Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan
netblocks.org
netblocks.org
Now if we solve for the real issue - lack of freedom because of a ruling class, the technical issue goes away. There's nothing to solve if you can't be oppressed, and if the ruler has no way to oppress, they'd have no way to block your ISP in the first place.
The reason for the oppression is, a large portion of every country actually wants to be oppressed. Even in a democracy, the oppression of you can simply come from a majority (EU citizens have no freedom of speech) or large minority (magats prosecuting women and doctors for murder because of a life-threatening abortion).
There is no answer, because many people want to control and silence others who don't agree - or to compensate for lack of control of their crap lives by controlling other lives. Take a look at this site, and most social media sites. Tiny-dick big-belly mods shadowbanning, the other users downvoting, making comments gray so you can't read them.
Most people are bootlickers. Most people want the type of power structure that ends up with the internet blocked. They don't want freedom - they want to be on the side doing the oppressing.
Nobody wants to be oppressed. A large portion of the population often wants to be oppressors themselves. They are addicted to controlling others. This might be raising tax on X group, or criminalizing Y minority.
Many people don't like voluntary association and choice. They want compelled behavior that conforms to their expectation.
The only way to combat this is to establish a baseline respect for individual autonomy and choice as long as it doesn't harm other people.
Most people are hesitant to allow this because they don't like the choices that others make. Either that or they define harm as doing anything which they don't like.
my wife is a chinese xpat who got her master's here and stayed. when we go to visit her old parents who have a picture of mao on the wall, half the sites she visits are blocked. She can't get to the things she spends half her free time on. But it's "good that youtube is blocked, there's bad stuff on it."
Most of that country is like that. The millions you see protesting on the street - there's over a billion who are against them and love their firewall which keeps out western propaganda. and when they get their door nailed shut from outside and die of starvation? we don't talk about that, that didn't happen, gramma just died of old age.
i have friends who live in moscow. lots of people - way over half, support the war. when their son gets drafted, given a non-working rifle with no bullets, and shot, and they don't get paid as promised - they get mad at putin for a day. they next day though, they blame the Ukrainians and support the ugly little bald troll even more.
trust me - you are very wrong. probably not in your local social circle - but that has a huge selection bias. go to the DMV, sit there for an hour, and just listen to people talking.
being under the boot is safe, you don't have to make decisions, you don't have to thing as your opinions are provided - as is at whom you should be angry. it's paradise for many a housecat.
>Mao
>...it's paradise for many a housecat.
Feels like a non-sequitur to compare opposition to state controlled medical coverage to the charmed life of house cats. People often opt to euthanize their aged pets. Animals which misbehave or become unmanageable are sent to shelters where they are euthanized. On the other hand, concerns about death panels and eugenics are laughed away.
Otherwise I agree somewhat with your sentiment. The two goal posts of tribal affiliation are pitted against each other. Authorities take their free kick.
The description of, "lower middle-class rednecks who form the republican party" reads exactly like the kind of partisan 'othering' you describe.
>being under the boot is safe
Do they want oppression or safety?
“Bless the king, for I can do X,” “The leader knows how to stop Y from harming us, and knows what we need,” “Damn the council, I get that I must go through them to do toys safely, but it’s so tedious,” etc. You may have never heard any of this, but it’s rather common all the same.
This doesn't make them good people. Good intentions mean very little when weighed against the outcome.
This is why I hate all republicans
>yes, they do want to be oppressed - but by their own people. not by your people.
This is a half truth. Nobody wants to be oppressed, but they will choose the boot they think is lighter on them or heavier on others.
You may have been around a lot of different people, but I don't think you actually listened if this is the conclusion you are drawing. You can take that as a comment from someone who identifies more as a "middle class redneck" and then the equivalent alternative.
Nobody is clamoring to have their medical and retirement benefits taken away, but they have been sold on the idea that the alternative is to pay for both their own and that of other people. They are picking the less oppressive option as they understand them.
You can ask your in-laws what they think the alternative to Mao was. You can ask the Russians what they think the alternative to Putin is. Both will provide you an alternative that they think would be worse.
People will accept some oppression if they think it is the Lesser of two options. They don't actively seek it out
I was thinking exactly that the other day, while watching a TV show on national publicly funded television, where a variety of pundits where discussing the first year of the present term of the ruling president, and the on-set comedian summed up the situation : "the panel and the country is split in two : those that don't like the ruler, and those who hate him".
The youngest panelist (a twitch political streamer) argued about constitution changes with an older panelist (journalist in a far right newspaper). The table was filled with various levels of right center, vaguely socio democrats, a few has been still stuck in the 70s, etc...
Everyone talked very loudly and eloquently.
We may lack direct power, direct control over our institution, we may live in tight societies with few chances of social mobility, we definitely have press ownership issues, etc...
But for one think, i believe we have _some_ freedom of speech.
No, I'll leave the floor to those who define "free speech" as "the freedom to insult" :P
Societies stood, jails are not flooded with opponents, I get the weekly interview of an antivax/covidsceptic/whatever on the radio because they're on the "right" political team, the governments are paying the political prices of their handling in the ballot boxes.
This is not perfect and never was meant to. Sorry if you were told otherwise.
Tides turn. People you agree with will be in the ruling majority some day. This will hurt even more ;)
< People you agree with will be in the ruling majority some day. This will hurt even more ;)
In fact, I am psat that, because this was exactly what happened to me. We had a coalition between center-right and the green party. Even the socialists turned up and everyone seemed to unite into a coalition to divide the people. I am lacking the eloquence in english to explain myself fully, but the lesson I got, sadly, was that you really can not trust anyone to not corrupt and try to control you.
Speech, like pretty much every other freedom, is restricted by laws. And, we do have a pretty decent level of separation of powers as far as "putting people in jail" is concerned; so, to put you in jail for a long time, the "insult" has to be recognized by lawmaker, judges and governement.
(The situation is more troublesome for "putting you in jail for a few hours after a demonstration". But the forerunner for "repression" on this front at the moment in Europe, is, ironically enough... the UK [1]. So, good for them that they're not under "EU tyranny" anymore, I guess ?)
Europe has a troubled history on this front (we had certain issues for letting certain people "freely" explain why certain religious minorities had to be "dealt" with). So some countries passed some laws barring some discourse about race, slaverly, discrimination, etc... that would be protected by free speech laws in other countries.
