Might this come home to roost (and bite)?
U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
Phi Beta Iota: This is, along with the Iranian nut-jobs trying to liberate Iran with CIA and JSOG money for outside-in propaganda (instead of enpowering the people with Autonomous Internet capabilities), is a classic exposure of how little the Department of State actually knows about what is going on in the Liberation Technology movement–Freedom Box, for example, along with various elements for Wireless Mesh Internet and of course MondoNet. Others are doing much more, generally free. Internet in a box already exists, SolarOne and VECTOR are just two examples-and then there is the $169 device that turns any cell phone into a satellite phone–the $2 million being wasted on New America could have been used to create collect call capability for any of the satellites covering Iran and other places of interest. Nothing has changed–Washington is both ignorant and corrupt. This was a publicity/ sweetheart deal isolated from reality. Internet in a Box: one laptop, one cell phone, and one $169 adapter, plus a free satellite channel. Duh.
Marcus sends:
1. in a hardcore denied area, one with real population and resource controls, a suitcase full of comms gear is probably going to be perceived as a suitcase full of spy gear if the local internal service gets their hands on it;
2. if this proves out, could conceivably undercut, in part, the very rationale for US Special Forces: influencing local peoples to do USG bidding by controlling flow of supplies through US-controlled and operated secure comms between target country and base country.
See Also:
Reference: Internet Censorship Circumvention
Broadband Telefony Near-Zero Cost
OpenBTS at Burning Man: Best Full Story
Range Networks: The ONLY OpenBTS Real Deal
Reference: Freedom & Sovereignty in the Cloud
