Stuff like Starlink and similar constellations (which I'm torn on mainly because of the effect they're going to have on ground based telescopes) would in theory be pretty hard to cut off access to on the individual level but most people wouldn't have the up-link antennas needed to access it. Because of that you'll need some kind of alternative networking that isn't controlled by a business the government could strong arm. I've been vaguely researching for a while and it doesn't seem like anyone is really making networking tools for intermittently connected nodes where people could connect their cellphones or something together and as they move around messages are cached (encrypted) and forwarded.

Starlink/OneWeb/any-other-transmitter doesn't solve the problem. They are all unauthorized transmitters and would not be legal in the host country. Finding tankers transmitters is trivial with even consumer-grade hardware. Depending on jurisdiction, unauthorized transmitters go directly to jail.

That depends a lot on the directionality of the transmission though right? We don't know much but the satellites are using a phased antenna array so the ground stations could be as well.

I am not sure what the relevant laws say on paper, but I would expect unauthorized transmitters to never be heard from again (so to speak).

Do we know anything about the end-user Starlink ground transceiver?

Specifically, I wonder if a old digital satellite TV dish and an RTL-SDR dongle and a little software would do the job. That stuff should all be available in rough countries.

It's been described vaguely as a flat disk about the size of a pizza box that only needs to be pointed mostly skyward. [0] It's extremely unclear how complex the radio setup will be in these so I'm not sure a simple SQR dongle would have the resolution to decode the signal.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/24/spacex-reveals-more-starli...

That's enough equipment to receive Othernet (nee Outernet) transmissions[1] (which are one-way, but would keep you informed potentially - but not let you get any news out).

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othernet

RTL-SDRs are receive-only devices.

I just spent a few days with the company Bivy [1] who make the satellite comms device Bivy Stick. The current one looks like an external battery pack, and people have said it's great to take into foreign countries like Afghanistan because Authorities have no idea.

You can send an receive text messages (and soon send emails) from anywhere on the planet. I played with it for a few days, it works great.

[1] https://www.bivystick.com/

It uses the Iridium network which means it's very, very slow. Fast enough for emergency SOS messages and perhaps tweets, but it's not what most people expect from "The Internet."

Certainly you can't browse "the Internet", but we were playing with it for a few days, and you can send and receive 140 character text messages in less than 30 seconds.

That's pretty nifty when you are a long, long way from cell service (I just drove all the way around Africa for 3 years) or you're in a country that has turned off the Internet.

So 'round about 100 years ago, amateur radio was starting to ramp up after the WW I shut down. It actually meets your definition. Of course, every node requires some infrastructure, and the ionosphere as a long-haul back-bone has its vagaries, but peer-to-peer over HF radio is a well understood technology.

Now, for certain, ionospheric channels are very challenging for digital communications. Anything north of a few kilobits per second is probably a non-starter. But it would be sufficient for tactical comms, print news, and a few small images.

It strikes me that an Arduino "shield" (it would be more the size of a book) could make an interesting HF gateway node, within the bandwidth limitations. It could be built in ham-radio friendly countries, and allowed to leak into less tolerant regimes -- although in some countries possession would probably come at considerable personal risk.

The actual field-radio node would not need huge power and a great antenna -- because radio nodes can be asymmetric a larger station in a safe country with big antennas and a big amp could make up for a pip-squeak field node.

Amateur radio is great for last-ditch communications in a disaster, but it is not in any way covert or safe for people in a hostile regime to use; a bit of direction-finding equipment will easily track down anyone using it.

Agreed. Covert radio ops requires non-trivial op-sec.

I like the radio idea. It brings to mind the good old days of pirate radio stations.

As for the objections regarding the of locating radio transmissions by adversaries, as technology becomes cheaper and more miniaturized, it will become more and more feasible to have very small, very cheap, disposable repeaters, which could be deployed on mobile, relatively anonymous transport (like flying drones, trains, and ships), and perhaps automatically activated long after their owner has left.. and perhaps activated only in case of emergencies, like this blackout.

Individuals wishing to communicate through these repeaters could send very short and rare transmissions from different, and maybe also mobile locations, so that finding them will be much more difficult.

Unfortunately, if adversaries are aware of these devices (and they would be were such devices to ever become widely deployed), they could still either jam them or perform a denial of service attack by flooding them with their own transmissions. Some sort of steganography might be of use here, but I'm not sure how effective it would be if lots of people know about it, which is a requirement for any widely deployed technology.

Maybe some sort of an open access via satellites that cover the entire surface of the Earth. In which case just having a device that can tune into the signal would be enough to get outbound access.

But then someone has to control that satellite access too... The "good guys" no doubt.