(And, contrary to one pervasive piece of "free speech", there is not yet a "global goverment" enacting the same laws everywhere. Go figure.)
As for free speech on social media platform, that's a different topic. But my very personnal opinion to think that "insulting people while protected by putting the blame on twitter" is not a fundamental right. Open a blog, become a "publisher" under "freedom of the press" laws dating back to the late 1800s. Then, bear the consequences of your speech. (Neither is twitter's right to earn money from publishing insults while claiming they're not a publisher.) But, just my 2c, and I agree to disagree.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/08/labour-urge...
The "sway" that social media platforms have over public discourse is often vastly overstated for political ends, certainly compared to that of governments (as the argument is often made that social media platforms are more powerful than governments, to make them seem more threatening.)
And the real problem is, if you consider the ability of social media platforms to moderate content to be harmful, the only solution is to have government limit the free speech of those platforms and those who participate on them by coercing them into publishing speech they don't want to, which cedes power to a potentially even worse entity. People are so terrified of the perceived power social media has now (to the point of wanting to make "algorithms" illegal) that they're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Facebook can ban me from their platform but at least they can't send goons to my house and ban me from life.
They are very few (read: "none as far as I know it") people jailed in the EU for having said that vaccines were "dangerous / ineffective / a plot by the governement to inject 5G chip / insert theory here" - neither for writing it on social media, nor for telling it on broadcast radio / TV.
However, and sorry for the cliché, there seems to be some places where you can get in jail for calling a "special operation" a cat.
This is hyperbole. A dictator might have the tools to shut off a couple of dissident. But if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over.
> Most people are bootlickers. Most people want the type of power structure that ends up with the internet blocked. They don't want freedom - they want to be on the side doing the oppressing.
That's a bit contradictory to what you said a few sentences before. Most people like to be the oppressors but not oppressed.
if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over.
A counter example is the CCP backing down from the Covid restrictions under popular pressure. If enough people put pressure, the government will react.
> Dictators will massacre their own people
You have to be reminded that the government (and the army) are themselves made of the people. This has the interesting consequences that the most brutal ones are actually oil-funded (because they can outsource security) or countries that have a racial/cultural divide (because they can rally one segment of the population against another, ie: Syria).
Mao did kill off millions in the Great Leap, with no dissent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/books/review/1000-years-o...
The solution is not technical. My dad had a TV sat dish during the communist regime. He was scheduled to be arrested in '90, but the regime fell during the winter of the previous year.
Source: I worked for a company that had an office in China, and was responsible for maintaining the Chinese servers. In that case, I had to troubleshoot multi-hour MySQL replication lags. Solved by switching the TCP implementation to BBR, because it is resistant to packet loss.
It is illegal to bring them into the country, and if you get caught doing so it's jail time. That is true today of drones and any sat communication system in many, many countries.
Even in North Korea, this process takes place. It's just that much slower and riskier, and when lots of controls are slapped on people become too destitute to buy product. But the letter of the law is ultimately just a "threat" in your SWOT analysis when you're able to tempt people with personal gain.
What good governance ultimately does is to enable everyone's indifference on these matters: the rules are out in the open, nobody's keeping secrets and blackmailing their rivals, and the result is sufficiently fair that going against it is a position only a tiny minority are inclined to take. Once everyone's in circumlocutions about their actual position because the politics have gotten out of hand, you have the kind of confusing, hysterical mess that would move someone to turn off the Internet rather than let any more rumors spread.
Thus, this kind of tech - anything in the realm of decentralized communications - is easiest to access in the places of the world that need it the least.
I drove my own vehicle across the land borders into Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt and about 40 more countries.
You DO NOT want to bring sat communication equipment into countries where it is strictly prohibited.
Some of those countries won't even let you bring 2-way radios in (military tech)
1) Certain speech such as "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" has long been considered illegal.
2) The US has much more expansive laws about "conspiracy to..." which make it illegal to have certain conversations.
Oh, those don't count? Not real speech. Sure, why not.
3) Most people will experience very real economic consequences for a very wide range of speech. We're not all yeoman farmers entirely independent of paid employment.
That presumably doesn't count because only governments can restrict liberties? Well, have it your way but I would regard losing my job due to speech as a pretty severe restriction on my liberty.
This was a serious curtailment to free speech. "shouting fire in a crowded theater" was a euphemism for telling people to dodge the draft during WWI, making this restriction an overt curtailment of free political speech. Thankfully though, this was overturned several decades ago. The current standard is that you can't "incite imminent lawless action", so for instance it's not legal to say "Hey everybody, let's lynch Mvandenbergh from that tree right now!" But to your point, this is still a restriction on free speech, it's not an absolute right in America. You are correct on that point.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:2bf140bf-...
There, you nailed it. I wish I could give you +10 ;)
Counterpoint: guns, doors, wrenches and jails are tools as well. So, I don't buy this notion that technology can't solve societal issues.
It's like saying you can't fix a leaky faucet with a wrench because the real problem is that the pipes are old and rusty. Sure, the root cause may be a societal issue, but that doesn't mean we can't use technology to mitigate the problem. I mean, imagine telling a doctor not to prescribe medicine to a sick patient because the real issue is poor lifestyle choices.
I'd go as far as saying, technology is by far most likely to solve societal issues, but it usually happens indirectly, in ways not easily predicted.
To use your example:
> It's like saying you can't fix a leaky faucet with a wrench because the real problem is that the pipes are old and rusty.
Yes, and technological solution for this ends up being... all the metal pipes getting replaced with plastics, because plastics are that amazing and petroleum industry made them cheap as dirt. There are many "technological solutions" at play here, most of them have nothing to do with plumbing, but together they both make the plastic pipes possible, and through economics, make them suddenly appear in everyone's houses.
(The whole setup of course comes with new problems in other areas, but that's almost always the case with any solution to anything.)
> I mean, imagine telling a doctor not to prescribe medicine to a sick patient because the real issue is poor lifestyle choices.
This is what a good chunk of the world believes, and tries to tell the doctors and patients alike. I consider this to be "fuck you advice"; "poor lifestyle choices" are usually not actually choices, and lifestyle changes are much, much harder to implement (often impossible in practice) compared to a medical intervention.
