Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship

Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.

The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

The project's organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.

The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.

"The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let's take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities," Mr Farr said.

Beyond balloons

This [hacker] community can put humanity back in space in a meaningful way”

Nick FarrHackerspace Global Grid project

According to Armin Bauer, a 26-year-old enthusiast from Stuttgart who is working on the Hackerspace Global Grid, this is largely due to lack of funding.

"Professionals can track satellites from ground stations, but usually they don't have to because, if you pay a large sum [to send the satellite up on a rocket], they put it in an exact place," Mr Bauer said.

In the long run, a wider hacker aerospace project aims to put an amateur astronaut onto the moon within the next 23 years.

Ground network

When Mr Farr called for contributions to Hackerspace, Mr Bauer and others decided to concentrate on the communications infrastructure aspect of the scheme.

He and his teammates are working on their part of the project together with Constellation, an existing German aerospace research initiative that mostly consists of interlinked student projects.

In the open-source spirit of Hackerspace, Mr Bauer and some friends came up with the idea of a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be bought or built by individuals.

"GPS uses satellites to calculate where we are, and this tells us where the satellites are. Mr Bauer said the team would have three prototype ground stations in place in the first half of 2012, and hoped to give away some working models at the next Chaos Communication Congress in a year's time.

"We're aiming for 100 euros (£84) per ground station. Complications

Experts say the satellite project is feasible, but could be restricted by technical limitations.

"Low earth orbit satellites such as have been launched by amateurs so far, do not stay in a single place but rather orbit, typically every 90 minutes," said Prof Alan Woodward from the computing department at the University of Surrey.

Any country could take the law into their own hands and disable the satellites”

Prof Alan WoodwardSurrey University

This problem could be avoided if the hackers managed to put their satellites into geostationary orbits above the equator. According to Mr Farr, the "only motive" of the Hackerspace Global Grid is knowledge.

"This [hacker] community can put humanity back in space in a meaningful way," Farr said.

"Hackers are about open information," Farr added. "We believe communication is a human right."
source www.bbc.co.uk