And why Russia refuses to participate in such foreign projects.
An unimaginable movement is taking place in the high-tech world. Several cult figures of the digital age have taken on the task of providing high-speed Internet to the remote corners of the Earth. Elon Musk with the Starlink satellite project and Google founder Larry Page are at a low start - he intends to distribute free Wi-Fi from balloons. Facebook godfather Mark Zuckerberg plans to do the same with drones. To this list we add the British project One Web - its satellites have already begun to launch Roskosmos rockets into orbit. Providing Internet access to the inhabitants of the bears' corners is a noble mission. But what mobilized digital business sharks? What is really behind these projects? We decided to talk about this with Doctor of Technical Sciences Roman Meshcheryakov,Head of the Laboratory of Cyber-Physical Systems of the Institute for Control Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Delivering information directly to the brain
Roman Valerievich, the cost of each of these projects is billions of dollars. What are the most successful businessmen of our time going to earn on?
- I'll give you a simple example: a few years ago, free Wi-Fi was launched in the Moscow metro. Of course, there were costs, but they have already paid off many times due to advertising. As soon as you connect free Wi-Fi in the subway, the first thing that opens on your smartphone screen is targeted advertising. And before you had time to look back, you swallowed a huge amount of paid content. Satellite Internet projects will also make money: advertising, payment for communication services, Internet banking, sale of entertainment services - games, music, TV shows … Musk and the company thus pave the way for a new consumer of services. Nobody cares about the cost of laying rails here - it is important which "cars" will go along this railway and what will be served to the consumer. Satellite Internet, by the way, is already yesterday.
Why?
- For example, Elon Musk is developing a more revolutionary project Neurolink. They are creating technology that, using electrodes, can directly connect the brain and computer. And the content, bypassing the intermediaries in the form of the senses, will go directly to the brain. Which, in my opinion, is categorically wrong: you cannot integrate a person into a computing environment, because he is the most unpredictable element in this chain. Suddenly the person went crazy or became inadequate, but he had such power ?!
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Elon Musk is developing the revolutionary Neurolink project.
Are we all under the hood?
You told how businessmen will make money on the satellite Internet. But what to take with people in godforsaken rural areas? There are millions of new subscribers in Africa, but they are insolvent. And here, somewhere in Yakutia, on a territory equal to France, 5 reindeer herders live. What's their fat?
- First, the French are really offended when the territory of Russia is measured in France. From my own experience I know that professors from scientific delegations are unnerved by this. And secondly, here it is a matter of principle - to cover the entire Earth with communication. Communication always comes in a package with associated bonuses. If we hang a high-resolution camera or emergency control elements on the same geostationary satellite, then we also provide the function of monitoring the territory. This can be useful in case of the same forest fires, river floods, and other natural disasters. Or take ice monitoring and control of the passage of ships along the Northern Sea Route - there, communication is a very useful and profitable thing. By the way, such projects exist within the framework of the priority areas of the strategy for the scientific and technological development of Russia and the Digital Economy.
Russia, on the one hand, launches One Web satellites into orbit, and on the other, refuses to build ground stations on its territory. At the same time, the secret services call the satellite Internet project "a potential threat to the country's national security." Why are we acting so contradictory?
- This is a difficult question. Indeed, if all satellite equipment in orbit is of foreign origin, then we put ourselves in a vulnerable position. All the hardware has undeclared capabilities. Because all the chips that are inside have a debug mode function and, upon request from the outside, can do what a third party needs, and not the one who operates this equipment. For example, with the help of such tabs, a distributed DOS attack can be organized, which is capable of destroying all critical information infrastructure. Imagine a fire somewhere, or a major accident, and the emergency services have disconnected the communication channel. And you can't do anything! This is a hypothetical picture, but in this part the security forces are right, because by losing control over this channel, we are losing independence to some extent.
How to make Brezhnev a champion
How justified are the fears that such communication systems can be used to conduct information wars?
