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Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

briarproject.org

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Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#111

Post by wolvoleo »

gh02t wrote: post #91
wolvoleo wrote: post #86

I think meshtastic would be a lot more performant in mesh scenarios due to the added range of LoRa. But of course it's special hardware and thus suspicious during an insurrection. And probably just not available. I doubt this will actually work though except in the densest city.

Meshtastic also struggles with high density and high traffic networks. Some modifications can be made to work better, but with the default settings it really grinds to a halt, and modifying the settings to be better suited requires some expertise and foresight. It works amazingly in off grid, relatively sparse networks, but it's got some major limitations.

Yeah I always wonder with these mobile ever changing mesh networks: how do they prevent messages from aimlessly looping around the network? With all the mobile devices they're too dynamic to make routing tables and broadcasting everything leads to network saturation really quickly. You could give them a very short TTL but then the reliability will suffer a lot.

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#112

Post by darubedarob »

cookiengineer wrote: post #92
notepad0x90 wrote: post #81

Does anyone remember yik-yak? It wasn't anonymous and resilient like briar, but it was great in its time to discover people near-by and start chatting. Does anyone if briar relays traffic? like if at least one person in a wifi network has briar and they also connect by bluetooth to another person within an adjacent wifi network, does it relay messages from one end of the city to the other over dozens of devices?

No they sadly don't have that, and that's the major issue of connectivity. All chat recipients have to be online/reachable to receive your messages, which is okay, but useless in mobile environments where you can't afford that constant traffic. The broadcast type channels though are what the article talks about, they are great for off the grid and mesh environments. Relaying and scattering traffic across neighboring…

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Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#113

Post by futuraperdita »

hrimfaxi wrote: post #53
bb88 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Isn't stopping abuses of the power of the military the reason for the 2nd Amendment? It was for establishing well ordered militias. They could be used to help defend the country in a time of war. > Why don't the people in Minnesota go open carry and let ICE agents think twice before drawing their weapons on people? Most of the demonstrators believe that "the pen is mightier than the sword", and non-violence is the w…

What's the definition of a well-ordered militia? A bunch of farmers that go shooting together?

Alexander Hamilton explains his definition of what "well-regulated" is - and the purpose of a citizen militia - in contrast to the standing army in the Federalist Papers, No. 29. Most of the idea has become much more federalized than intended with the National Guard, but it has long since been misused for its intended purpose.

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#114

Post by 9dev »

wafflemaker wrote: post #103
ozfive wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good use of briar is having it on your phone already so that during a natural disaster you can connect with others that already have it at community relief spots. Keep it just in case and it will come in clutch when you need it most!

Briar comes with ways of sharing it offline, so enough for one person to have it. Most likely how they got it in Iran, as I doubt that critical mass of people had it installed in advance. Most likely doesn't work on iPhones though - no sideloading.

I looked into the iOS issue once, and in the EU at least, it should be possible to add a minimal implementation of the store API to an app, so other iPhones could download the app from an iPhone hosting it.

After discovering the amount of pain involved with that API, I quickly discarded the idea though

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#115

Post by zmgsabst »

killingtime74 wrote: post #110
btbuildem wrote: post #96

Take heed, Americaneez -- and prepare, because this may be in your future sooner than prediction markets would have you believe [1]. LoRa mesh networking seems like the runner-up, but vague reports indicate (Meshtastic) doesn't handle crowds well. I think Bitchat can use Meshtastic, so a LoRa radio paired with a phone could be a base for not just texting individuals, but community messaging. 1: https://polymarket.com…

If there is really a civil war, won't these frequencies just get jammed?

The US is huge — you can’t jam everything everywhere. Talking about just cities, you still can’t jam everything everywhere.

But yes, targeted suppression/oppression (depending on your allegiance) will almost certainly use jamming — in fact, I’ve spoken with some Antifa about how they jam EMS frequencies at their events.

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#116

Post by bigfatkitten »

codezero wrote: post #8
subscribed wrote: post #7

Perhaps Americans should start preparing with Meshtastic / Meshcore, just in case....... ..,..the Emperor seems hellbent on bringing martial law into effect.

The military can very easily find and eliminate repeaters very quickly and almost certainly would.

At no time from 2001-2021 did the Taliban find themselves short on VHF repeaters. If one gets taken down, put up another one.

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#117

Post by futuraperdita »

killingtime74 wrote: post #110
btbuildem wrote: post #96

Take heed, Americaneez -- and prepare, because this may be in your future sooner than prediction markets would have you believe [1]. LoRa mesh networking seems like the runner-up, but vague reports indicate (Meshtastic) doesn't handle crowds well. I think Bitchat can use Meshtastic, so a LoRa radio paired with a phone could be a base for not just texting individuals, but community messaging. 1: https://polymarket.com…

If there is really a civil war, won't these frequencies just get jammed?

The point to any preparation for any adverse event is to prepare more than one solution to a problem, and to have a solid understanding of your actual adversary. By asking that question, you have already defeated yourself on the sake of whomever you have decided is the dominant force. This is the sort of nihilism that stops us from meaningful change, because we destroy ourselves in either sloth or despair.

Won't they get jammed? Yes, absolutely, on local levels. This is electronic warfare and happens in any actual battlespace.

Does that mean it is completely useless in emergency situations (of which civil war is one)? No.

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#118

Post by bigfatkitten »

1shooner wrote: post #64
subscribed wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a funny example of making it harder to find: https://youtu.be/W_F4rEaRduk?t=178

>the more people who use it, the more robust and far-reaching and reliable it gets. I was under the opposite impression, that meshtastic's whole problem is that it doesn't scale well at all.

Meshtastic uses naive flooding, which is fine for sparse networks (ie you and your three friends out hiking), but which doesn’t scale well at all.

Re: Briar keeps Iran connected via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when the internet goes dark

#119

Post by ssl-3 »

esseph wrote: post #75
bb88 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Triangulation is damn easy. If the US can put on bomb on a suspect satellite phone user back in the 2000's (and they did!), they can certainly send a bomb on that today. Sat phones during the second gulf war (maybe even the first) became a liability. The transmission lit them up like a god damn beacon saying, "Bomb goes here!".

Good luck if your mesh network is on 2.4/5/6ghz. It'll blend in with background radiation from home routers.

It can have challenges, but triangulation can be done with signals that have recognizable patterns or features -- even in a sea of other co-channel noise sources.

If you can observe the signal strength of your neighbor's home router while standing next to your own even if the signals differ in strength by some orders of magnitude (which is easy on Android; no idea bout iOS), then anyone else can also do the same.

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