[leoc]

The sad fact remains that many, maybe most people around the world are better off (sometimes a lot better off) having their Internet spied on by the US than having it spied on by their home government, or than not having Internet at all. The extra problem with having national Loon-a-like networks is that (as the OP says) apparently it goes against the grain of those stratospheric winds.

[pavs]

Enough with the "holier than thou" selective morality.

[leoc]

I'm not an American, you know. What do you consider untrue or unreasonable about my comment above?

[pavs]

You don't have to be an american to have selective bias. The idea that Americans (or any first world country) are less likely to do more harm by spying on their people comes from a belief that American government are morally superior. A dangerous type of thinking which leds to them going to a war under false pretense and killing 100s of thousands of people without and repercussions and very little legal or public scrutiny.

Can you imagine what would happen if China was involved in a "preemptive" war against any other nation and killed ~300,000 people?

But when "First world" government does it, "oh they had good intentions...", "they were less likely to do any harm.."

[klibertp]

"comes from a belief that American government are morally superior"

Not necessarily. It may as well come from a belief that "first world" governments are better supervised by people, journalists and politicians, that legislative, judiciary and executive branches of government are actually independent, or that said country is far away and probably not interested as much in someone as his own government.

How unfounded and idealistic those beliefs are is a matter of discussion, but there are many possible reasons for preferring "first world" country as an entity controlling the flow of data. Compared to the alternatives, where corruption and nepotism are much more rampant, where the opposition is routinely persecuted by the government, where journalists are killed by special agents, where you can land in a prison for long years because you jokingly said something to your friend...

[tripzilch]

The part where you say that 3rd world countries would be "better off" being spied upon by the US, in return for obtaining free WiFi! And it's not even a free choice to make.

[yohui]

> And it's not even a free choice to make.

The citizens are free to remain unconnected. The countries are free to build their own infrastructure.

Perhaps the choice isn't "free" because the incentives are too compelling, but that says something in itself about the benefits (even if we just assume the hypothetical risk of spying is real, as you did).

[tripzilch]

I was referring to the fact they can't choose not to have the balloons float above their territories.

I do think the concept of Project Loon is amazing, though.

[leoc]

I'm assuming that the major risk with Loon is NSA "upstream collection" once you connect to it, and the danger of passive radio surveillance by Loon will be limited and/or duplicate capabilities which the US government already has. I could be certainly be wrong about that though.