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from the hacking-as-hacking-was-intended-to-be dept.
Michael Weissenstein reports for the Associated Press:
Cut off from the Internet, young Cubans have quietly linked thousands of computers into a hidden network that stretches miles across Havana, letting them chat with friends, play games and download hit movies in a mini-replica of the online world that most can't access.
Home Internet connections are banned for all but a handful of Cubans, and the government charges nearly a quarter of a month's salary for an hour online in government-run hotels and Internet centers. As a result, most people on the island live offline, complaining about their lack of access to information and contact with friends and family abroad.
A small minority have covertly engineered a partial solution by pooling funds to create a private network of more than 9,000 computers with small, inexpensive but powerful hidden Wi-Fi antennas and Ethernet cables strung over streets and rooftops spanning the entire city. Disconnected from the real Internet, the network is limited, local and built with equipment commercially available around the world, with no help from any outside government, organizers say.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday January 26 2015, @07:16PM
A few very short years before Wi-Fi became ubiquitous, my school built some student apartments which weren't networked in any way.
We had a lot of fun pulling coax through the whole building using any existing hole, gap, ventilation, phone/doorbell conduit that had enough space. It took a few home-made repeaters and we definitely exceeded the standard span length for proper CD, but it worked as long as we needed it. We probably ended up knowing the building better than the maintenance guys.