
Belarus turned off the internet – citizens hot-wired it - rbanffy
https://gizmodo.com/belarus-turned-off-the-internet-its-citizens-hot-wired-1844853575
======
jeroenhd
Aside from the horrible moves by the dictatorship, the wording in this article
does pose a point about the centralisation of the internet.

Based on the title, I was expecting to read about internet shutdowns and peer
to peer networks. Instead, it's just a story about DPI and VPNs.

Nothing here is being "hot-wired". Blocking social media isn't "shutting down
the internet" in any technical sense. Turning off cell networks because of
protests is, but those actions aren't being circumvented here. Yet still the
term "internet shutdown" is being circulated a lot.

I do wonder if the general population would claim the internet is turned off
just because Google, Facebook and Twitter aren't available. By these
definitions, does China have internet access? It's interesting to me to see
how years of internet access and growing up around smart devices has taught
people so little about the actual workings of the internet.

~~~
wesleywt
I think car mechanics are also upset that years of driving cars have taught
people so little on how a car works. For many people turning off Facebook and
Amazon is turning off the Internet because its the only sites they visit.

~~~
black_puppydog
I think equating "only using F, A, and G" with "don't know how cars work" is
plain wrong in this metaphor. Not knowing how cars work would equate more to
"don't know what a router/switch does" which is... fine I guess, for most
users who just plug a plastic box into an outlet.

Only using the 2 or 3 major websites, in car speak, would likely more look
like "only know the road to the mall, the job, and the daycare and doesn't
even realize there are other places one might conceivably go" which is... not
fine in my book, and yes, I'm frustrated about that.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
Dropping the metaphor.

People don't use their network equipment to its full potential, because they
think the web == internet. So they have all this crazy equipment with
functions they never even imagined, and only use it to browse a few websites.
So I actually think the issue is even worse than what you describe and I'm
frustrated about it too.

~~~
xnyan
>People don't use their network equipment to its full potential, because they
think the web == internet

I see that a lot of my fellow nerds have this feeling and I'm honestly, non-
trolly curious about why this is. People have wants and needs (get email from
boss, watch video, lookup a recipe) and they learn how to do that specific
task. Most people don't know what the internet is, or what a even what
computer is beyond a simple mental model that allows them to do what they
think they want to do.

For most things, this is exactly how you I and everyone else lives their lives
too. Like everyone else I'm sure there are systems that you use on a daily
basis which you don't understand beyond the specific steps that you need to
know in order to accomplish your task. I don't have anything beyond the most
basic pharmacological understanding of how the prescription drugs I take work,
and I probably never will yet I depend on them daily.

Most people will never understand most things. I see that as utterly normal.

~~~
nefitty
To me, the unusual part is that there are people who live with and use systems
on a daily basis without ever becoming curious about them. I mean, hours and
hours of every day, dependent on the internet and people never stop and ask,
“What is this thing? How does it work?”

In that vein, I was pretty impressed the other day by the Wikipedia article on
traffic lights.

------
lovelearning
I don't see any evidence of hot wiring. In my book, hot wiring would be
decentralized access over unconventional transport like long range radio or
plain old telephones or a relay of wifis or satellites in a way that can't be
easily restricted by a government.

But Telegram is just part of the same old centralized server approach.

~~~
jillesvangurp
I was in Belarus earlier this year. The thing to understand about how that
country works is that there are only two interdependent groups of people that
hold wealth: 1) the ruling elite that acquires their riches through nepotism,
corruption, etc. Belarus is basically a kleptocracy. 2) the booming IT sector,
which is now the primary export product of Belarus and employs a lot of people
working in the vast outsourcing industry that serves big western companies.
People doing that work earn pretty good salaries by Belarusian standards.
There are hundreds of thousands of them and the sector tends to hover up
anyone with relevant college degrees as there's little else to do. E.g.
dentists or doctors earn comparatively little compared to that.

The problem the regime has is that anyone with a clue and IT skills is
monetizing those skills in that sector as government jobs, including those in
its vast security forces, don't pay a lot. So, they don't necessarily have a
lot of in house competence implementing any kind of sophisticated blocking
strategies. Anyone capable of implementing that could quadruple their salaries
by jumping ship. The state telco company gets most of its revenues from the IT
sector as well. So they don't have any incentive to shut down their core
business. I'm guessing it's mostly Russia that helps them with the technical
parts of that. Of course Russia and Putin are currently mildly annoyed with
Lukashenko and are looking to grow their influence in Belarus a bit by letting
him flail desperately for a while. So, they are a bit hands off right now and
not in a mood to help him out.

The second problem is that group #1 is basically tapping into the wealth
generated by group #2. So shutting down the internet is a spectacularly bad
idea for #2 for obvious reasons and therefore not a popular notion for #1
either. The people who would be at all capable of effecting such a change are
mostly working in the IT sector already and the elite in group #1 kind of
needs them to keep on doing their thing so the money keeps flowing. Besides,
rich people need their internet fix and Lukashenko is considered a bit of an
old relic by both groups. A convenient stooge at best.

Hence internet shutdowns tend to be short lived, ineffective, and largely
symbolic. Telegram is important for both groups and completely outside of the
control of Belarusian authorities. It's the same reason the Russians have
failed to shut that down. They can't do it without cutting off the IT sector
and the financial gains coming from that sector and none of the billionaires
that make up the elite like it when their shiny iphones stop working.

