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Obama and Iran and Intelligence
On Sunday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, said that she wasn't too happy with US intelligence on Iran:
I don’t think our intelligence – candidly — is that good. I think it’s a very difficult country in which to collect intelligence right now. I think our ability to get in there and change the course of human events is very low.
Now there's a big difference in the spy world between intelligence-gathering (obtaining information on what's happening in another state) and covert action (running operations to affect developments in another country, such as fomenting a coup). By and large, most people would like to see the US intelligence community do a good—if not really good—job at the former. But once again, according to DiFi, the spies are falling short.
So at Monday's press briefing I asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs if President Barack Obama was satisfied with the intelligence on Iran he's been receiving and if he has learned important information about developments in Iran from the intelligence flow that goes beyond what's been reported by the news media. Gibbs wouldn't say, explaining that he doesn't talk about the intelligence process. But he also did not take this opportunity to say that the president has confidence in the intelligence community and what it's been producing related to Iran.
Consequently, DiFi's verdict seems to stand. Hearings, anyone?
By the way, at the same press briefing, one reporter asked if the White House was considering beaming broad capability into Iran via satellite so the opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world. Gibbs said he didn't know such a thing was possible. (Is it?) But he said he would check on the technological feasibility and get back with an answer.
That caused some head-scratching in the press room. If the United States could do that and was planning on doing so, wouldn't this be one of those intelligence matters that Gibbs won't discuss? But maybe some telecom entrepreneur or Silicon Valley whiz-kids can make this happen. The Google guys? The Twitter people? XM Radio? This is the sort of covert action that could be worth outsourcing—with the project manager actually taking full credit. Think of the endorsement possibilities: the Iranian Revolution...Brought to You by DIRECTV.
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Beaming Bandwidth In
"[...] beaming broad capability into Iran via satellite so the opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world"
Beaming information in as a broadcast (or a beamcast, but that's not what we want) is straightforward: blanket the area with a powerful enough transmitter, Voice of America style, maybe from a satellite just to be different. "Beaming in" the ability for Iranians to send stuff back _out_, circumventing Iranian government chokepoints on Internet/telephone/cellphone traffic ... is a more challenging problem. Other folks' data doesn't just ride your carrier wave back out. You'd basically be replacing Iran's cell towers with antennas on a satellite, the satellite would need to be able to swamp the signal from the terrestial towers, and the satellite's receiving antennae would need to be sensitive enough to pick up ordinary cell phones not meant to transmit that far (and with the population of Iran, multiple cells would be required, so multiple antennae (or multiple satellites) and considerable processing power on board). A satellite only has so much electrical power to use; ground stations can be as powerful as needed, running off the power grid. And I'm not sure whether there are latency issues with cell phones (voice, SMS, or IP) -- I know latency would be a problem if you tried to deliver WiFi from a satellite. ("Latency," you ask? The delay caused by satellites being noticeably far away even at the speed of light. A different network protocol might deal with the lag, but we'd also have to airdrop or smuggle in hardware that uses the other protocol.)
What might work would be to get decent sat-com equipment to someone in Iran who could set up a proxy server to gateway traffic from Iran's IP network to the satellite link, but that's a weak link that the authorities would look for and capture. They're already confiscating and smashing cell phones, and smashing computers in dormitories.
Yes, it's amazing and valuable that Iranians have been able to send so much information out, and yes, we want to be able to circumvent their government's efforts to restrict that, but "beaming bandwidth in" seems unlikely to be feasible in the near future (or ever on short notice if starting from scratch). Taking this desire and building ready-to-go solutions for the next time a government tries to shut off communication is worthwhile, and being just paranoid enough to deploy the pieces to places we don't expect them to be needed just so they're already there before it's too late if we're wrong, make sense. As does trying to work with what tools people can already deploy now (but it probably shouldn't be Americans setting it up), but those tools are going to be more kludgey than just turning on a magic satellite. Maybe next time, if we build the magic satellite now and launch it to be ready just in case.