- A way to post a video of injustice without being traced back
- A way to shoot a video without others knowing
- A way to prove you aren't just a troll or foreign agent
- miniaturizing hardware like your dish so that they can be hidden easily
First, technically there are no EU citizens, only citizens of EU member states. Speech is handled at member state level (e.g. hate speech, as in inciting violence against an ethnic or religious group, or displaying Nazi affiliation will be handled very differently in Portugal that never had direct Nazi rule, Germany that is doing it's best to make sure there are never Nazis again, and Poland that suffered centuries of massacres from violent oppressors, including the Nazis) so it's even less correct of a saying in this case.
Second, just because it doesn't fit your ideal of free speech, it doesn't make it non-free. Free is directional (from or to), on a spectrum and a matter of perception.
There are no public places on Earth with absolute free speech, and the vast majority of people prefer it that way.
These kinds of laws are only possible because we have less strict and explicit rights to free speech in our constitution than the us.
Yes, sure this is a bit of dark spot for freedom of speech in Germany. From what I'm seeing though pauli zoo got suspended from twitter afterwards and there has been neither suit nor countersuit in that case. So maybe there is more hidden detail here than is publicly known.
The leader of my state (Berlin) is a cheater (proven; plagiarized heavily in her diss) and I strongly dislike her. I'm also positive she's exactly the kind of petty and vindictive person to go after random people insulting her.
A police raid in itself is a huge punishment already. Your home gets violated, lots of stuff destroyed and in this case, all computers and hard drives taken away. If that happened to me, it would be months of absolute pain to return to normality.
European countries have different levels of restrictions on the US, more lax in some areas, tighter in others. The main difference with the US is that the EU doesn't pretend they have unlimited free speech, the US does.
Not you though, right?
I would rather suggest that this is a education issue, mainly on how to widespread behavior that favor common goods and reciprocal mutual help as the basis of every single human out there. That is, methodologies like Marshall Rosenberg worked at disseminating.
Any other option is a race to the bottom of the rawest brutality.
>The reason for the oppression is, a large portion of every country actually wants to be oppressed.
Should I be haunted with so awful thoughts, I wish some people could help me to find an effective mental healing process, really.
Life is hard, and people having to struggle with of all sort of issues will certainly take what seems on the moment to be the easiest path to bring a bit more stability in the mess they are going through. But in no case that mean that anyone is deeply craving for oppression.
>many people want to control and silence others who don't agree
Well, that doesn’t reflect my own experience of interacting with many people. We agree that some people can be animated with that kind of despicable mindset. And we agree, certainly, that some of them can successfully gain significant political/social power. A very small minority of people like that is enough to engender nation wide desolation.
>Most people are bootlickers. Most people want the type of power structure that ends up with the internet blocked. They don't want freedom - they want to be on the side doing the oppressing.
Maybe try to go in different social circles out there. You might be positively surprise.
The only way that can be done is by reducing the cost and technical ability needed to connect to the internet with fewer intermediaries that can be wrenched by governments.
They have to catch you first.
What if every computing device sold in the West came as standard with built in, secure mesh networking and ability to uplink to satellites?
Then governments like Pakistan would have to use those computers, and lose the ability to control what their people say.
Alternatively, they could:
(1) not use computers, dooming their country to perpetual poverty
(2) come up with their own solution, and they're too small an economy to come up with one that isn't backward
(3) buy a solution from another autocracy, such as China -- and doom their country to be forever controlled by China
The problem with this idea is that the West doesn't want every compute to come with built in secure mesh networking, because they want to snoop on their people too. But if they did go for this idea, because they're a freer society than their competitors (China and Russia, mainly) it would give them a massive advantage.
> the oppression of you can simply come from a majority (EU citizens have no freedom of speech)
That's a gross over-simplification. EU citizens have a good deal more freedom of speech than in most societies that've ever existed; and in every society there are things you might say that will get you in serious trouble.
> There is no answer, because many people want to control and silence others who don't agree
A lot do; these people are stupid and if they were more sensible they would realise that among societies, there is a strong correlation between amount of freedom of speech and how nice the place is to live in.
> Most people are bootlickers. Most people want the type of power structure that ends up with the internet blocked. They don't want freedom - they want to be on the side doing the oppressing.
They imagine they will be the person wielding the fist and not the person being punched by it.
In truth it will be the ruling class doing the restrictions on freedom. And because power corrupts, even if the ruling class start off as perfectly moral and just people (ha!) they won't stay that way for long.
Although this is not a EU thing, thus varies country by country, that’s something I’m not happy about the European approach to freedom of speech.
It’s usually the Nazi stuff and defamation that is not allowed, so it doesn’t affect most people but still is in principle I would prefer the absolute free speech. The American approach is better on this.
It is not if you're the victim of the so called "freedom of speech" of others and can't do anything about it... The US also doesn't have absolute freedom of speech, just a different set of rules that makes them believe they do.
As a EU citizen, I really have no clue where you pulled that from. We must have a very different definition of freedom of speech.
I can criticize my government openly and as much as I want but I can't call for a genocide or do a nazi salute. Most of us are perfectly fine with that, but thanks for your concern about our freedom.
Are you saying that's something that has happened? Do you have a link?
Many women with life threatening conditions get stuck waiting for the inevitable because they have already created evidence by going to a doctor. If anything happens to the baby without evidence of natural causes, they can be prosecuted. This has put women in a tough place.
This is a story that might help you understand
https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-do...
1. an abortion to end a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother
2. an abortion to end a pregnancy where the fetus's life is already threatened
3. an abortion that threatens the life of the mother
4. an abortion that threatens the life of the fetus
Your first link only matches meaning 4. But meaning 4 is tautological, so I'm not sure it makes sense.
In the second link no one was prosecuted.
In neither link was a doctor prosecuted.
One of the most effective ways to maintain an authoritarian regime is to proactively prevent a critical mass of revolt from forming. You just need to keep a steady low volume of arrests and disappearances going for people who express discontent. If not enough people are actively expressing discontent, you fill your quota with members of a group or area that you see as a risk. History shows that your people will stay silent and meek, clinging to the belief that they personally have done nothing wrong.
