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Comment by marcamillion | Hacker News Reader

Wow....this is mind-blowing.

The potential impact of a globally connected internet is crazy. No longer can a country fully filter/control all internet traffic.

This could be a major boon to democracy.

I wonder if Google did this, partially to piss China off.

This seems like an awesome way to get around the 'Great Firewall'.

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I wonder how long it'll be before reports surface of authoritarian countries deploying anti-Loon lasers.

In all seriousness, I'm curious how difficult it would be to jam this network.

It's low power in known bands, but coving a very large area. Maybe somebody could launch their own jamming balloons. In the short term Google says they'll abide local laws so I suspect no jamming will be needed.

>I wonder if Google did this, partially to piss China off.

Clearly, not. China has enough air power (including drones) to shut down any amount of the balloons.

I don't think conventional drones can fly that high.

Begun, the balloon wars have.

Actually, kite fights are an old Asian tradition: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101010110043AA...

Missiles can.

Missiles that can are much more expensive than baloons

If I'm China, I don't care about how expensive the targets are, I just care whether keeping my death-grip on the Internet is worth the price of the ammunition.

Then how about baloons with guns?

>This seems like an awesome way to get around the 'Great Firewall'.

Who says you can deploy them over china?

>Who says you can deploy them over china?

Who says you can't? As far as it seems, it will be circling Earth in low-orbit. Not sure China could stop them if they wanted to.

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