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Comment by can16358p | Hacker News Reader

It is clearly breaking the law, but think of this example:

What if a corrupted government was also blocking access to freedom of speech and querying some harder-to-block public, immutable database on a blockchain was effectively circumventing this block?

Yeah, it's technically still breaking the law and it could be blocked too (albeit much harder), though it's for a good cause.

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It is my understanding that blocking bitcoin is not all that hard if you have control over ISPs like a corrupted government would have.

https://blockstream.com/satellite/ - The Bitcoin blockchain from space. No internet required.

Just need to take out 7 non-critical geo sync'd satellites.

It's magnitudes more expensive to keep putting them up than to take them down.

You're technically correct, but what's the point of this statement? Is the next reply supposed to be "then the bitcoin billionaires will just put up 100s of satellites"?

This reads a bit like when, as a child, we'd discuss who would win in a fight, Goku or Superman.

Sure, but we're not talking about Super Heroes, but existing entities like China, who only just six months ago shut down all Bitcoin mining inside it's borders in less than a month's time (and who also has anti-satellite capabilities).

I doubt bitcoin 'billionaires' would put more up, because liquidating that much bitcoin would crash their market (considering >70% of trades on exchanges are wash trades) and require them to go against tragedy of the commons.

I'm sure you'd agree that saying that "China did something" absolutely does not imply that any other country on the planet is able to do pull off the same thing.

No, I don't agree, because other developed nations have anti-satellite capabilities as well.

You've either missed the point or are intentionally ignoring the context, because "China did something" is actually "China successfully shut down bitcoin mining inside it's borders and has the capabilities to shut down these satellites if it chose to do so".

That's not debating super heroes or even saying other countries will do it. If China saw these as a problem, they will likely deal with them.

It's probably politically easier to have agents drive around neighborhoods looking for suspicious antennas and disappearing people who have them or know how to build them. But still that is much more difficult than blocking access at the ISP level.

Yup, government controls ISPs, but as Bitcoin (or any decentralized tech) gets wider adoption more players will provide gateways to the network.

Let's say (company names are just examples, I don't necessarily think those particular companies will do it) government-controlled ISPs blocked access to the core protocol. Google (over SSL + Secure /Encrypted DNS) might provide a gateway. GitHub can. Microsoft can. Apple can. AWS can. Facebook can. What can the government do then? Blocking those is effectively blocking the whole Internet. Eventually governments will realize that it can't be practically blocked.

...so they'll cut the cord and now no one has internet, or, they'll throw their hands up in the air in despair realizing "we the government lost, the people won, let's just give everyone access to everything and start trusting that our people will do the right thing with their newfound information".

One of those things seem more likely than the other.

Thinking of how many businesses rely on Internet, cutting the cable is unlikely.

They will eventually have to embrace it, or collapse economically.

authoritarians can remain irrational far longer than their economies can remain functional.

there's a reason why Orwell said a boot stamping a human face forever instead of a boot stamping a human face until it became economically disadvantageous to do so.

As far as I know China blocks a lot of things that seem indispensable to non-chinese audiences.

China went that route way long ago, and is in a unique position in terms of producing many, many goods that they can export. Compared to many other nations, they can handle it much better. And even on China you can access blockchains anyway even if they were blocked.

How will they block Starkink with thousands of satellites?

More constellations are underway: https://observer.com/2021/11/boeing-astra-space-startups-eye...

Outright trivial since Starlink uses local ground stations.

Starlink requires hardware on the ground that cannot easily be hidden, which enables corrupt governments to tear that hardware down or put pressure on the maintainers of that hardware in other ways.

Antennas can be hidden - they’re phased array and not aimed. Packets will be routed between satellites so nearby ground stations will not be needed

Starlink transforms the internet more than people realize

Can they not jam signals used by Starlink in urban areas? Likely gets them 90% of the way there.

Then they are left with chasing anyone who has any radio equipment outside the cities.

I see, so in this very specific, imaginary scenario blockchain will provide access to information that could also be accessed with a VPN?

That's incredible potential! I better get in now and shill a bit on HN to convince people that it's a good investment so that the price goes up.

Good luck decentralizing VPN access to prevent governments blocking, then.

That's true, P2P networks like Tor or Torrent don't exist and are just a figment of my imagination. Building a VPN on a similar infrastructure is by definition impossible.

Great. Make it immutable and guaranteed-persistent on Tor/BitTorrent and enjoy your freedom.

Right, if I could only sign it and replicate it somehow...

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