A means of communication which authorities cannot snoop on is absolutely essential for any oppressed population that yearns to breathe free.
Everyone knows what is going on and keeps the status quo, but a shock (often external) occurs to ignite the dry wood, and disruption erupts.
Demonstrations and riots can be healthy releases of tension in democracies. Bottle-in the regular microquakes, and you get devastating earthquakes instead.
I would say Russia, China, and North Korea (all well-known to disappear people) have been incredibly stable. Even countries that were quite liberal (e.g., Iran, Myanmar) have worn their populations down into compliance in their major cities. Even the liberal West is borrowing from the same playbook (e.g., police raids on investigative journalists, politically motivated prosecutions).
The strategy works, but as you imply, maybe there's a breaking point... or maybe totalitarian states have figured out how to get as close to that line as possible without crossing it.
That said, I find FreakWAN [1] (from the creator of Redis) a very interesting low-cost, low-powered communication protocol that can go VERY far[2]
The real question is how you do this in a way that doesn't encourage one-sided propaganda, sybil attacks, etc.
I'm reminded of systems like Secure Scuttlebutt and the Othernet satellite transport. https://othernet.is/
I know the internet is fundamentally two-way. It seems there's always a few competent users who know how to get information out of a conflict zone or disaster area... getting information in beyond a few choke points seems to be the hard part.
Currently only works in Europe and North America, but nice to know there's a middle-of-no-where service that doesn't require a sub that gives you some barebones info from the outside world.
There's a post a couple posts below on their forum with someone that put their system on the internet so you can see what it pulls in: https://forums.othernet.is/t/what-happened/7647/2
Maybe a Starlink status feed. I can imagine some Starlink customers not having any back-up link to the world in some places.
Text weather forecasts.
CBC news feed if it can fit: https://www.cbc.ca/lite/news?sort=editors-picks
Maybe just include in the North American feed.
Yup! I'm looking forward to them having equipment available again (so I don't need to homebrew).
> Don't even need a big dish.
With a decent LNB, you don't need a dish at -all-.
Just FYI, somehow I'd been ending up on this page: https://othernet.is/products/dreamcatcher-circuit-board
And believing it when it said it was not available yet.
It's a social one, because social means are what are used to enforce the lockdowns - and those social means exist because of socially justified purposes in the societies.
Unless it was literally impossible to block internet access at all (some kind of unjammable starlink with undetectable receivers/transceivers?).
Yah, these types of things would be hard to detect (just point an LNB at the southbound sky... no dish... cheap electronics...)
What it's not is turnkey or filled with a good feed of information that people would want at baseline. There's no adoption model besides being a dissident, and people tend to start planning for that too late.
It is receive only-- not an uplink.
(I'm sure a tiny bit of RF leaks out of the LNB, but that could be mitigated as it is not designed for stealth).
If a normal radio transmission is a point light of a specific color, truly random spread spectrum is a grey glow.
Direct sequence spread spectrum being many different color flashing lights here, I guess.
A LNB is pretty quiet to begin with... and the LO is on the same frequency whether you're watching satellite TV or tapping into Othernet. You could, of course, make it much quieter still. Just because a lot of receivers leak a lot of oscillator and mixer frequencies doesn't mean it's intrinsic.
> and a transceiver has to, by it's nature, transmit.
Which is why I was talking about a receive-only approach. (Well, also for reasons of scalability).
People can download Wikipedia pages but weirdly they don’t. They prefer the interactive web to big downloads of static encyclopedia data, even though the latter is better and easier to distribute in a censorship-resistant manner. That’s why Tor is much more popular than high-latency censorship resistant networks that share static blobs, even though low-latency networks are relatively insecure and much easier to block. The question then is not how to save $3 of storage media: it’s whether you can simulate the interactive experience of the Internet in a satisfying way without a reliable low-latency network connection. Maybe the answer is no, maybe it’s yes. Imagine a really high-quality future LLM that you can actually interact with and ask questions about specific topics, maybe even using voice communication, and that can play games with you and generate other types of “web like” experiences. Is that really less compelling than a download of Wikipedia?
For the rest of the world, especially countries like Pakistan, solar power or a battery backup is out of reach for the majority of the population, so they won’t work.
That's because people in the US rarely, if ever, lose power, so there's no need for backups.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS?location...
[2] https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/22/asia/pakistan-power-outag...
This just isn't true. I had regular power outages when I lived in the US. Usually they'd only last some hours and usually they were caused by weather (the midwest has storms) or animals. This could have been solved by burying the cables, but that probably wouldn't happen any tine soon. In more than one location, it would have been helpful since the no power meant no water from the well.
Weather causes a lot of power outages - thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, heat, and icestorms cause this. In other areas, the electrical grid is barely holding up and just can't always take the demand well. (Example: Hot areas during the summer)
Losing power happens regularly.
Most people can't afford to have a backup system, and a good chunk of the folks that can have a backup simply can't install such a thing in their rental or the apartment they own.
It doesn't help that even if app sideloading was made possible on iOS, the significant drop in installations will still happen once the apps are pulled from official stores. Most people are not familiar with installing apps from outside of their phone's sponsored ecosystem.
1. How do you access said apps? There has to be some repository storing the apps.
2. Certain regions can straight up ban sideloading by only allowing pre-approved app stores (eg. Mainland China). Ofc there will be technical ways to bypass this, but you are limited by technical knowhow and internal intelligence agencies abilities to find those people.
3. You could make using certain apps with such capabilities illegal. People may try to use it, but if found among a small set of protesters, they can just be "isolated". How do you prevent that?
Sent to you via bluetooth file sharing (an OS feature) by someone else who already has it. Or tor, vpn, etc.
How do you pay the satellite provider?
It can be civil (friendly arguments resolved directly to lawsuits) or it can be violent (cartels dissolving people in barrels of acid), but it always has the same problems - who has control/sets the rules. Those almost always include control of the money, control of women/men in their respective domains of producing kids/violence, and the definition of 'the truth'.
If you think such a complex and broad question can be distilled to a pithy HN comment, go right ahead - why demand that I do it?
I pointed OP to the words that best enable them to find their own answers. That's not a waste of time, it's useful information that they seem to have lacked.
If you don't think that's useful, fine - offer your own answer.