(I don't know the geography well enough -- are there places we could stick a ground-based antenna for a wireless Internet connection across the border to a net-connected population center, and enough Iranians with the right kind of transceiver to make use of it? Multiple places, for when the police or militia find the antenna we're beaming to and knock it out? Also, it'd be even lower bandwidth than what they have now, but if it gets worse, how about Ethernet-over-ham-radio, which has the advantage of not being line-of-sight? But in each of these cases, the important factor is Iranians' ability to beam data out to us, more than our ability to beam signals in.)
In short, "Is there anything we can do?" is a good question, but "Can't we just beam them bandwidth from a satellite?" is kinda goofy.
Beaming is possible,
beaming a internet signal onto the entire country of Iran is quite possible, actually the US military is currently relying on some of these very links when they are mobile in Iraq. It's costly, but certainly cheaper when comparing it against all of the the alternative efforts of trying to prevent them from joining the nuclear family. At this time I can't think of another culture outside of Iran to be so satellite-savy if I may even call it that. There are at least 1-3 satellite dishes on top of every roof top in Tehran and equally ubiquitous in other areas of the country. There are plenty of satellite technicians currently earning a good living in Iran and most of the local technical has a basic understanding of satellite technology.
There a number of operators currently offering this very service, and their terrestrial equipment for receiving and broadcasting is light portable and at times even mobile. Coupled with powerful WiFi technology on the ground, a good 50 mile radius of reasonably good amount of unfiltered bandwidth can put at every Iranian's disposal.
This is highly illegal, but so are ordinary satellite dishes currently used in Iran. As an Iranian, I would prefer satellite beams than bombs against a dictatorship who happens to be growing more radical as we speak. All the ingredients are there and the situation is ripe for allowing the Iranians to take over their own destiny by allowing them to organize, re-establish a command structure and spread their message.
This in my opinion is inevitable.
Feinstein
"I think our ability to get in [Iran] and change the course of human events is very low."
So she's *for* going into a foreign country and actively furthering American interests?
Hypocrisy in action
Exactly, Roberto.
It takes *years* of dedicated effort to set up a good humint network in a country that's so culturally and linguistically different from your own.
Thanks for nothing, Church Committee and Hughes-Ryan Act!!!
Apparently So
Based on her vote that gave George W. Bush the authority to invade, occupy and impose a new government on Iraq, I'd have to say she is.
Senate Vote Re. Use Of Force In Iraq
The Tor project has taken it
The Tor project has taken it upon themselves to help out the resistance in Iran. They have instructions to setup Iran only Tor bridges to provide secure/anonymous internet access to and from Iran.
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/measuring-tor-and-iran
Too bad the press isn't paying attention to the (very successful) efforts by the Tor project in helping out the people of Iran get communications in and out of Iran. No need for the White House to do anything, the good folks and volunteers at Tor are taking care of it in a much more practical way.
Also, whoever wrote this article/said that comment has no idea about physics and technology. Some of the comments here talking about how unbelievably implausible "beaming broadband" into Iran is are very funny.
You can't just throw internet into a country.... not in any practical way anyways, especially from a satellite without proper ground equipment.
On "Beaming Bandwith"
tagged as:- solution
A satellite does sound rather ridiculous, and you're right- the infrastructure isn't nearly in place to do such a thing. However, what does anyone know about it being technically feasible to set up a relay in Iraq or another neighboring nation, and let the coverage leak over, similar to what's happening in North Korea, with SK cell towers providing coverage for those in the north with the required equipment?
On "Beaming Bandwith"
tagged as:- solution
A satellite does sound rather ridiculous, and you're right- the infrastructure isn't nearly in place to do such a thing. However, what does anyone know about it being technically feasible to set up a relay in Iraq or another neighboring nation, and let the coverage leak over, similar to what's happening in North Korea, with SK cell towers providing coverage for those in the north with the required equipment?
