Behind the Tech of the Everest Protest

It has been just over a month since the fantastic action on Everest. After the initial excitement and adrenaline wore off, the deep significance of what was achieved began to sink in. While the focus at the time of the action was on the message and the people, there was another story not being told – that of the infrastructure that made it possible for this protest to be broadcast live from behind the (so-called) Great Firewall of China, at the very remote Everest Base Camp. An article published in Reality Sandwich, a new online webzine, is the first to cover that angle, revealing new details about the technology and tactics used. Information must be free, and our goal is to be transparent and share our knowledge with others who might need it.

Reality Sandwich is a web magazine for this time of intense transformation. We hope to spark debate and engagement by offering a forum for voices ranging from the ecologically pragmatic to the wildly visionary….


Here’s a little bit from the article. Click through to the link after it for the full story…

Jeff’s wireless received the video from Shannon’s camera transmission, and sent the signal through an analog-digital converter that output firewire into his MacBook computer…not much different from using a WII or Playstation or Final Cut. Quicktime Broadcaster downsized and compressed the video to a data rate the satellite connection could handle (220kbps at 15 frams/sec, compressed eventually to 100 kbps), and sent it via satellite (Inmarsat system using a BGAN Java program) to a Students for a Free Tibet computer, which was also running Quicktime Broadcaster. They immediately uploaded the three minute video to YouTube. As a backup, Flickr, YouTube, Pando and other accounts were set up on the computer to upload images and video in the event Quicktime Broadcaster failed to send video, but an Internet connection was still live.

Got that? A handful of everyday people broadcast live to a global audience from one of the most remote locations on the planet using consumer hardware and software from the center of one of the most controlled information economies. In some ways it was a very effective beta trial for an entirely new, technologically enabled form of protest. Control, no matter how brutal, can not hold. Communication throughout the action was handled on Skype.

Read the full article http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/178



No Responsesto “Behind the Tech of the Everest Protest”

1. Tibet Will Be Free » Blog Archive » SFT / Everest Protest in the NY Times says:

   June 18, 2007 at 12:33 pm

   [...] Our inclusion in the article came from the reporter reading about the protest in the Reality Sandwich article I blogged about previously. [...]