~~~
Hitton
Thanks, that was much more informative and better explanation of situation in
Belarus than I have read anywhere else. Also shorter. I wonder if that is
related to the fact that you are not trying to show ads together with that.

------
2Gkashmiri
Coming from Kashmir which is __STILL __under an internet clampdown, this is
trivial. What they did was something previously unheard of. Indian government
essentially whitelisted some websites and blocked the rest. I did experiments
when amazon.in domain was whitelisted but all images were blanks. Turns out
they had not allowed aws.amazon.com. some time later they allowed the URL and
that is when I spun up a $300 credit small instance vps using Streisand. It
worked. For some time. Then they got greedy and started blocking all "ports"
so this was out of question. I ended up with a stupid simple idea. No vpn, no
nonsense. The VPS server running had a ipv4 address and I did simple SSH
tunnel over port 80. That was what did the trick for me. There were attempts
to use URL tricks, I forgot what its called. So if anyone needs my "expert"
firsthand experience can just buzz me.

Note: 4G mobile internet is still BANNED in Kashmir for "maintaining the
national integrity and sovereignty of india" and other bs

------
Jon_Lowtek
I always click such news because i know of some "Self-organizing Mobile Ad-hoc
Networks based on Delay Tolerant Networking" (MANET-DTN) technology
experimentations at german universities in the last years that use wireless
and broadband chips in cellphones (with an app) to relay public service
announcements and calls for emergency responders in situations like for
example if the cell-tower is destroyed by an earth-quake. See:
ftp://ftp.kom.tu-darmstadt.de/papers/LAG+17.pdf (not the whole thing, just a
pointer towards more pointers. the apps named in III all seem abandoned)

But the news is never about that :-/ Just "someone shut down the facebook" \-
boring

------
semaj111
I am looking forward to LEO satellite networks that are connected to the
Internet. Won't be easy to suppres yoir people then.

~~~
wmf
Except that distinctive Starlink antenna becomes an "arrest me" sign.

~~~
kardos
Unless its disguised as something else

~~~
owl57
How do you disguise a radio transmitter? It's about as futile as disguising a
searchlight.

~~~
hansor
1\. Narrow beam antenna (such as satellite antenna) does NOT propagate signal
arround it (OMNIdirectional antennas does that). It's almost impossible to
detect it unless you fly directly over the beam. Think about it as laser beam.

2\. It is possible to build verious kinds of covert antennas. Radio amateurs
do that all the time. Just google the term "stealth ham radio"

~~~
wongarsu
> Think about it as laser beam.

But if you shine a powerful laser beam into the sky it is visible from pretty
far away. It's highly focused, but also gets scattered a lot by the
atmosphere.

~~~
hansor
Think about it as __inivisible __laser beam in terms of beam width. We are
talking here 2mm wave with very directional antennas - its very hard to detect
it.

That's actually how spies send data back over the satellites:

>Unlike with SW signals, a radio signal to a satellite is very difficult to
intercept and trace, as the waves are 'beamed' straight up rather than all
around.

[https://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/rs804/index.htm](https://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/rs804/index.htm)

~~~
ajsnigrutin
What? There's no way to send a 2mm (width) wave. Yes, parabolic antennas have
very high gains in one direction, but they're far from '2mm' and far from
'invisible'.

A helicopter with the right equipment flying over urban areas would have an
easy job finding them and even pointing out the approximate location (eg. a
building) where they're located. If the antenna was inside a huge apartment
building, it would be hard to find the right apartment, if the transmitter was
turned off, but with single family buildings, it would be easy.

Ham radio operators hide and then look for hidden transmitters for fun, so
it's not that hard, especially with a budget that is given to the police.

~~~
hansor
>There's no way to send a 2mm (width) wave.

You are very wrong sir.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-millimeter_band](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-millimeter_band)

>A helicopter with the right equipment flying over urban areas would have an
__easy __job finding them.

That is not true. Helicopter would need to fly RIGHT into such directional and
tiny beam. Which is nearly impossible to do in huge city. Even when flying 2m
next to it, you would likely not detect it.

