HACKERS WANT TO LAUNCH THEIR OWN SATELLITES

In nations that censor the Internet -- or have tried to -- citizens came up with creative ways to get around restrictions.

At the Chaos Communications Congress, a gathering of hackers in Berlin, Germany, a call went out to take it one step

further and build a satellite network that would provide secure communications outside the control of various

governments and corporations.

The idea was presented by Nick Farr, a longtime hacker activist, and outlined further by fellow technology enthusiast

Armin Bauer. They proposed building small, cheap ground stations that would link to small, amateur-operated

satellites to produce a private communications network. Such a network, they said, could not be censored or easily

blocked.

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Bauer presented some of the preliminary work in building such ground stations with off-the- shelf parts and open-

source software. He said he would like to get the cost down to below $130 per ground station.

But getting small satellites into orbit can cost at a minimum

$250 ,000 to $1 million per launch. There are some proposals

out there to get very small satellites into orbit cheaply, and the

N-Prize is being offered to anyone who can get a nano-satellite

into orbit for under $1, 565. Some amateurs (such as the

California Near Space Project ) have launched satellites on

balloons, though none have sent one into orbit that way yet.

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There are still bugs to work out, and right now the project, part

of the Hackerspace Global Grid , is focusing on receiving data

and pinpointing locations. That’s going to be essential for any satellite to communicate with a ground station, as

microsatellites tend to operate in low earth orbit and the stations can only track them while they're above the

horizon.

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Of course there are also questions about such a network’s legality. While space itself isn’t owned or controlled by any

one nation, local radio communications are regulated. In addition, a country that really wanted to block such a

network might just try shooting the satellites down or jamming the signal.

But all of that is in the future. For the moment, the focus is on getting the network up and running and providing a

secure, reliable communications connection.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Rudz