upvote
> sci-fi technology

You know, based on some people in China has learned building VPN/proxies, the best and cheap way to communicate under surveillance/censorship is to hide it in plain sight. In fact, that's how most these proxy software works.

So no, you don't need sci-fi technology. If you really want to communicate, context-coherent code words though bugged phone line should be enough, at least enough to arrange a meet up.

Also a interesting thought: maybe one day when human invented a device that could listen to quantum communications, we turn it on and ended up detecting a sea of encrypted conversations from another space-time perhaps even an universe just aligned with ours, and the device also experiences unexplained packet loss. That's what I call a plot of a sci-fi story :)

reply
It really depends on what ypu are dealing with - if you are worried about communication being too centralized and monopolized, it might be a good idea to start building and alternative. Doing that might avoid the situation getting worse, slow it down or even reverse the trend.

If you are at a stage of "we shoot people on suspicion of them being against The Cause" then indeed, this will not help.

Still, if you are not at that stage, doing something is better than nothing.

reply
Building an Alternative internet seems like a fools errand to me, like building an alternative road network. How are you going to reach a critical mass of users? What should stop the powers that control the old internet from taking off your network as soon as you beat the odds and gain popularity?
reply
That's the thing though, no? Depending on the use-case, do you >really< need a global network?

Don't get me wrong, an uncensorable and free internet for everyone is something I am very much for, but when we start to talk about nations limiting access while information has to flow, the question is not about mass-adoption anymore, but rather seeing the right tools reaching the right people.

A good example of this, imho, is the situation in Iran, when they cut off the internet. Some people were able to help themselves thanks to VPN-like apps and outside help, but that is not the majority of people.

reply
this is the thing. an alternative internet is often suggested but whos gonna host a global switching network and put cables in the seasnfor that, and will it be allowed? what about cables in the ground or antenae everywhere to spread the network? it could simply be made illegal if it isnt already
reply
I mean it would be amazing if one day access to the internet could be truly free (from costs for users, and censorship).

But as the world is now, it's not feasible in any sense yet.

The current internet is the best we have and it >can< work, we have to find solutions inside the current possibilities until tech is advanced, cheap and accessible enough for everyone interested to easily host their own infra.

But this is not easy, because what is the real goal... really?

It feels like most of the internet is about making money or involving money, even from the end users. Is there even something to fix when most people don't care enough to ditch knowingly harmful products like Facebook, TikTok, etc?

reply
It's possible that any such technology would be too complicated to ensure a clean supply chain or have weaknesses that would allow it to be tracked or jammed. Real devices have some kind of engineering tradeoff.

But I generally think that trying to solve social problems with technology is a futile endeavor. Someone will always have violence on their side. And violence is the ultimate weakness.

reply
i like this idea. it does sound scifi, maybe quantum entanglement? i know nothing about this stuff tho :)
reply
this got downvoted, ofc because i know nothing.

but in the scifi mindset, what if you have an entangled ram bank with someone else. i write to mine and they can read it from theirs. that could create a sort of entangled ram bank mesh network network? (i know, maybe super stupid thought.)

reply
It's not super stupid, but you'd have to find a quantum effect that actually does this while transferring information. If it transfers information it can't do so over the speed of light. As long as it follows that rule it may be possible, but if we had found anything like that yet we'd almost certainly be using it.
reply

   this got downvoted, ofc because i know nothing.
It’s the StackOverflow effect. If you aren’t an expert you’re punished for having the audacity to ask questions.
reply
But it wasn't even a good question. Someone says "we need to make a website" and someone chimes in "could we do that with blockchain?" and you facepalm because that's just a buzzword they heard somewhere and the question has no meaning.
reply
its not that bad, but i do wish ppl would add a comment on the downvote to show why. glad someone else dropped the link :D it might be easy to assume someone else can find such info but in reality people are so into different things that something obvious for one person can be a complete mystery to another. no clue what to search or read to even get there apart from starting physics and electronics courses from scratch and stumbling and bumlbing along to maybe someday find out why that downvote happend.

Glad some people do like to be smart rather than smug, and provide the link :)

reply
It gets downvoted because it's a common trope that is explicitly impossible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

reply
Hence one of the key points I stated that whatever effect cannot work FTL.
reply
thank you, i wasnt aware this is interesting ^^
reply
Or, hear me out, optical laser mesh
reply
Very easy to detect and deal with, especially when you're talking about fixed positions like your home.
reply
But impossible to detect if you aren't standing in the beam path. Or use fiber, and it's impossible to detect if you don't trip over the fiber.
reply
Man, I don't think you've ever actually built free optical laser networks, they are kind of a pain in the ass and everyone is going to notice you've got one stuck up on a pole.

The next time its foggy or raining a tuned photon sensor to the spectrum that these devices run at will light up like a Christmas tree. If you're really intent on catching said people, you'd have drones flying around sprinkling light chaff and detecting where it detects optical scattering.

reply
It seems relatively simple to me to detect fibers hanging around cities as soon as the network is bigger than two nerdy neighbors. Same for lasers and telescopes.
reply
ud need tons of beams tho do maybe its easy enough to segment the network badly by finding bunches of them?
reply