Cuban youth build secret computer network despite Wi-Fi ban

I stayed in a casa particular in Baracoa, Cuba, a couple of years ago. The owner had an illegal Internet connection that was beamed down via a Pringles can style setup from a tourist hotel on top of a nearby hill (apparently fancy tourist hotels there often have unrestricted Internet). He would lose his connection for a day or two each month when the setup had to be removed and hidden from the local inspector. I can't remember exactly how much he said he was paying but it was a lot even by Western standards, something like US$200/month, and the performance was pretty awful.

I love reading these kinds of stories so much. To me, this is the essence of a hacker and the spirit of people who are simply passionate about technology and the belief of freedom of information.

It feels cyberpunk and innovative. I can just feel the character of this network and the interesting people who've built it. These are the technology types that I love talking with, these are the passionate ones who are passionate even when it's not convenient.

It takes an honest and faithful heart to do these things, and I find that beautiful.

Almost seven years ago, I opened up my MacBook in downtown Havana and was shocked to find dozens of wi-fi networks appearing up. This makes so much more sense now.

the chinese could have been selling the cubans Wuawei gear for YEARS. That stuff is comparable to US stuff from cisco or whomever. So the argument that US restrictions inhibited their net access is pure propaganda. Is there a fiber link to cuba from anywhere else in the Caribbean ? I know the NAP of Americas link in Miami goes around cuba.

so assuming the US eases restrictions, how fast could a true blanketing of the country or at least Havana occur with modern grade Wifi gear? Can solar be used to supplement the poor electrical infrastructure?

This reminds me of neighborhood networks of late 90s in post-Soviet era countries like Belarus and Ukraine that were created for somewhat different reasons but for pretty much exactly the same purpose. One time we used ancient ARCNet over the regular TV coax cable with whopping 2.5mbit throughput on a good day.

Wonder are they using any of the open source tools for mesh networking like Commotion Wireless

Why does Cuba still have oppressive policies such as banning internet access if they want the US to stop enforcing sanctions on them? Seems the change should be both ways to me. Such a shame that each seems to want the other to act first, when if we put them both in a room and told them they'd have to come to an agreement before they could be let out, the embargo and oppressive policies would both be over in hours.

Some insights:

My guess is this network is something the government have under control, and they are just experimenting to see how people behave in a connected environment.

I worked as freelancer in Cuba for over 10 years, so having internet was top priority for me. I started while studying in the univ, stealing professor's accounts who had internet access, some friends were separated from the university when got caught, fortunately I made it through. After graduated the real "illegal activities" began, met a friend of a friend who was selling "legal" internet dialup connections (56bkit/s) 120 hours a month for $160 (yes! dollars), "legal" meaning: foreigners students in cuba are allowed to have internet from their rentals, so someone inside the telecommunication company (only one in cuba ETECSA) created one of these accounts for you. Eventually this guy was caught too, and my hunt for connectivity started once again. A bug on an government controlled intranet allowed you to navigate (only HTTP no HTTPS) if you happened to know a magic query string, hmmm need outside help, talked to a friend outside cuba who had a hosting to put a tunnel/proxy on port 80, this didn't last long either, next option, a guy in a government company was selling internet (illegal dialup, but only at 33kb/s for technical reasons), this was "technically" 24h, but you shouldn't used on working hours for obvious reasons, $250/month, for the first time I was able to download something greater than 50MB without resume. Oh!! HTTP 1.1 what a relief!! websites serving files without resume don't know the pain they cause to us. Well, all sorts of these stories happened until I found the "GUY", this guy had internet via satellite, he paid the subscription to HugeNET through a third party. He built a wifi network with APs and some handmade antennas, but to join to his network you needed to have an potent AP at least 50 ft from the ground and be located nearby one of his APs. After managing the infrastructure I finally had a decent internet connection, at a minimal cost $150. At some point HugeNET cancelled all the connections in cuba, and happiness ended. The bright side of the lack of internet in cuba is that you really need to focus and learn the hard way, there's no way you can see a youtube video, skype, play games, or load endless facebook pages; every time you have an error, the answer is not two google/stackoverflow clicks away. You need to learn about everything, from communication protocols, to how the browser's cache works, to repair your own computer. No technical support, no skype, no G3/4 on your phone, nothing, just 56kbit/s max 5~6h a day, and a hard drive full of pirated books.

There are a lot of people freelancing in cuba, so if at some point you had outsourced some work and your provider disappear for a couple of days, don't be so hard at them, they might be fighting harder than you think to deliver.

I wonder if the recent changes in exporting from Cuba will change things.

This is so completely out of Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother". Brilliant book, highly suggest reading.

Goes to show how accurate his estimation of what censored youth will do was.

Researchers at MIT built an 802.11 mesh network some years back. All it would take would be one or two gateway nodes in the middle of the mesh and you would have Internet at a tolerable speed. It would also save having to lay cables over your neighbours.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srini/15-744/papers/roofnet-mobicom05...

what's the best hardware to go for an el cheapo mesh network with decent range these days? tp-link with openwrt? ubiquiti?

And what if it turned out that the State Dept. was helping to bankroll this? It would be consistent with things the US has been caught doing in Cuba just in the last few years.

Would this change our opinion of it?

I wonder if we can access it from outside Cuba? It would be cool to poke around.

This is really cool, my home wifi network is called SNet.

Fantastic read.

I wonder how hard it is to acquire a computer in Cuba.

not legal advice; no endorsement of any 'illegal activities' JUST TECHNICAL. the problem is running an ethernet cable over the roof of a bystander.

a.) spray open wifi all over could be a 'security risk' b.) WIFI beamforming or point to point and a directed beam. using also a potatato chip pringles can is a possible solution.

c,) for those engineers, for engineers are disappearing from the USA; why bother studying technical subjects?

lightning and electrical wires on top of the roof?

d.) it does not seem to BE SECRET SECRET

e.) air gaps may be ok. every two hours fast bicycle ride and the solid state drive. Obviously only transfer diffs via rsync or whatever protocol.

beamforming with central nodes?