- They are absolutely justified. After all, one and the same information can be submitted in different ways. Remember the old Soviet joke about how Brezhnev and Nixon competed in running? The American president came running first. Our journalists are racking their brains: how do you write to highlight the advantages of the Soviet system? The next day the newspapers come out with the headlines: “Leonid Ilyich took the honorable second place. Nixon came in next to last. If there is an uncontrolled communication channel, you can put into people's heads whatever you want.
We have a filter in the person of Roskomnadzor, which blocks extremist content, child pornography, etc. Why, in the case of satellite Internet, this "pad" will not work if an information war breaks out?
- Because the volume of traffic that will pass is unrealistic to track. And besides, there can be virtually no filters between the Internet user and the traffic that comes from the satellite. This is the same situation as in the border regions of the Far East, where residents often connect to Chinese providers - and SIM cards are cheaper and the connection is better. Try to track something there! This is to the question of why the security forces swear about the uncontrolled secret chats that can be created in the Telegram messengers, WhatsApp, systems like "Tor" and other anonymizers. With their help, persons who carry out terrorist activities can relatively freely correspond and assemble groups. And in this case, Roskomnadzor will not be able to supply anything to the satellite hardware.
But we can control the ground stations on our territory?
- The development of technology leads to the fact that the need for a signal repeater on the ground will disappear: we will communicate directly with the satellite. Your smartphone will essentially become a satellite phone - this is the next step, it is easy to read. I think because of this perspective there is a refusal.
What will we gain if we refuse to participate in the One Web project?
- National security. We don't buy foreign weapons. Consider the relationship between America and Chinese smartphone maker Huawei, which was banned from Google services for alleged industrial espionage. Nobody canceled information and trade wars. This is actually an ethical question: to what extent are we willing to sacrifice our personal freedom in an effort to maintain independence?
Why do we need to make another Zhiguli?
Is it possible to build this satellite system without our participation?
- Sure. It's a matter of price and timing. What prevents them from hanging a geostationary satellite over our heads? Some are already hanging. Even if we refuse to put satellites into orbit, they will invest in rockets and launch them anyway in 5 years.
Then how can we observe our national security?
- Make noise in this frequency range.
Is it like in Soviet times, when using jammers prevented citizens from listening to Western voices on their radios?
- And there are only two ways to "keep and not let go": screen the signal so that information does not leave the country. And muffle so that the noise level is higher than the level of the useful signal. There is no third.
Can we pull such a project alone?
- We can. We did the calculation of the project, it's all about the cost of the project. I remember that in 2004 the starting figure was announced at about $ 4 billion. We will launch satellites without any problems, but is it another matter whether we have a smart technological filling to work out these tasks? Most likely, it will have to be ordered externally. Or such respected organizations as "Information Satellite Systems" will have to provide a full cycle of work, and they are capable of this. The satellite is not just a piece of iron with a transmitter and a receiver inside. To carry out such a large-scale project, we must create new materials, algorithms, antennas, means of protection against sources of electromagnetic radiation and new means of thermal stabilization. After all, when most of the small satellites are thrown into orbit, they either freeze or burn up. We have groundwork in all areas,but in a full cycle it is unrealistic to do it alone. It's like building a plane alone. Today this is practically impossible without cooperation. Take Boeing, Airbus, our MS-21s or Sukhoi Superjet - in each plane there are no more than half of the native parts.
If we do not participate in foreign projects and do not begin to fork out for our own, what will we lose?
- Here, as with the auto industry: either we will completely lose the market, or we will still make our own Zhiguli. Yes, everyone understands that creating something already created is a waste of time. But in some cases it is necessary to ensure the current level of security of the country. The main problem in Russia is the lack of technology. Therefore, cooperation with the West, which is more advanced in this respect, is vital for us. Due to this, we will be able to at least reduce our lag. We need to look for our specialization and make such a community that everyone is dependent on each other. That they could not do without us. This is the only way out of this situation.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
