US funds secret 'internet in a suitcase' for dissidents

[Robbo]

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy "shadow" internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent mobile phone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype "internet in a suitcase."

Financed with a $US2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global internet.

Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border.

But others believe that the risks are outweighed by the potential impact. "We're going to build a separate infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, to surveil," said Sascha Meinrath, who is leading the "internet in a suitcase" project as director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group.
"The implication is that this disempowers central authorities from infringing on people's fundamental human right to communicate," Meinrath added.

Source

Would be interesting to know how they are going to get this 'out there', but I guess the point is that there is no one that shouldn't have this ability so it doesn't really matter who's hands it ends up in. Cool idea anyway.

 

[Stigmata]

Sounds like a handy-dandy way to kill legitimate revolution.

 

[Maestro]

Sounds like a handy-dandy way to kill legitimate revolution.

What do you mean?

 

[Asknoone]

HANDY-DANDY

 

[Acepilotf14]

Sounds like a handy-dandy way to get someone executed.

 

[Gargantou]

Sounds like a handy-dandy way to porn-surf in Saudi Arabia.

 

[ríomhaire]

Reminds me of
The IT Crowd