Computer hackers plan to protect the internet by launching own satellites

12-31-2011 • Muriel Kane via The RawStory.com

Forget science fiction — this one sounds like pure fantasy — but hackers at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin are dreaming of creating their own network of communications satellites and ground stations to forestall any attempt to control the internet.

They’d also like to put a hacker on the moon by 2035.

According to the BBC, hacker activist Nick Farr began calling for contributions to the Hackerspace Global Grid last August, spurred on by threats of online censorship such as that posed by the Stop Online Privacy Act.

The technical obstacles to such a plan might seem daunting. The BBC points out that “hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit – usually only for brief periods of time — but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.” Participants in Farr’s project, however, believe that the tracking problem would be easy to address given sufficient funding.