Sure thing. All you have to do is to come out in big numbers, beat your fucking rulers into submission and replace them with do good types. Easy peasy. If not they'll get you no matter what tech you use.
Also, consider that ratio triangulation is a century-old technique. It seems exceedingly unlikely that a hostile government would forget this and not take out the transmitters.
https://wccftech.com/starlink-turns-on-laser-satellites-for-...
Jokes aside, corporations are no better than governments when it comes to censorship. They're corruptible, centralized points of failure.
Been to Pakistan lately?
Encryption is great but some of its proponents seem not to grasp more concrete realities.
For most people, it's entertainment. And before the internet, we had newspapers and television and radio and telephones, much more easily blocked by authoritarians than the internet.
I work with many that live out of the city. They're good people.
who's hacking StarLink?
Mobs burning Armed forces buildings - this is a new one because the Army has always been successful in selling their narrative to the common people.
It’s fascinating to see how India just leaped ahead of Pakistan even though they both got independence at the same time and were essentially the same people divided based on religion.
I hate to say this but maybe there’s something to be said about religion here.
Maybe there's something positive to be said about religion here as well I guess? Reaching for a simple answer for a complex problem is plainly intellectually dishonest.
Maybe the generals just think they'd like to run the country for a while, and they've promised their colonels positions of power, and the colonels have promised their lieutenants promotions, and so on all the way down.
I guess this is more or less the reason. They probably see themselves as the first line of defence in internal security unlike at other democratic countries.
The repeated military intervention in internal matters has set off a positive feedback loop where those capable enough and wanting to bring positive impact join the military. So remaining institutions (civil services, police, law& order, politics etc.,) continue to erode and get more corrupt.
An incident where power was taken to rule a country just because you could without any great moral basis was probably Pinochet in Chile, not many examples of this case exist.
Turkey is melting down because of their public positions on various matters; especially Xinjiang; not to mention poor decisions around fiscal policy.
Pakistan and Khan mess. Super happy they finally arrested him. We shall see how it goes, I'm optimistic it should stabilize pakistan.
Karakoram highway is a huge deal. The probability it doesn't get blown up is quite low.
Kashmir matters no doubt, but this will make talks between the 2 nuclear powers never happen.
Khalistan/Punjab, I must admit I'm surprised how many gurdwars are flying the khalistan flags here in Canada. It's their last chance for at least a generation if they want it to happen. It's not going to happen this time, they likely popped this movement. Some entity pushed it too soon.
Ladakh conflicts... Basically China isn't happy about a road being built toward them in ladakh. 250,000 indian troops vs 60,000 chinese troops accidentally collided... 3 times. But dont worry it was just 'melee' or 'skirmish' and was no big deal... India proceeded to ban all of china's internet things. China has been a sleeping tiger for decades and they wake up to attack india? Interesting. Not saying they are wrong, but China also understands why and what's going on.
Everything points to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/02/why-erdogan-has-abandon...
But more importantly we are 4 days away from the turkish election. Erdogan is likely to lose.
Pakistan may say the have Sharia, but hadd is rarely enforced as far as I know. Theft is common and so are gangs.
Iran and others are muslim countries no doubt but they aren't melding national interests with islam at any significant degree.
Sure, 'no true scotsman' and your point of enforcement. I stand by my point.
Hahahahahahahaahahahahahaha.
By this, your definition of stabilize is that the USA is again more firmly in command of Pakistan as a country. Khan is an antagonist who tried and failed to get Pakistan to be truly independent and not controlled by any other nation. Pakistan is unfortunately a pawn in geopolitical moves, and with his arrest the stooges in place will happily bend and dance for the powers that be as long as they can pocket a tidy sum.
Some comments say it's true, the other it's false charges.
Does anybody have a credible source for what's really going on?
The point of propaganda is not to make people believe it. It is to foster cynicism so that we don’t know what to believe and come to believe that nothing is true, no facts are reliable, and the world is simply a battlefield for partisan ideas. ~ Hannah Arendt
Imran is currently ushering in an 'Arab Spring' style movement in Pakistan. I use that phrase with all the positive and negative connotations that go with it. The army wants to maintain dictatorial-ish control and want to do to Imran what they've done to every Pakistani leader before this. (prison /exile/assassination) But he is too popular, now riding a fundamentalist wave that he himself can't control. So the army is having to resort to increasingly contrived methods to keep Imran under control.
I'll answer the question you presumably want to ask : "who are the baddies?". Sadly, that's a question that only the future can answer.
They tried to assassinate him and got very close to it.
Everyone will have their own take, here is mine:
What it boils down to is that Imran Kahn is by far the most popular politician in Pakistan. He was Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. He refused to take sides in the conflict, despite pressure by the US. In March of 2022, Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed Khan (no relation), sent a letter to the PTI government from his post in Washington DC saying that the US government was threatening to withdraw financial aid to Pakistan (at least $32 billion over the last 20 years) if they didn't get rid of Khan (denied by the US government). Days later Khan was removed as Prime Minister by a "no confidence" vote. Since then, corruption charges have been filed again Khan and thousands of his supporters have been surrounding Khan's home and repelling attempts by the government and the army to arrest him (until now). Now the situation is extremely volatile as the extremely unpopular government, seen as deeply corrupt by the vast majority of Pakistanis (corruption is endemic there), has arrested the most popular politician in the country on charges of corruption.
Unfortunately for them, IK was too ambitious and rebellious.
He started using the army's traditional rhetoric against them.
However, due to economic turmoil, IK became very popular right under the nose of the army.
This causes more difficulty in removing him for the army, than what they had faced with others.
Now, the army and IK are at loggerheads with each other. Essentially a good chunk of the population with a cult like following for IK, against the army which is a major political and economical force in its own right, but not power given by the people.
An immovable object vs. an unstoppable force.
Looks like IK will be the one who will be destroyed.
All other narratives (corruption, bribes, etc) are for plebs like us to debate. In the grand scheme of things, those don't matter to Pakistan, because the struggle is not over corruption, but power politics.
They arrested him, and many others, because he's demanding the constitutionally mandated elections be held. He'd been going to court for cases like terrorism because of "blasphemy".
He's a major threat to the very corrupt army and dynastic parties. All other parties have joined in a coalition with the army. The only opposition is Imran Khan.
