[Freedombox-discuss] Routing around nationwide and international Internet blocks

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 06:02:13PM -0800, Thomas Lord wrote:
> It might help this thread to look at the nature of
> risk more carefully. 
> 
> Here is a thought experiment:
> 
> What if the government switched off all of the electricity 
> in a country?    Aside from what could be done with 

Cutting power to network core points to down the
routers without having to show up at the gate is one thing.
Cutting power everywhere is another kettle of fish 
entirely. 

I don't know where you live, but there is a lot of
grid-tied PV installations around here. It takes very little
to light up a fiber, or power an embedded.

Even during Katrina some cellular towers staid up on
battery for half a day, or so. Most colos have diesel
backup. The trend is for critical networks to be
power-autonomous is definitely there.

> remaining batteries and a handful of generators, electronic
> communications would be essentially gone no matter what
> kind of box we build.

You could run an Android based Serval node or long-range 
WiFi node on a 15-20 W PV panel (99 USD, sans battery) 
indefinitely. Lighting up a fiber for only slightly more.
 
> The problem is, it's very hard for most governments to shut
> down all electricity to crack down on the people.  (The
> "smart meter" program in the US is making it easier for
> the government to do so but that's a different story :-) .)
> 
> It isn't technologically hard for the government to cut
> off power - just turn off the generation plants or cut the major

The more decentral the power generation, the more difficult.

> transmission lines.   The problem is that, then, the 
> government also does not have electricity. 
> 
> It's hard, in other words, for a government to win a 
> victory by completely shutting down the electric grid.
> 
> Similarly for shutting down the whole Internet.  Odds are,
> part of the government's ability to coordinate a crackdown
> depend on, well, not shutting down the whole internet.

Due to the topology of the Internet there are critical
points, which can be targeted both physically (Internet
Exchange Points, cable landing sites) or denying ability 
of certain core routers to publish routes, or falsify said 
published routes by altering them on the wire.
 
> It's far easier, though, for a government to distrupt 
> a centralized communication server, or to spy on its database
> of users.   
> 
> So it is low hanging fruit, so to speak, to make the 
> oppressive tactics that are currently easy for governments --
> harder.
> 
> We can never make perfect communications systems that simply
> can't be disrupted.   We can only keep identifying which
> oppressive techniques are easy and likely to pay off ... and
> work to make those harder and less likely to pay off.
> 
> The analogy to electricity isn't perfect.  The architecture
> of the Internet in theory and practice gives many governments
> finer control over where to start cutting transmission lines ...
> but only up to a point.
> 
> It's also worth noting that the trend in international 
> reaction to a country "going dark" on the 'net is a trend of
> increasing inclination to interfere and intervene.   So there
> is also that externality:  shutting down the net accelerates
> the rate at which other actions take action against the 
> government that does so.

+1 on all of the above.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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