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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

#311

Post by CamperBob2 »

swaits wrote: post #263
jfengel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is concern that the US may also go from chronic concerns to acute ones. Opponents of the government accuse it of serious crimes, and are already perceiving violence used to suppress dissent. The administration is not popular and may lose a lot of power in the upcoming election. It's hard to imagine that shutting down the entire Internet would be taken well even by their supporters, but the point of the exercise…

Keeping things in perspective, no, there is no reasonable concern of this happening in the US in the near term. The places where this happens, like Iran now, are in extremely different situations than anything in the US, or any other Western country. That shouldn’t discourage people running meshes though.

Keeping things in perspective, no, there is no reasonable concern of this happening in the US in the near term.

It's both strange and sad that this book doesn't seem to get much traction these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here

Trump is Windrip... or at least he would be, if he had his faculties about him. Even if you're a Trump supporter, you can't possibly go on denying that if you read this book.

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

#312

Post by ActorNightly »

danesparza wrote: post #248
NoiseBert69 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You also make yourself a bright shining beacon to anybody looking for a resistance network because Lora operates on very specific frequencies. It would be easy to spot you with an RF scanner.

If the place you are at is at that point in the conflict, RF scanners are the least of your worries.

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

#313

Post by gh02t »

NoiseBert69 wrote: post #231
gh02t wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The decision that every station is always a (delayed) router was a bad one. Also the old firmware was super chatty eating a lot of valuable ISM TX time. They must clean up their role mess and switch to a "all clients are totally quiet - until they are set to a different mode for a reason"-strategy.

Eh, Meshtastic was originally for sparse off grid comms less than big public networks. In that role (which is still what I mostly use Meshtastic for) every client repeating messages makes more sense.

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

#314

Post by ActorNightly »

elAhmo wrote: post #180
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.

Given the recent threats from Cloudflare against Italy and siding with Vance, Musk and co., this is definitely not a far-fetched reality. Big Tech has demonstrated which side they are going with.

Big Tech is going to optimize for profits. They are gonna bow down to whomever is in charge.

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

#315

Post by amelius »

sharperguy wrote: post #310
ajb wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In practice it seems that Meshtastic isn't really up to the task, unfortunately:

https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1inrm25/is_mesh...

https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1fy95kj/lets_ta...

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

#316

Post by ActorNightly »

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…

We won't have a Civil war. We need one for sure, but the problem is that most people lives are very comfortable right now, and the average person doesnt care enough to die over any of the stuff they believe in.

Its more likely that our economy will tank and you will have more civil unrest.

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

#317

Post by ActorNightly »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #301
energy123 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The problem is, lets say protestors actually start getting violent across multiple state. Would that be considered a mini civil war?

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

#318

Post by ActorNightly »

0xEF wrote: post #176
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> looks like the current administration may be seeking violent unrest in the hopes of delaying elections Civil war requires two militaries. Tiananmen Square wasn’t a civil war.

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.

Generally, if you yourself aren't willing to pick up a gun and start fighting, chances are, the vast majority of the people aren't either.

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

#319

Post by ActorNightly »

grosswait wrote: post #242
nsvd2 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or is it the financial backers of the protests that want a civil war?

Your entire party is literally lizard people, so no argument you can make is valid.

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

#320

Post by The_President »

miduil wrote: post #307

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)

Quantum may surpass this, as legal restrictions exist for general public broadcasting encrypted radio. What you describe probably already exists in implementation in use cases where it is legally protected and judiciously implemented.
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