Sharifs: The head of one has been in self exile in London while he made his brother prime minister. His daughter and nephews run the party. He was found to have been hiding money when the Panama papers came out.
Zardaris: Was prime minister when Osama bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan. Known as mr 10%. His niece and disgraced generals accused him of killing Bhuttos. He's made his son the heir to the party.
Of the top 10 richest folks in Pakistan are Sharif & Zardari.
Imran Khan is not. Instead earned most of his money through cricket when he led Pakistan to the only World Cup victory. Then he'd opened the best hospitals in Pakistan that treat most patients (all of them desperately poor) for free. Then founded/created an entirely new party that after decades came to power.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/28/pakistani-cour...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/16/pakistan-zarda...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/18/pakistan-court...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pakistanis_by_net_wort...
[5] https://twitter.com/voaurdu/status/1655992378098843709
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/pakistan-punja...
Imran has been called a zealot and a fool, but almost no one who knows him has called him corrupt.
Right away after reading that news, one could have predicted how things would go.
while he most definitely profited from this (and other) deals, the fact that this deal was passed through when he was in office without any issue then, and the fact that the other party (the property tycoon) is NOT also been indicted means that there is most definitely a political manoeuvre.
The same happened with the previous PM, Nawaz Sharif. Most people remember his name with the Panama papers, but the funny thing is, that was NOT the reason he was disqualified from office; because that would have implicated other people, and that's a no-no.
Instead he was indicted another, frankly stupid, reason... and used that as a basis to effectively neuter him by disqualifying from holding any public. This is the new tactic our benevolent overlords have chosen. Instead of assassinating someone, or jailing them for life... they just make you ineligible to hold public office and then cut their strings.
I guess the same will happen to this guy also. Meanwhile inflation is at an all time high, and I am worried about staples, but govt is too busy with random shit to focus on nation building.
Like imagine, while elon musk burnt 44 billion dollars for teh lulz, here we are, a nation of 230 million, begging for a single billion dollars just to avoid bankruptcy; we won't even be able to do anything useful with it, we will be begging again in a few months again.
I can't live here, I can't escape from here, it's like some weird Dante's hell type shit. I just envy my deceased father for having outlived this nonsense in 2020.
I really want to know what did IK profit in the current allegations? He's creating a university where students learn for free like his decades old hospitals where people get free healthcare.
----
Not everything is about money, some times it's about power.
Just because one is more corrupt doesn't mean the other is not corrupt.
Just because one does good thing doesn't mean that everything they do is good.
Just because a certain thing is good doesn't mean it's not also a white-washing attempt.
-----
I really don't want to get into a he-said she-said, because frankly I damn care.
Also, before I get accused of favoritism, let me just say beforehand that me ( and my family) were voters of the party Mr. Khan belongs to (PTI) during the 2013 and 2018 elections.
This is not a good guy / bad guy kinda deal. This is a political struggle between two factions, and the less emotionally attached you are, the better you can judge it.
Than you for the explanation.
Now they are accusing the other side of it and fabricating a case because Imran Khan.
-Truman
Presumably this is meant to imply something about Khan. Was he poor before he became a politician?
they also do it at even little bit of protests. How dare the citizens protest their own governments, no, no internet for you!
----
The world will be a better place without these govts.
Makes me wonder what will happen to the internet - and politics - once generative AI tools are sufficiently advanced and easy to use. It’s already easy to rile up people with Whatsapp forwards. Imagine how easy it would be if the Whatsapp message comes with an inflammatory AI generated video.
As a simple example, just look at how in the USA, inventor of the internet, QAnon has gained zealous, violent supporters, over a bunch of intentionally cryptic messages and literal keyboard mashing to form a "code".
Look at the Reddit frontpage for an example of how easily people will believe the supposed context provided with a video. It usually takes hours for someone to actually check and comment "actually, this is a video from 2009 from another country" somewhere way down the bottom of the discussion thread. In private chat groups, this type of checking is almost entirely absent.
Why bother using AI when you can take an old video, add a title referring to a recent event, and spreading it around on social media? Good AI is expensive, lies are cheap.
Just to say, it's not as simple as authoritarian vs not, it's mote like, authoritarian and didn't get the green light vs not.
Much better to just have control over the popular platforms, have a revolving door between them and the government intelligence agencies, and do your communication control that way.
I can't when the entire internet infrastructure is shut down.
I'm always amused when people go to lengths to defend authoritarian regimes. Pretty sure I am allowed to criticize the country I'm a citizen of.
You can of course criticize whatever you want, have double standards, and call things "authoritarian regimes" with no idea what those actually look like. Doesn't make them so.
I'm Indian. My mother's Egyptian. I'm pretty certain I know what an authoritarian regime looks like. I've seen how the Indian govt has treated Kashmir. I've also seen how authoritarian Egyptian govts in the past have treated their own people.
But sure man, lick more boots. Just remember, the 5 Rupees Modi govt is paying you for this comment won't earn you any goodwill from your fellow man you rat out on.
Blocking phone internet seems to an efdective solution to this for now.
I'm sure every authoritarian/genocidal govt in history has justified their heinous act with the same logic too. "It's for the common good/good of x people."
Protesting is the fundamental right of a human being. the 'cause' of protesting is irrelevant. You could stage a protest to have access to everyone's mothers at all time if you'd like, that too would be your right.
https://indianexpress.com/article/pakistan/imran-khan-arrest...
More on "the Al-Qadir Trust case":
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-global...
India hates Pakistan. Knowing this, it’s hard not to take what they have to say about Pakistan’s politics with a grain of salt.
There's a very healthy cross-border journalism ecosystem in South Asia.
Which Indian newspaper has press offices in "every major city in Pakistan"?
> Lots of Pakistani journalists publish in Indian newspapers due to censorship in Pakistan.
Nonetheless, Indian media has consistently shown to provide either outright false news, or very exaggerated facts to suit Indian narrative. One example is :
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/eu-ngo-report-unco...
> The researchers said they had “uncovered an entire network of coordinated UN-accredited NGOs promoting Indian interests and criticising Pakistan repeatedly. We could tie at least 10 of them directly to the Srivastava family, with several other dubious NGOs pushing the same messages.”
