Something incredible happened over at the Chaos Communication
Congress in Berlin on New Year’s Eve. According to news reports, the
hacker meet united those in attendance to embark on an ambitious
program. In fact, outside of government
and multinational efforts, no one has quite dreamed up a plan as
fantastic as theirs. In short, they want to send a satellite to space. But wait, there’s a good reason for it.
Note: The above is just a stock photo and not a concept.
Concerned
about the implications of SOPA, hackers are now thinking how to go
around an internet that would be hampered by excess legislation against
piracy. According to one report:
"You might think it would be hard for just anybody to put a satellite into space, but hobbyists and amateurs have been able in recent years to use balloons to get them up there. However, without the deep pockets of national agencies or large companies they have a hard time tracking the devices.
To better locate their satellites, the German hacker group came up with the idea of a sort of reverse GPS that uses a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be bought or built by individuals."
Of course,
as most concepts go, it has a long hard road ahead before becoming a
reality. As an aspiration, however, this is just grand. Hope they have
the guts to get the whole thing literally off the ground.
