In an unrelenting effort to fight copyright and censorship, a professional hackers group has convened in Berlin.
This move is seen as a new dimension to the hackers’ constant efforts to fight censorship. In this context, the Open-source spirit Hackerspace revealed the plan about a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be developed by individuals.
The stations would be able to pinpoint satellites as well as make it easier for fast-moving satellites to send data back to earth, which is a kind of ‘reverse GPS’.
A conference in Berlin was organized by a German Hackers Group Chaos Computer Club, in which several issues were discussed, including the plan to send at least one satellite in space.
An active hacker Nick Farr said the first goal was an uncensorable internet in space. "Let’s take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities," he said, while also mentioning about the threat of internet censorship which had motivated the Hackerspace project.
Farr also cited the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), saying it was a threat to online freedom, as it would allow blockage of some sites on copyright grounds.
Apart from technical and financial constraints, the Hackerspace Global Grid faces legal constraints, and an interesting twist to it is the fact that the outer space is not governed by terrestrial rules, so the satellites could float freely and do their task.
