This was written in Feb 2003 - but based on an idea I'd been thinking about since about the time the US started to talk about invading Afganistan.
The US seems ready to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to have a war. A war justified by two major notions it seems - one is to remove the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq may have developed and be interested in deploying, and the other is to return democracy to Iraq. Both admirable goals, by the way.
But I have an alternative proposal. One that might achieve both goals, be rather cheaper, and even provide a mechanism that would work more generally.
Lets bring the information superhighway (or in this proposal, the information super herd path) to the Iraqis.
We can't just try to give everyone computers and modems, the government of Iraq could far too easily just block or track all modem use on the phone lines. Or could we? If the use of the phone lines could be eliminated and a secure and robust way to communicate built, people could potentially use this as a back channel for communications of all sorts.
Suppose (for the moment) that this could be done, and that we could get the appropriate computer technology into enough hands to make it worthwhile. This could potentially help solve a couple of problems that the whole war notion is aimed at.
I suspect that hidden weapons plants would last a couple of weeks at best and I would hope (my inner idealist speaking) that a foundation for democracy would be built that might be far stronger than that provided by an occupying army.
So, can it be done?
There seem to me to be two main components needed, a "communications pad" - not a full fledged computer - just a screen and communications link. I'd go for a stylus model with handwriting/gesture recognition using the screen as the input device. This would eliminate the keyboard and mouse and should allow the system to be a single package. I think an 8 inch by 11 inch by 0.5 inch size is about optimal - large enough to be usable, small enough to be concealable. Lets call this a STUPID (Stop Terrorism User Pad Interface Device - don't laugh, look up what the "PATRIOT" in the "Patriot Act" stands for).
The STUPID would have a monochrome lcd screen - the technology is known, stable and relatively inexpensive. Monochrome would also allow the resolution to be a bit higher which is a quite reasonable tradeoff. Put a low power consumption CPU inside (a transmeta chip?), memory, maybe one of those tiny disks. Sound doesn't seem necessary. A tiny digital camera on one corner could be very useful though. The lightest battery possible with solar cells on the back side for recharging. A plug for running off the mains would be nice, but there may be advantages in trying to keep the case unbroken (it would make it easier to hide in a bag of flour or the like, waterproof would be even better, of course).
It might have a disk, but for security reasons it might be better to limit the amount of information actually saved on the machine. That way if the machine is grabbed by the constabulary, it would have less information on it that could compromise the person possessing it.
Toss in a wireless communication link with the antenna in the case and we're done.
For software, it would run a web browser with a simple email facility. Email would sent to a server that could act like any of the major network mail server systems. It would have a minimal os - just enough to start the browser, handle basic IO and do the communications. It would also need a reasonably strong encryption package - though this might be handled in dedicated hardware. Probably something based on the standard PK encryption techniques would work best though key handling would need some care.
Put some good people on it for development and manufacturing and aim at making them available cheap. Say less than $20 each - so that it would be safer for someone to toss one out in case of a security sweep than to keep it. And so we could manufacture them in large quantities. Monochrome PDAs (though without the communications link) are now available for less than $40 so this does not seem out of line. (I saw an ad recently for a PDA + cell phone at less than $100 - though the service contract will undoubtedly make up for the low price.)
"But wait!" (You say, I hope.) "Wireless communication? Would that not be trackable and traceable?"
It would. The ideal would be some sort of narrow signaling mechanism that could go directly to a satellite - the right kind of laser or something might work nicely. But these would tend to be relatively heavyweight solutions. Instead use the satellite for downloading to the STUPIDs and wireless for transmission and receiving. (Of course, a satellite is not the only solution - such transceivers could be put in balloons, drone aircraft with low radar signatures, embassy rooftops (or is that a violation of diplomatic immunity?), even mountaintops outside but near the borders.
So we build another bit of hardware. Tiny! - as small as possible, possibly solar powered(?) transceivers. Reasonable range, ideally with some sort of jamming resistance built in. These would listen for transmissions from each other and from the user interface machines and would forward messages whenever possible. The sneaky part is to make them cheap. I mean "CHEAP!" Because we'd want many of them. Like Millions. And Millions.
Now add in a few larger transceivers that would serve to forward this wireless traffic up to the satellite, or out of the country and we're all set.
If you can then figure out a way to get one or a couple of the STUPIDs to everyone in the country - maybe drop them from an airplane (see, thats why we want them to be cheap). Drop many (many, many, many) of the small transceivers all over everywhere. The goal is to provide redundant connectivity and to make it effectively impossible to find them all. If their transmissions can be arranged to be short and bursty, all the better. Be prepared, of course, to watch and drop more from time to time. Put some on strings so they'd hang up in trees, make them float in water, put glue on them so people could stick them in strange locations. Setup the satellite, a set of web servers (with appropriate languages for Iraq) for user postings from folks using them and a set of servers for mail.
I don't know satellite costs, but suppose we needed to drop 20 Million (yes, 20 million - 20,000,000 - the goal being to saturate the population and have a few left over) STUPIDs and 50 Million transceivers. If the cost were $20/STUPID and $3/transceiver, that would add up to $600 Million. Thats a fair chunk of money, but probably rather less than the cost of a day or two of a full scale invasion. The sheer quantity of devices put in place at one time would almost certainly overwhelm any police efforts to seize them quickly.
Of course there are development costs too. In particular, the networking protocols need to be worked out carefully, as does the cryptographic infrastructure. These problems seem solvable though and not out of range of current technology. And it would take a year or so to develop the technology into a usable form. (I did suggest this last year, so if the right people had listened, we'd be there by now.)
Of course the security folks would also have access to these things. Some of them might be on the side of democracy, so thats a Good Thing. Others probably not. The potential for them to co-opt the technology exists, but strong encryption helps to protect the other users (the Good Guys). This does raise some interesting social questions though about the negotiation of trust - a very interesting area indeed.
The population would have to gain trust in the system itself and that would take some time. Another problem worth a good look.
If the security forces try to use these things as a tool, all the better. To do that they would have to keep the communications channels open which helps the population in general. Further, it is probably possible to figure out some good proportion of the security forces and the machines they use - if they then rely on these, messages could be constructed to mislead them and generally make things tougher. This is a two edged sword though as too much of such behavior would lessen the trust that ordinary citizens would have in the system.
It would have interesting side effects though. It would make pervasive (ubiquitous) computing a reality - these things (with a slightly different communications mechanism) could be sold cheaply around the US and the rest of the world as well. And, of course, it would provide the high tech industry with a nice shot in the arm (both hardware and software).
The same system could be used in other societies as an inducement to democracy and openness - nothing in the description relies in any deep way on assumptions about Iraq.
If cheap enough, it could also be used as an emergency communications system - just hand the things out to people when needed, seed the area with the transceivers and there you are. Keep it with your duct tape.
But I doubt the government of the US would go for it. The current trend is to see private communications - by anyone - as a threat to security. And its being said that crackdowns on strong encryption are likely. So seems all too unlikely that this government would actually act on a commitment to democracy and free speech - especially if that free speech were not being monitored, controlled and censored.
But it would have been such a fun thing to try.