How would you equip North Koreans to communicate with the outside world? - hpriebe
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VikingCoder
Well, it's got about the same surface area as New Mexico.

There's a lot of coastline, so if you accept one-way communication, we could
try to encourage citizens to throw message-in-a-bottle into the Sea of Japan
or the Yellow Sea, and then try to catch them later.

You could teach citizens to put a white or a black 1 square meter tile on
their roof each day, and use that as a low bit-rate message... Using
satellites.

Sat phones occur to me.

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hpriebe
Hmm… using satellites/sat phones is an interesting idea.

Do you mind further explaining your idea about putting a white or a black tile
on the roof?

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VikingCoder
010100110100111101010011

That's binary for the ASCII "SOS" which means Save Our Ship, it's the
universal distress code.

It would take you 24 days to send that message. On day one, your first bit is
a 0, so you use a black tile. On day two, the second bit is a 1, so you use a
white tile.

The satellite imaging system photographs your house and sees alternating tile
colors on different days. You try to find the signal of these tiles among the
noise of everything else changing in the satellite photo.

It's a completely impractical way to send messages. :(

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hpriebe
Ah ha! I see.

It might not be practical, but I like the idea of using tech to receive the
message rather than send it - in other words, that there might be a way for
people on the ground to send a message without tech, since that's something
that is inaccessible there.

~~~
VikingCoder
Satellites also get side-views, not just top-down.

If you wanted to communicate more quickly, you would hang your clothes on a
clothesline. Picture black and white sheets.

Day one:

01010011

Day two:

01001111

Day three:

01010011

So, that's 8 times faster.

Or you lay out a bunch of tiles... Tiles are tricky, because if someone asks,
"Why are you changing what's on your roof?!" it's hard to answer. Sheets on a
clothesline are plausible, though. "I'm doing my laundry!"

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hpriebe
Do you think anonymity is necessary? If so, how would you ensure it?

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hpriebe
Do you think cell phones are a viable tool in that context?

