Pirate Parties Plan To Shoot Site Into Orbit 301
palmerj3 writes "It is almost four years ago that The Pirate Bay announced they wanted to buy the micronation of Sealand, so they could host their site without having to bother about copyright law — an ambitious plan that turned out to be unaffordable. This week, Pirate Parties worldwide started brainstorming about a similarly ambitious plan. Instead of founding their own nation, they want to shoot a torrent site into orbit."
How long will this last? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
It may come to that. It occurs to me that at some point governments are going to have to agree on methods to control extra-governmental forces like the Pirate Party/Bay, Wikileaks and even Al Qaeda.
Re:How long will this last? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, testing of surface to LEO missiles will probably not happen - it endangers everything else up there with all the debris. And any explosions themselves will send pieces into new unpredictable orbits as well.
Unless one doesn't have many satellites up there already, shooting down a satellite has the effect of endangering your own satellites as well. I'm sure the DoD would be highly amused should one of their covert satellites get destroyed from space junk caused by testing of said missile.
The only way is if NASA gets funding to do space junk cleanup and they "accidentally" do too good a job.
I think we're probably close to a critical mass of space junk - where one stray piece crashes into satellites and the satellite's pieces cause more collisions. Practically overnight we'd go from satellites everywhere to having nothing but fine mists of dust - a man-made ring like Saturn or something.
Re:Or: (Score:3, Interesting)
(shrug)
I just watch the ads. It's easier and less time-consuming.
Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
Sealand (Score:3, Interesting)
What happened of the money people donated to buy it?
Take Fallout 3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not? Benelux distributor does not carry it. It does for the PS3 and the 360 but NOT the PC version. Why? Other CE's are carried but not this on.
So, I am going to pirate the game. That way I get all the extra's, all the special packs from various shops, and zero cost and zero hassle to me.
FUCK YOU content industry, when you actually make it impossible to buy products, my limit is reached.
And yes, it is the game companies that are to blame for the distributor. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to give exclusivity for a region? How are market forces supposed to act with monopolies? No competition, single supplier, no choice. My hard earned money should support this? Nope.
Stop fucking up your customers and maybe people like me would actually buy stuff. But if you don't even put it in the stuff, what am I supposed to do?
And if you claim I should import, you just don't get it do you, why should I jump through hoops, to give someone else money? It would be like the supermarket putting up a moat, daring me to come in and spend anything at pain of death.
Re:Its weird... (Score:3, Interesting)
Somehow I feel way less sympathy for these guys now that I can afford to just buy the games I want... weird.
Try buying and installing those games. Your sympathy will return shortly.
SneakerNet (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone else pointed out that if you're this far gone, it's time to stop using the internet then for your traffic.
Not to mention that for the millions of dollars needed, as well as manpower, to put something like this into orbit you could instead "AOL" it, by sending every human on earth a CDROM (or DVD) with pirated warez on it.
Want to make a statement? Use the postal system. Make every human a "evil hacker" by giving them a DVD full of stuff the MAFFIA don't want you to have.
Think: If during prohibition, if Al Capone had given away liquor, Amendment 18 would have been repealed a lot quicker.
There is no police force large enough to arrest every man, woman and child on planet earth.
Wouldn't it be simpler... (Score:5, Interesting)
...and cheaper to just set up their own micronation platform using something like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Making_an_Island/Construction_Guides [wikibooks.org]? All they'd need is a relatively shallow site not in territorial waters. A (largely) unmanned site could be left sealed tight when heavy weather is coming, and could otherwise be maintained by a couple of guys. Armed guys, copyright law being what it is. But, hey, machine guns would be legal! http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle551-20100103-03.html [ncc-1776.org]
Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
You forgot the most powerful extra-governmental force: The people.
Oh, but the ARE rules in space. (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason that space isn't weapon laden is that they Russians and the US signed treaties keeping it a "demilitarized zone."
That means that its meant for use strictly as for observation, (look down for photon coming up,) rather than shooting down.
Even the Chinese signed the treaty because they see the wisdom behind it.
You can't defend yourself from space based "bolides" (which can strike the planet like the "Hammer of Thor" without needing to be anything other than heavy and headed in the right direction.)
Such a weapon could be built now and use "space resources" (asteroids and comets conveniently placed in a wide belt between Mars and Jupiter,) and some long-term guidance for an automated system to crash a world-changing million ton hunk of dirt and ice into this planet.
Its enough to discourage anyone knowing that after a war the loser could still "drop the hammer" on you a generation after you though it was all over and you'd won.