this year across the world? https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/zach.rosson/viz/STOP_...
- fun anecdote about Ethiopia doing this to prevent cheating in national exams --- https://x.com/benkuhn/status/1339016975494811649?s=20
- One more reason to resist the fragile lifestyle that requires constant internet access. Even if you don't live in a totalitarian country where shutting down the net would be easy and probable.
Some time ago someone posted in Twitter a letter of Theodore Kaczynski giving life advice, one point being not to use internet for more than one hour a day. Too bad I couldn't find it anymore.
by hannukahharry
0 subcomment
- This is concerning in the comments:
> I suspect most can guess where this mess will end up, and it’s not good.
What I read from this is going to sound conspiratorial, but I think it’s a valid “read between the lines” of an insider. I think they’re saying that they’re alarmed that Silicon Valley is supporting the current U.S. administration assuming he’s doing what’s best for their welfare, while it’s clear based on the activities of Iran and others that are practicing working without internet that they are planning on losing internet, which could either be because Iran, Russia, China, or the U.S. itself may plan to sever or disable internet connections (while unsure what would be isolated or disabled) as an act of war or extreme and dangerously naive nationalism.
- Ahh I just wanted to host my website in Afghanistan.
(there are actual web hosting companies in Kabul, and it seems its not illegal to send money there)
by krautburglar
1 subcomments
- Worship of the eternal steady-state. Whoever speaks against any intervention to preserve it is a heretic, and must be excommunicated.
Whether it’s ML training, pentesting, or old-fashioned engineering, we have to throw the occasional curve-ball at our systems in order to improve them. Surprise internet shutdowns are good, even if the ostensible reasons for them are dumb. Maybe people will host more information offline, and become less dependent on cloud services…
- Ha
by temptemptemp111
0 subcomment
- [dead]
Hacker News