Julian Assange <proff@suburbia.net> writes:
[...]
bottle. Remember that starting this year, satellites of Iridium and other LEO satellite projects will start to go up, spreading bandwidth around the world. How will the Chinese government build a firewall against satellites? Say, for instance orbiting anonymous remailers with pgp? Will happen some day.
Radio *reception* of non goverment approved frequences is illegal in a number of countries, China included. Possesion of the equipment needed to received these frequencies is also illegal in a number of countries (including Australia). Sale of that equipment is illegal in still more countries, including the USA.
Governments and organized religions sought to regulate book printing almost since the time in was invented. In the last few decades, oppressive governments controlled the possession of short-wave radio receivers (confiscated by several sides during WWII to prevent citizens from listening to enemy propaganda); xerocopiers and computer printers; even typewriters (I read that in today's Iraq every typewriter must be registered and the government must be supplied with type samples). It's not difficult to imagine that governments will seek to regulate the possession of modems again. Some may recall that in the U.S. it used to be technically illegal to connect a modem to the phone jack without a permission from AT&T. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps