We’re not sure whether using your old iPad to take down a military defence network is on the cards for most of our clients. Let’s call that a slightly dramatic indication that we’d all be affected by a censored internet.
S.O.P.A – Stop Online Piracy Act – has been construed by most folks as an infringement on their freedom of speech and the free internet. Don’t get us wrong, there are some sensible sides to the Act, but they’re unfortunately set alongside a bunch of wildly disproportionate punishments and crazy authoritarian powers that clearly impede on the freedom of the internet.
Since geekdom is part of our nature, we tend to drift into long theological conversations here in the office about issues like S.O.P.A (testing old Kindles can become a tad repetitive in the tech department!) One of the most interesting scenarios we’re come across over iPad trade ins, old cups of coffee and homemade carrot cake is the idea of S.O.P.A’s adversaries setting up a censorship-free internet. Could they pull it off like the parade scene in Ferris Bueller where it seems unlikely but ends up being utterly grand?
• Creators of a new WWW would need their own orbiting communications satellites. They’d also need a bunch of ground stations to liaise with the com. sats. Some clever tech-hobbyists have already created several WWW networks and successfully launched satellites, but nothing long-term or even capable of powering Angry Birds on your iPod Touch 8GB
• Funding will be an issue. The Hackerspace Global Grid is kind of the working title of a censorship-free WWW, and its developers are on the hunt for funds pretty much round the clock. Their aim is to get a working com. sat. in space and out of reach of censorship.
• The Germans are currently heading the race. The Chaos Computer Club is developing low cost ground stations that would be bought for around £84 per station. Someone buys a station and they have simple, not-for-profit access to a censorship-free internet. We buy your iPhone 3G 16GB, you can afford Hackerspace and a pizza! Check out the 2014 Chaos computer Club Conference for the first planned ground station models.