Jamming satellites

[cos]

Given totalitarian regimes love of censoring the internet a satellite parked over their heads providing unrestricted internet access would rather undermine them. Obviously you couldn't do it to the Chinese as they may view such a move as an aggressive act and are capable of destroying it but censorship in countries like Iran & Burma would potentially be undermined.

I ask this question because a new generation of cheaper satellites are proposed for Europe each capable of supporting 800K connections at broadband speeds to cover rural holes in accessing broadband internet, so it seems that the technology has come of age.

So how would a hostile regime attempt to jam such a satellite? It isn't like jamming the BBC World Service or Radio America, you need a line of sight connection. You could mount a DoS attack but this occasionally happens now and can be dealt with in the normal manner.

So would this be a way of undermining totalitarian regimes or am I missing something obvious?

[Space Rat]

Jun 28, 2009 9:42:19 GMT -4 cos said:

So would this be a way of undermining totalitarian regimes or am I missing something obvious?

You might be, or it might be me missing something obvious. I'm not sure.

Interactive internet use would require some way for the users to communicate back, which I don't think is really feasible with a satellite. But there is such a thing as satellite internet; I wonder if the high-speed downloads take place through the satellite, and then the low-speed communication from the user back to servers takes place on some terrestrial link. I'm not sure.

[Space Rat]

Well, scrub that, it looks like satellite internet really can use two-way communication, both directions via the satellite, with no secondary connection needed.

[cos]

Indeed. 2 way satellite communication is a reality and provided that the targeted area was accurate (you wouldn't want the whole of the middle east getting free broadband - or maybe you would) then I can't see what the Iranian (for example) government could do about it. And I wouldn't shoot down an American satellite any more than I would attack their warships in the open sea unless you want to face the consequences.

[randombloke]

Actually, it is entirely possible to jam a satellite transmission by simply being far, far louder than the satellite; orbital vehicles have strictly limited power supplies that ground stations can simply overpower with relative ease. The directionality is the difficult part to deal with, but really all that means is a high point (like a mountain) or multiple broadcast stations.

Al in, though, if you wanted to block satellite internet, you would be better off jamming the uplinks; no page requests = no page fetches, and you always know where to point your blocking signal.