The US is beaming satellite
The US is beaming satellite TV into Iran right now. In Persian. 24 hour a day news.
Here's the listing. It's on Telsat 12.
But does anybody know this? The IBB's web site is so bad that they don't even say what frequency, transponder, and format they're using.
That satellite covers the entire EU. Somebody find the channel and post the info.
Technical Ignorance
The reporter asked an ignorant question, and this article writer is just furthering the ignorance. You don't just "beam" communications into a country. I won't even bother explaining why not, it should be obvious to anyone. (ie: Imagine "beaming" in CNN to a country with no TVs. How do you get the people there to see your broadcast?)
Anyways, its none of our F'n business. Stay out of Iran.
The easiest way I'd think,
The easiest way I'd think, would be Line of Sight Communication, possibly meaning Iranians need to be close to the border, send information in and out to neightbouring countries.
Satellite internet is
Satellite internet is expensive, prone to drop outs and latency and not highly feasable for subversives and resistors due to the specialised equipment needed, but hey, as long as a bloated runaway military budget is paying...
Japan is currently conducting an experiment with highspeed satellite internet.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hX8lBEBzBIjvve9l9INca7yhM0Qw
simple, give them wifi USB kit and get 100 plus miles with work
"maybe some telecom entrepreneur or Silicon Valley whiz-kids can make this happen."
you Know its really sad you people are on the web and still dont use the search engines before you post to get informed.
i see at least someone mentioned Tor to try and educate your readership and yourself so i wont also go down there other than to say Tor could be combined with this.....
theres NO High cost TE,SV,or expensive highly trained wizkids required and as for "Beaming Bandwith" can t do it, SURE YOU CAN, WiFi 11b,11g,and 11n ordinary end users with a little knowhow do it every day, the current record for point to point wifi is 237 miles with generic off the shelf kit:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/19/venezuelans-set-new-wifi-distance-rec...
"...Ermanno Pietrosemoli has managed to shoot an 802.11 signal 382 kilometers (237 miles) between two mountains in the Venezuelan Andes. Pietrosemoli, who is president of Latin American networking association Escuela Latinoamerica de Redes, used some of Intel's long-range WiFi tech and $60 worth of Linksys hardware to achieve throughput of 3 Mbps in each direction and beat the former record of 310 kilometers (192 miles). Pietrosemoli hopes to use the tech to serve developing nations, ...."
its not hard to get long reach for 5 miles as long as you are line of sight, ans use say DIY cantanas at both ends of your link....
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1049996/10_wifi_super_antenna/?cd=5bc3b376...
these free cheap DIY USB and arial sites needs some major updating OC as it looks like people cant be bothered to innovate any more but start here
http://www.wlan.org.uk/antenna-page.html
This is an interesting
This is an interesting article.
ToddDiroberto
In Iran there was no home
In Iran there was no home grown opposition, it was work of the U.S. government via "Freedom House" and other organizations that created the colored poppet governments in the old Soviet countries. Of course Iranian leadership were much aware of the "Freedom House" and U.S. plan, that is why they waited till the last moment to make sure that all the involved agents are in the net before closing it. As we have seen the Colored Revolt plan of the U.S. Government did not do as it was intended and as it had done in countries around Iran. What it did though, it gave the Iranian government the opportunity to prove to its citizens its case once more against the malicious U.S. policies and plans.
Now with the idea of satellite and WiFi tech, as we know they are much aware and involved in the technology and wifi etc., they have launched their own satellites and certainly are prepared for these "Novel" and noble ideas and Games.
May be if we try not to be so arrogant to think "we know best" and we have the best solution for every nation; and if we accept and respect diversity of thought, culture and belief and not be inept to want everyone to conform to our way of thinking and living by any means possible, we could have a better world. Just May be. Do not get too excited it was just a thought, but not like yours.
Good day.