Hackers Plan Satellite Network to Skirt Censors

Satellites free of state intervention could beam all-powerful Internet into homes around the world – provided they get the satellites into orbit in the first place.

A global network of hackers is hatching a plan to send satellites into Earth's orbit to provide the denizens of a planet with an Internet that's entirely outside of state control. The Hackerspace Global Grid, a collective of "hobbyist hackers, tinkerers and part time scientists," has undertaken the challenge issued at the 2011 Chaos Communication Camp to create an independent space program. The ultimate goal is to put a hacker on the moon by 2025, but the group has also decided to set up the satellite network to prevent state censorship of the Internet. Doing so is far more possible now than it was just a decade ago, as more and more amateur rocket scientists have been able to send miniature craft to the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere on a relatively small budget. Since no institution or body governs space, no laws would be broken should a pirate satellite be placed in orbit. As the BBC points out, though, that would also allow China or the U.S. to knock out the satellites without any recourse.

Granted, getting a rocket to carry a satellite to Earth's orbit and then tracking that satellite so that it can properly beam data back down to Earth has never been completed successfully by independent, amateur scientists, but HGG is hoping that pooled resources from interested parties from around the world could make such a project feasible. To start, the collective will sell low-cost ground stations, or locations that will track the hypothetical satellites as they travel around the planet, to anyone who wants one for about $130 apiece. HGG hopes to have three prototype stations in place by July.