Don't get me wrong, but somebody has to operate an exit node and somehow there needs to be a consensus on the protocol + routing.
If the network is only earth bound fixed wireless, the distance might be small enough that the state comes for the operator itself...
This raises the cost of running this network from just money to life threat.
Getting many open source satellites up in orbit might not be feasible.
Agreed that nothing is fully trustless on Earth. The point isn’t eliminating operators, it’s avoiding single points of coercion and failure. One exit can be shut down but many exits and type of networks (includong more alternative infra like the Guifi.net’s meshnetworks in Spain for example) across jurisdictions raise the cost from “call a CEO” to sustained political pressure or directly a CEO that has control over an entire network and its also a billionaire CEO with a messiah complex, far-right leanings and tendency to drug abuse.
Absolute decentralization is impossible. Reducing capture and increasing resilience is not. That’s a meaningful difference.
Said that, I’m happy with Starlink as an extra actor for a healthy mix of ISPs and networks that brings resilience.
positive change will never happen as long as the workers require the owner's property to help make the change, because the owners can control what happens on their property.
we need a mutual aid web services (MAWS). a sharedflare. everybody's link. etc.
this was an insight of fannie lou hamer and other freedom fighters from the civil rights movement after they had their food stolen/destroyed/poisoned. they were focused on food and education and healthcare but the idea can be applied to technology infrastructure, too.
That’s a false dichotomy. Saying Starlink isn’t sovereign doesn’t imply support for state-controlled networks. Criticizing corporate centralization ≠ endorsing government control.
The goal is systems where authority is fragmented enough that capture (by states or corporations) is structurally hard
A government may introduce a list of identifiers of devices allowed to operate in their territory. With relatively frequent verification to prevent the use of captured devices.
It’s great that starlink is there, but it can still be shut down on the whim of its owner as seen in the past. So hurray for starlink! (unless the opportunistic tides of politics change)
I know you hate it, but X and Starlink are the only channels giving us information on Iran right now. If X was censored (like many leftists are advocating), we wouldn't know anything about those riots.
People rising against a regime that the left sympathizes with, obviously.
Iranians describing how Isam destroyed their country within one decade (the UK establishment is very unconfortable with that truth, for some reaslon...).
Iranians calling on Trump and thanking Elon. That tends to make leftists mad.
Being mad is one thing, but demanding X censor that speech is another. I'm not really involved in this debate so I haven't seen anything like that. Can you provide some examples of any prominent people on the left calling for X to censor that speech?
Starmer, T.Breton (former EU commissioner, the one who got denied VISA to the US going forward), google them with "X ban" and you'll have all the results you want.
Similar with many other EU political figures.
You know, not everyone on this site has an absolutist binary opinion on the Elon. Some people can give him credit for what he gets right, while simultaneously calling bullshit on his bullshit.
You need Musk to play ball. Starlink worked fine when Afghanistan turned off the internet. There’s a lot of rhetoric about the evil musk internet there - the government don’t care about things like vsat, it’s very specifically framed as anti America and anti Musk
Remember the people enforcing it (going to businesses and checking their connections) are thick as two short planks.
Iran I expect has a more effective enforcement than the taliban, but the principal is the same - starlink works fine in these countries and downlinks elsewhere (Europe in the case of Afghanistan). GEO providers like Inmarsat downlink in places like the Netherlands.
It’s all rather meaningless as only a tiny number of people have access to these systems, compared to access to the Internet via phones.
He took a very public approach to navigating that and while that would be on brand, it’s wild. He seem to have been directly communicating with Putin.
Disconnecting Ukraine at key points in battles would fit with the current administration’s flip flopping approach, but again he is at the front of it and on Twitter slagging off supposed American allies.