

Project Loon: Google’s biggest obstacle isn’t technology, it's politics - kfitchard
http://gigaom.com/2013/06/21/project-loon-googles-biggest-obstacle-isnt-technology-its-politics/

======
eck
> How long before some unstable government seeking to wreck havoc on its
> world’s communications infrastructure starts shooting down Loon balloons
> overhead?

I suspect that the surface-to-air missiles capable of striking targets at that
altitude are an order of magnitude more expensive than what it costs Google to
replace balloons.

If Iran or North Korea starts shooting down balloons, I bet the US Government
will be happy to quietly reimburse the replacement cost simply to deplete the
supply of SAMs that could be shot at other things.

------
fouc
Project loon shouldn't be corporate-based, it should be grassroots.

Give out free plans to build balloon mesh network access points for less than
$5-10, and let people of the world build their own.

BONUS POINTS: Implementation runs its own fully decentralized network that
could eventually surpass Internet 1.0

~~~
magicalist
It would be difficult to build a terrestrial mesh network of appreciable power
even while plugged in to the wall for $5-10 per node, let alone one on a
balloon in the stratosphere with no source of power, etc. The helium alone is
over $2.50 per cubic meter (according to[1], others might know better, and
maybe you could use hydrogen, but then there's problems with leakage and how
long your balloon stays up). The balloons also work much better in places with
no power nearby, or with such spread out infrastructure that you'll need much
longer line of site than anything on the ground can provide.

But! Grassroots mesh networking is still very possible, and very important,
especially as an internet alternative in places where internet access has been
censored or shut down (or even just cell access has been shut down...which
happens more than it should here in the US).

For anyone interested, the EFF just put out a plea for helping invalidate some
bullshit patents on mesh networking to ensure that grassroot efforts to
actually help people can move forward. More here:
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/mesh-networking-
good-o...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/mesh-networking-good-
overbroad-patents-bad)

Edit: just submitted the EFF story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5924690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5924690)
weird that it hasn't been submitted before. I feel a bit like advocacy on HN
has about the same motivations as what makes the top stories on crappy tech
blogs these days...

[1]
[http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/helium/mcs-...](http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/helium/mcs-2012-heliu.pdf)

~~~
fouc
If the mesh routers were cheap enough it would just come down to making lots
of them and distributing them all over your local area. As a result, they
wouldn't need to be that powerful. Attaching them to balloons is somewhat
optional. Perhaps even better, hand them out for free to neighbours that can
plug them in as well.

Linksys WRT54G from 2004-2005 used to be $60-70, and powerful enough to be
flashed with better firmware. It's almost 10 years later (and sadly wrt54g has
been heavily watered down). Perhaps we need a kickstarter to get cheap mesh
network routers using 2004 tech, get costs down to $5/router somehow.

------
malandrew
Approximately how many loons are required to give coverage to most of the
world?

If the density of loons per 100 square kilometers isn't too high, mesh
networking together with GPS should be sufficiently evolved at some point to
make it a network very robust to attacks by government. It's also possible
that the networks can discard GPS-assisted routing data before beaming that
content back down to earth, ensuring that we won't even be able to determine
the geographic origin of any packets.

I would imagine that one of the few things out there that may help us combat
the balkanization of the internet and eavesdropping will be the ability to
have extra national communications in the sky. I think the best thing would be
to actually set up many of the loons as Tor exit nodes. If the price of
hardware gets cheap enough the ease of putting these in the sky and not
worrying about them will be awesome.

------
antninja
Google could still turn off the balloons above the hostile nations. Saying: we
can give you cheap Internet if you want of nothing if you don't want.

If balloons have a camera, they would at least provide higher-definition data
for Maps.

~~~
phire
At the project loon launch event, I asked the google people about installing
cameras. They stated that they had very clearly decided not to install cameras
because they didn't want any issues to distract them from their stated goal of
providing internet.

------
bumbledraven
_Since Loon will use radios, it will have to use spectrum, which is tightly
regulated by the world’s governments._

Yes, but Google can just have the balloons turn off their radios when flying
over a country with whom a spectrum agreement hasn't been reached.

------
frozenport
Why not Satellites? Sounds like everything these balloons do.

~~~
wcoenen
Not enough satellite spectrum, high launch costs, not enough LEO slots, can't
be deployed on short notice, requires larger antennae on the ground for high
bandwidth. [1]

[1]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130618-googl...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130618-google-
balloon-wireless-communication-internet-hap-satellite-stratosphere-loon-
project/)

------
gwgarry
So Google can eavesdrop on everyone's communication globally and relay that to
the US government. If I were a foreign government I would tell them to fuck
off. There is no point in having a spy network of a corporation that belongs
to another nation in your airspace. If they want to build such a network, open
source the technology and let nations' own organizations that are under the
democratic control of those nations build that technology.

~~~
fiatjaf
Google does not belong to the US government.

~~~
shiven
Yes, you're right. But actually, in practice, it and other US companies are
the US government's _bitches_. All to be ridden via proxies known as
FISA/FBI/CIA/NSA/PRISM or other acronyms we don't even know yet.

~~~
frozenport
There is some truth to that, but Google is a _bitch_ in every country it
operates. For example Canada, UK, Russia and China. In HK (nation that Snowden
praised) you actually get censored Google.

------
camus
Google biggest problem is that they are not above the law of foreign countries
that want to protect themself against NSA puppets.