Trusting any content from an Indian news source about Pakistan without corroboration is entirely like trusting Russia when it's talking about the Ukraine War.
Hindustan Times, Deccan Chronicle, Indian Express, The Tribune, The Print, NDTV, The Wire, Scroll.in, Outlook India, Himal (technically HQed in Nepal) have all supported Freelance journalists plus the beginning few I have listed have had press desks in Islamabad/Karachi/Lahore as well. The list I created is non-exhaustive btw.
> Nonetheless, Indian media has consistently shown to provide either outright false news, or very exaggerated facts to suit Indian narrative. One example is : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/eu-ngo-report-unco...
The example provided was specifically around IB creating fake webpages while misappropriating photos and names of Indian journalists. This was not done by existing Indian newspapers. In fact, Indian media would have had a massive field day parading political misinfo occurring in competing news organizations.
The investigation you mentioned - https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/indian-chronicles-deep-d...
Btw - I do agree that a lot of Indian media orgs have a misconstrued image of Pakistan, but conversely so do similar orgs in Pakistan. Also, the Indian media market is extremely segmented based on readership.
A lot of the bad reporting about Pakistan in Indian newspapers comes from the newspapers aimed at normal citizens, nor policymakers. The type of newspapers that someone working in a Ministry reads is different from the kind that a migrant worker from Assam reads.
Also, you do realize that a significant portion of Indians can speak Punjabi/Sindhi/Pakhtu and listen+read Pakistani news channels or news radio along with Indians ones as well right?
It sounds like you might have some misconceptions about India as well tbh.
Indian reporting about Pakistan is about tamasha/entertainment now - Indian media orgs increasingly talk about China instead now and in the same manner that they used to talk about Pakistan.
A shared history/culture with us and it's a shame our govts have differences. We fought together to gain freedom and just drifted apart.
Average citizens of both the countries, have nothing against each other, but propaganda doesn't just shut up on both sides, and tries to keep riling people up, and becomes the main topic to get elected.
A peaceful south Asia, would've been the glorious and powerhouse of the world like in the past.
Source? Part of his allure and political inertia comes from being squeaky clean as far as bribes go.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_riots [1] https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/bjp-members-kne...
None of this is corruption. Authoritarianism. Populism, perhaps. But not fraudulent, not bribery, and not corruption.
Just off the top of my head. I will leave you to reach your own conclusions after research.
It would have. But decades of war in Afghanistan and the pouring of USD by America, disregarding the very fact that they are funding a well known and open military dictatorship, has kept the country floating.
It is in a deep cycle of debt and has no meaningful economy to speak of.
Doing arm chair analysis on macro economics is quite hilariously ignorant. If you're so sure, why dont you short the indian markets with your life savings.
I'll take predictions that won't happen for 100, Alex.
I'll give the country 10 years to implode
more inclusive, social justice oriented, and less violent
I do not mind views that are diametrically opposite to me. But, every article in western media seems to be written by someone who is 1 degree of separation from the Indian opposition. The claims are never backed by statistics, and the infographics are often so absurd that I have to wonder if I live in an upside-down world. Apparently, India has the 150th [1] least free press in the world and India has been a country with on average 2nd highest chance of genocide [2] for the entire last decade. Dig into their data a little bit, and you realize that they either only interviewed opponents of the current govt. or used zero data what-so-ever.
Note: Modi is the world's most popular leader[3]. About 20% of Muslims and 30% of Christians voted for his 2nd term[4]. For reference, Republicans have never been able to come anywhere close to 20% of the black vote-share, and no is claiming that America will collapse when a Republican wins every alternate election.
The opinion of the average HNer on India, is as bad as a Q-anon supporter on American issues. I apologize for the somewhat angry tone I take on these threads. I do not intend to start a culture war. But when ignorance and arrogance are paired this frivolously, I can't help but respond in kind.
[2] https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.org/countries/india
[3] https://morningconsult.com/global-leader-approval/
[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-...
[5] my previous rants on the matter - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I would also have you take a hard look at the fascist speeches of sitting ministers advocating for violence in India. All of these are documented and the perpetrators and sponsors of this are in government without consequence.
To make matters worse, the administration seems to be gnawing at some independence the supreme court shows by wanting to take over the appointments of Judges. It even gives judges plum positions post retirement for favorable judgements. Need I say more?
Without a course correction, I'll give it 10 years.
Execution style hit jobs on rivals? When did these happen? Are you simply making up executions in your mind?
Claiming India will collapse in 10 years is one of the weirdest statements I've heard in a long time. Which countries will not collapse according to your standards then? I'm honestly asking - no major country seems to be surviving the next 10 years as per your worldview.
I'm open to debate, but you seem to be inventing executions in thin air.
Sources: https://ncrb.gov.in/en/crime-in-india-2019 https://indianexpress.com/article/india/117-lynching-inciden... "ADL Report: At Least 50 White Supremacist Murders in 2018" by the Anti-Defamation League: https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-report-at-least-... "What We Know: The Far-Right and Extremism in 2019" by the Anti-Defamation League: https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/what-we-know-the-far-r...
https://indianculturalforum.in/2021/01/08/behind-bars-arrest...
Let me be clear. I am not a Bhakt, don't particularly love Modi and have complained quite often about bad policies during his regime. My goal is to help people build a representative view of India, not one that fawns over Modi.
The BJP absolutely pushes for Hindutva, but 'Hindutva' is an umbrella term that can mean anything from 'places greater importance on cultural traditions that have been in the subcontinent longer' to 'murderous nazis' depending on who you ask. Since you asked the question, it would help if you specify what you mean by hindutva.
to your question--> what does 'inclusivity' look like? If inclusivity is complete blindness towards religion in front of the law, then you get France style secularism which BJP pushes. On the other hand, you have the Congress's secularism that is in complete contrast to those values. In that sense, both the BJP and the Congress are secular parties, without agreement on wat that term means.
85%+ of Indian muslims are pasmanda low-caste muslims. The previous govt. (congress) did not have a single pasmanda muslim represented in their govt. The BJP is now reaching out to them directly. India never had tribal representation at the national stage, and the BJP elected a tribal woman to the presidency. The BJP has time and again, promoted meritocratic candidates over nepo-babies, making the electoral system more inclusive. India is a not a nation divided on religion alone. It is mostly divided on economics. By focusing in more effective governance and distribution of social welfare, BJP's govt. has disproportionately benefited the poorer population of India. These policies do not discriminate by religion or any other identity. Western style views of inclusivity do not translate well to other nations.