That is the reason why CIA had so much problem with pinpointing Iridium
satellite phones back in Colombia in the 90's.

~~~
ajsnigrutin
2mm is the wavelength, not the effective width (think of a laserbeam) of the
wave.

and yes, even with a laser (nanometer wavelengths) it's hard to produce a 2mm
wide beam at a helicopter distance.

------
holri
That is why projects like Freifunk or Funkfeuer are extremely important.

------
Tuganin
It seems to me that Starlink will become, in the near future, an essential
tool to fight oppression as it will serve as a secondary solution to citizens.
That is unless the government uses something like an EMP to deny service.

------
ivanstame
We have the same problem here in Serbia, and no, he is not the last dictator
in Europe. Vucic is another one, Orban is another one...Milo Djukanovic is the
greatest of them all...

------
anovikov
Whole Belarus protests story just exposes flaws of democracy - probably to the
point of it no longer being viable in a post-industrial world: let people
_really_ vote and they inevitably vote against their own interest, just
because any sort of reality possible for the masses can't be accepted by them
for being too grim: real voting can only be won by blatantly lying.

I hope we will find a way to peacefully wind down the democracy in the West
before it completely destroys our economy and society.

~~~
ganzuul
I really wonder what interests you represent to voice such an opinion.

Democracy isn't a panacea to the world's problems. It needs an informed
population in order to function, which directly and without discrimination
means government transparency. The process of opinion building needs to be
taught in schools, and journalists need to be protected from interference.

Without these pieces and more in place there is no democracy. Very few
countries actually are democratic in practice. The fight for freedom and
democracy is ongoing, and those who get in its way are misanthropes who
deserve a bitter end to their efforts.

~~~
anovikov
First and foremost democracy needs government which is funded by the people,
not other way around. In today's Belarus, this is not the case; in the near
future, it will not be the case in most or all large Western societies simply
due to technological reasons: automation will make most people unemployable
and dependent on government handouts - either direct, in form of basic income
guarantee, on concealed, through public of private "bullshit jobs", that
create no economic value but exists just so these people can consume and keep
the wheels of economy rolling.

Have that, and democratic society with freedom of speech, and you get a self-
eating monster machine that will destroy itself in less than a generation. Why
does someone who has no chances to be self-reliant, vote responsibly?
Especially if he is well-educated and well-informed, so he realises it.

------
grumple
One takeaway from this article is that condemning fascism was too much for
American tech companies... pathetic. Have companies always been this
spineless?

------
ars
> Putilo is “wanted” in both Belarus and Russia and facing up to 15 years
> imprisonment

Isn't Telegram based in Russia? I'm surprised Russia didn't try to get them to
bock Putilo, or at the minimum that Russia would cooperate with a Belarusian
internet block.

~~~
ffpip
The Russian ban on Telegram was lifted recently. They couldn't enforce it,
because Telegram was very good at proxies, so the people used it anyway. Heck,
even govt officials used it.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-
telegram-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-telegram-
kremlin-pavel-
durov/2020/06/27/4928ddd4-b161-11ea-98b5-279a6479a1e4_story.html)

[https://decrypt.co/32837/russia-lifts-ban-on-telegram-
after-...](https://decrypt.co/32837/russia-lifts-ban-on-telegram-after-two-
years-of-trying)

~~~
Nginx487
For those who do not aware how this story began. After the ban was introduced,
Russian Internet Monitoring Agency (Роскомнадзор) tried to enforce it,
blocking whole subnets where Telegram proxies were spotted. It led to massive
shutdown of many Russian IT companies' services, relying on AWS and DO
infrastructure, with resulting multimillion dollar losses. However, Telegram
remained afloat, ashaming Russian officials responsible for censorship. After
several years of numerous attempts, they still could not enforce the ban
(honestly, their expertise visibly worse than, let's say, those who designed
Great Chinese Firewall), and had to officially lift it.

------
xenospn
I’m almost positive we’ll see similar actions taken by the current US
administration as we get closer to November. Basically shut everything but
Fox/OANN down, so they can be the single source of “truth” and declare
victory. Ready for your downvotes.

~~~
darepublic
I am confident this won't happen, and would be willing to wager with you on
this

~~~
xenospn
Deal. Circle back in November!

~~~
shawnz
Not that it will matter by then. The effects of your spreading FUD about
imaginary realities aren't going to just be reversed by you acknowledging you
were wrong in a couple months.

You are actively detracting from real issues today by posting this nonsense.

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Nginx487
At least one Putin cried reading "...Belarus, sometimes called Europe’s last
dictatorship". Of course, unless you consider Russia as a Chinese posession
already, technically making it one of Asian dictatorships.

~~~
rsynnott
The "Europe's last dictatorship" moniker comes from the pre-Putin era when
Russia did seem to be democratising.

