German Hackers Are Building a DIY Space Program to Put Their Own Uncensored Internet into Space

Clay Dillow reports in Popular Science:

There’s more than one way to stick it to The Man. There’s civil disobedience, subversive propaganda, political art, outright violent revolt--each possessing its own degree of difficulty and consequence. In a decidedly 21st-century twist, team of German hackers bent on fighting the powers that be has chosen a rather ambitious means of taking the power back: building a hacker-owned and -operated space program, complete with a constellation of communications satellites beaming uncensored Internet to users on the ground.

The Hackerspace Global Grid was borne out of a call to action at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, where hackers of all stripes gather to mull the issues of the day as they relate to their craft. Hacker activist Nick Farr--motivated by legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S.--called on the community to contribute to a project that would remove the power of censorship from governments and corporations by creating an uncensored Internet in the free frontier of space.

Of course, building both a space program capable of placing satellites in orbit and a terrestrial network of tracking stations is easier said than done. Then again, it’s easier now than it’s ever been. Space--and even low earth orbit--has long been the dominion of state entities with the resources and large-scale organizations capable of very big undertakings.

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