As for the bills like CAA, removal of 370 and the like. The Congress's own policies show that these had bipartisan support up until the BJP brought it up. I don't blame them, politics is politics. But, in isolation, both parties acknowledge that these were necessary changes for national security. The CAA was initially instituted by the Congress itself and the sorry state of section 370 at removal was also a result of bipartisan erosion of that bill over time. (it was meant to be a temporary provision anyway. But I won't get into that right now).
Discussions around vague words like Hindutva and inclusivity are never productive. It would be more helpful to define what we mean by these terms. Create a list of policies implemented by the Modi govt. over the last 8 years and compare those against the govt. that came before. If there is a clear trend that emerges, then we can play ball. Or else, it is all smoke-and-mirrors.
somehow "more inclusive" than the policies that preceded it?
is a kind way of framing "were partitioned intentionally to foment division, by the departing colonizers"
The brits were to blame for process of partition (or lack there-of). The haste, wanton disregard for life, the casual approach towards the largest refugee crisis in human history was certainly avoidable. They were also to blame for further exacerbating divisions via divide-and-conquer.
But the divisions already existed. The idea of a Muslim state had had been stewing for decades in certain circles. It was inevitable.
Yeah, no. They took advantage of the divisions created in the population based on religion. Divisions created by Islamic fundamentalist parties.
The border-lines were drawn by a man who had never visited India over a few months. They withdrew all state machinery overnight, and somehow expected 2 nations born into war to fare alright. Did they expect millions to cross borders and leave their homes behind without any resulting repercussions ? How is a country (Pakistan) divided in 2 by its biggest enemy (India) even supposed to work ? How are Sikhs supposed to live if the borders go right through their fields, dividing their 2 holiest sites ?
Animals when kept in captivity, cannot return back into the wild without supervision. Systems of govt are no different.
How much of this was fostered by the "divide-and-conquer" approach the British took to ruling the country, including the partition of Bengal on religious lines decades before the partition of the country itself?
A movement propped up on the idea of a "separate nation for muslims", fought hard for and achieved with much violence and bloodshed is "just drifted apart"
Wow !
When a country is split, crimes committed against those who are migrating to another country will not be prosecuted by the home country, and will not be possible to be prosecuted by the split country.
Land, Houses and other immovable assets will be stolen from those who are forced to leave respective countries.
Rapes, looting and arson are rampant, on both sides.
In the case of India and Pakistan, the division was on explicit religious lines. Islam has an outdated theology of being the only true religion and all other religions are false (as is Christianity). This theology forms the basis (whether that basis evolved later or is advocated by islam is a secondary issue) of the idea than non-believers can be treated inhumanely and are essentially no different from animals.
In essence, Partition of India was not "drifting apart". It was a violent tearing apart of countries and communities. The origin was from the muslim community, whose political leaders realized that for them to seize power, a democratic setup with majority Hindu population will be impossible. So, to preserve their power and egos, they split the country, aided by pacifists like Gandhi and Nehru.
To note, Pakistan has one of the most fertile lands on earth. Abundance of natural resources and a strategically important location.
Also to note, the plan was to destroy Hindu civilization as a whole (a historical dream of Islam. Search google for Gazwa-e-Hind). Jinnah proposed a 10 mile wide corridor, cutting across the heart of India to allow road access to east pakistan (now Bangladesh)
Partition of India is the manifestation of the idea of Gazwa-e-Hind. A strike at the Hindu India.
Or put in other words, muslims being a minority in India didn’t want to now have new rulers as India got independence from the British.
Don't think it is right to equate the violence during the partition of India to the Telangana movement.
The 1947 partition had violence where communities fought and attacked each other.
The Telangana movement except for few minor instances in the very early stages post independence, was not directly against people from Andhra region. A major part of the casualties were during protests as a direct result of government action and self harm.
There may have been general dislike for people from other region but I don't think it ever turned into enemity and hatred towards each other.
At least as a French even if we sue a few former presidents here and there, I still accept my candidate loses and we try something else for a whole (I vote Macron, as centre right).
I dont think the US should count much: they dont really transfer power, there are the same immutable parties that havent welcomed a serious challenger for decades playing theatre while having policy continuity by most standards, bar a few candies for the populace at the edge.
In any case, the world is gravitating to Us vs Them in politics to win by divide & conquer.
It seems that the people of Pakistan are pushing back hard against the former PM's arrest.
Restricting communication does indeed introduce a bias in information that people may get and thus the opinion they may forge. As such, freedom of communication is a pilar of democracy. But in some cases, communication may also be harmful and should be limited. Regardless if the info is true or false, if it may generate a harmful mass movement, it should be restrained. It's a bit more subtile than that, but I can't develop for conciseness.
I don't understand how US social media networks could cause wholesale internet shutdowns in Pakistan, or why they'd suddenly be inclined to do so. Seems much simpler for the ruling government to require their local ISPs enforce these blocks.
There's also https://kong.cash/ and others.
The need for untraceable and physically usable money is a top priority for cypherpunks and we are doing pretty well on that front.
You don't need to take down the entire internet to sabotage cryptocurrency either. Many cryptocurrencies rely on a few key validation servers as running and processing the entire block chain all the time becomes very resource intensive as crypto gains popularity. A strategic attack on only a relatively small amount of servers (8000 in the case of ethereum and all coins using that blockchain) can DoS many cryptocurrencies worldwide. Furthermore, over 46% of Ethereum's servers are controlled by two parties, so if a government can seize those companies it's likely capable of doing a 51% attack to sabotage many cryptocurrencies used on exchanges today.
I doubt there's any risk of sabotage in practice, but like most digital payment methods, this stuff only works if there's an internet connection.
I'll explain a bit. If Alice has some content to share but no internet access, Alice will sync posts (automatically) with Bob when he visits her. Then when Carol meets Bob, she gets uploads from Bob and 2 levels of his friends (not all of whom Carol might know). If Carol had some way to get online (or if she travels outside), Bob and his friends' data become available much more widely. It's basically a mesh network of friends, so much like the real world.