| Jason! ( @ 2007-09-28 10:13:00 |
| Entry tags: | burma, myanmar, networkin, routing |
Route around it...
By now, most people not living under a rock have heard about the crazy mess going on in Myanmar. I want to leave aside the impossibly large issue of a coup, and focus on some tactical points made in the article.
They've shut off the Internets and cracked down on the press, but the cell network is presumably still up (at least, it's not mentioned in the article). What appears to be common in "unwired" countries is a dense, effective cellular network infrastructure. Why? It's way easier and cheaper to deploy, and makes more sense that wiring your country for POTS (plain old telephone service). I'm guessing that the government can't afford to shut down the cellular network.
It's clear that that's a big liability, because with the cellular network still up, stuff still gets to the Internet. It packs a punch, and easily bests shitty propaganda.
Not long from now, governments will be able to do nothing to control citizen media. Right now, the downstream channel of satellite TV makes it all but impossible to control what your citizens see (unless you take the laughable step of trying to ban satellite TV, which doesn't work).
What I want to see is the mesh network structure that the Seattle Wireless guys have worked on turned into a tool for public revolution as well as public internet. Perhaps a solar-powered weathertight mesh node that can be smuggled/dropped in place (like in a tree-top?), to provide connectivity to an existing cellular network or through hops to a border access point. The mesh should autoconfigure to provide a balanced structure for traffic. There should also be a lot of them, to make it hard to trace.
Bomb them with open connectivity, let them take care of the rest.
Or, maybe they'll just use it to download porn and launch 419 scams.