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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

#301

Post by throwaway2037 »

energy123 wrote: post #188
throwaway2037 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to side track too much from this discussion, but I looked at that PolyMarket event: "US civil war before 2027?" Currently, it is priced at 91.3 USD cents for No. If you bet 100 USD, the payout for No will be 109.43. That is very good return -- ~9.5% for 12 months of lending (as PolyMarket required full payment at the time of trade). That is twice the (retail) risk free rate at the moment. I am actually tempted to…

It's similar to selling options out of the money. You get compensated because nobody likes to pick up pennies in front of a steamroller.

Not at all. Do you really think there is a risk of civil war in the United States in 2026? To me: It sounds like crazy people. I will make that be all day long!

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

#302

Post by sneak »

NoiseBert69 wrote: post #229
agnishom wrote: post #166

This should be a lesson for all of us. We should start building and maintaining lightweight mesh networks, just in case. We shouldn't take the world of cooperating ISPs and Meta and Cloudflare and Google and AWS for granted.

There is Mesh(core|tastic) around. Both use LoRa. With tiny solar repeater that placed on a strategic hill you can cover lots of kilometers. Being sensitive down to -145dBm opens a lot of doors. I was able to build energy harvester nodes that fit into 5cm x 5cm x 4cm boxes that roughly cost around 20€. Without energy harvesting capability with a normal TI BQ wide range charge controllers (that stuff costs $1.5-2.5@pc…

Meshtastic citywide nets use a single frequency. Jamming it is trivial.

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

#303

Post by throwaway2037 »

nsvd2 wrote: post #145
throwaway2037 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to side track too much from this discussion, but I looked at that PolyMarket event: "US civil war before 2027?" Currently, it is priced at 91.3 USD cents for No. If you bet 100 USD, the payout for No will be 109.43. That is very good return -- ~9.5% for 12 months of lending (as PolyMarket required full payment at the time of trade). That is twice the (retail) risk free rate at the moment. I am actually tempted to…

If you haven't been paying attention to American politics, there are currently widespread protests due to a woman being shot by ICE last week. It looks like the current administration may be seeking violent unrest in the hopes of delaying elections.

I love comments like this. You pop out of your (presumably New Zealand) prepper bomb shelter to get enough WiFi signal to make a post. I will bet against people like you all day long and make lots of money. How much are you willing to bet that there will be civil war in the US in 2026? Let's meet on PolyMarket!

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

#304

Post by sneak »

VikingCoder wrote: post #274

Please, sell me a USB-C device that gives me mesh networking on my phone. I'd like a Small, Medium, and Large option. Ideally, each would have a passthrough charger, so I can charge my phone even with the device plugged in to my phone. The Small is just the device, and I guess it would drain my phone's battery. The Large would have a 25,000mAh and be just small enough to legally take on an airplane in the United Stat…

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0F7LD3BQG

Meshtastic is the name. It works today. Many cities have them. They aren’t useful in antigovernment scenarios because they are trivial to jam and deny use of.

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

#305

Post by sneak »

theshrike79 wrote: post #131
killingtime74 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Meshtastic works on commercial frequencies. If they block those then a good number of non-wifi/bluetooth devices will just stop working. Including, but not limited to: garage door openers, some (older) car key fobs, some RC equipment, wireless weather sensors, remotely readable metering devices (electricity, water) and a crapton of other things.

Nah. The citywide meshtastic grids that exist presently operate on one single frequency citywide.

If you shut off the internet and jam that frequency, nobody can talk to anyone else to coordinate about a new frequency (which is then also just trivially jammed).

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

#306

Post by kaitocross »

NoiseBert69 wrote: post #229
agnishom wrote: post #166

This should be a lesson for all of us. We should start building and maintaining lightweight mesh networks, just in case. We shouldn't take the world of cooperating ISPs and Meta and Cloudflare and Google and AWS for granted.

There is Mesh(core|tastic) around. Both use LoRa. With tiny solar repeater that placed on a strategic hill you can cover lots of kilometers. Being sensitive down to -145dBm opens a lot of doors. I was able to build energy harvester nodes that fit into 5cm x 5cm x 4cm boxes that roughly cost around 20€. Without energy harvesting capability with a normal TI BQ wide range charge controllers (that stuff costs $1.5-2.5@pc…

LoRa locally is often installed/managed by municipal governments.

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

#307

Post by miduil »

what's still missing is encrypted stealth radio communication. something that uses a wide range of frequencies, low power with big timing windows to be indistinguishable from other things happening on air. It should look like noise and regular signals (like non-decryptable LTE packages combined with noise that could also as well just come from a power-supply)

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

#308

Post by RenThraysk »

amelius wrote: post #184
agnishom wrote: post #166

This should be a lesson for all of us. We should start building and maintaining lightweight mesh networks, just in case. We shouldn't take the world of cooperating ISPs and Meta and Cloudflare and Google and AWS for granted.

How is Ukraine doing this? I suppose Starlink isn't available to everyone.

There are a few videos of various Ukraine Telecoms talking about how they're keeping themselves connected.

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

#309

Post by btbuildem »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #183
0xEF wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wrong, but don't forget there are many militias with itchy trigger fingers all over the political spectrum here, though admittedly some parties have more affiliated with them than others. It's not a stretch to assume should fighting in the streets escalate beyond ICE shenanigans that larger armies would not quickly congeal from the pocket groups and individuals.

> there are many militias with itchy trigger fingers all over the political spectrum here That’s still not a civil war in the conventional sense. If it gets entrenched and coördinated it could be come something we’ll debate, e.g. the Troubles. But insurgency != civil war.

The devil lives in the fine print, always.

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

#310

Post by sharperguy »

ajb wrote: post #247
agnishom wrote: post #166

This should be a lesson for all of us. We should start building and maintaining lightweight mesh networks, just in case. We shouldn't take the world of cooperating ISPs and Meta and Cloudflare and Google and AWS for granted.

Is that the right threat model, though? Governments usually switch off the internet when they have a risk of being overthrown. Thats' why it's happening in Iran. They want to disrupt the co-ordination of a coup, and their opponents only need to win in the short term after which it doesn't matter. In the US, the threat is censorship and tracking- suppression over the long term. Mesh networks are not great for that,bec…

Mesh networks like meshtastic have shown that they can be run on very low power meaning they can continue to route messages with the power from small solar panels. This makes them more useful in disaster or wide scale power outage scenarios than only as an anti-authority measaure.
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