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

briarproject.org

321–330 of 390 posts

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

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an easy one. They're people, and still have rights. That's non-negotiable.

If you're in a country illegally, yes you do have rights but the right to stay is not one of them.

Here is the thing

You are all sold this lie that "illegal immigrants take your jobs" or "bring drugs into the country", and you immediately adopt this as truth and don't even bother to fact check this because of your inherent racism.

In reality the vast amounts immigrants that are coming into US are putting 10 times back more into the economy than they are taking because they are all coming here to work. And they work at jobs that Americans don't want because they pay less. Not that there was even an unemployment crisis to begin with, so Americans had plenty of jobs.

The problem with immigration was the asylum process, where there were not enough staff to process all the requests and determine real ones from fake ones. This is why there was a border bill brought up in 2023-2024, authored by a Republican, that had bipartisan support. Trump killed that bill, saying on record that it would help his election chances. So in the end, more people would have been deported if the border bill would have passed than there are now, and there would have been way more filtering on who gets to stay and who doesnt.

All of this is true, none of this is debatable. No, your favorite right wing commentator opposing arguments are all bullshit.

And this is precisely why conservatives deserve no sympathy. Inherent racism is probably due to the shit job your parents did at raising you, which is at least excusable, but the stupidity of voting for someone who gives you the worse outcome compared to what you want, and then claiming its a better outcome, is not.

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

#322
post #263

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.

It only takes a few small steps to slip from still-sorta-normal towards oh-who-could-have-thought. Did anyone expect a mob actually storming the Capitol a month before the events? Did anyone expect a federal immigration agent deliberately shooting and killing an innocent US citizen? Things like that happen "gradually, then suddenly".

I don't expect nationwide chaos and oppression, "Deus Ex"-style, any time soon, but we should be prepared to resist any local outbursts of it. Think local mobile networks blackouts and ISP POPs shutdowns, for instance.

Install the damn Briar app today, while it can be done trivially, and you have no use for it. It's like putting on a parachute before getting into a small plane: you plan to never use it, but if you would, there'd be no time to put it on when you're already in a free fall.

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

#323
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.

Who's going to pay to create all the nodes. You need a lot of them in normal times when it is just enthusiasts sending test messages and if large numbers of people start sending real messages you will need more.

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

#324
post #302

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…

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

Even more trivial to flood with garbage traffic, as the whole network will amplify your attack.

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

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who's going to pay to create all the nodes. You need a lot of them in normal times when it is just enthusiasts sending test messages and if large numbers of people start sending real messages you will need more.

And even if you do, when the mesh becomes too big, the signalization/routing takes up all the available bandwidth.

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

#326
post #287
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> no, there is no reasonable concern of this happening in the US in the near term Non American here observing from outside. Given the move in a few months from a normative western society to one in which heavily armed masked men raid homes and businesses [1] to racially profile [2] for mass imprisonment and deportation. Given the current governments explicit redefinition of political opponents as terrorists [3]. And…

>It seems delusional to discount the possibility of such blackouts in the US domestically.

I hear that, but we are so dependent on network connectivity for commerce (and entertainment) here that there would be riots from a different subset of the population if they turned that off.

You can harass brown people and murder activists here, but if you turn off the TikTok spigot, disable access to finance, or frankly fuckin' DoorDash or Uber, people are going to have a meltdown. Modern life here just grinds to a halt without data services.

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

#327

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.

Obviously, put that relay node on a hill, on some structure where you don't live. Or maybe on the roof of your tall apartment building, among all the satellite dishes and their associated boxes. Pretend to be one of those.

If it's a self-contained, solar-powered node, it needs not be next to you, or to anyone. It should be safe and secure, to be of use during a natural disaster, or an outburst of violence.

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

#328

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…

LoRa locally is often installed/managed by municipal governments.

It's mostly LoRaWAN which is great for very-low-rate telemetry and very simple control tasks.

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

#329

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…

I guess if you're protesting against the government, you don't have to comply with regulations and can use more power and basically the entire spectrum :)

And instead of "just" getting teargassed and sent home, you get thrown to a concentration camp for organizing communications for the domestic terrorists there to overthrow the government, attack ICE, .

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

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the officer is in fact got run over The officer that shot through the front window, stepped to the side, shot twice more through the side window while on two feet, and stomped away unharmed muttering "fucking bitch" .. that officer? Seems unlikely.

[flagged]

I don’t think that video proves anything definitively fwiw. It doesn’t capture any harm to the officer nor any heightened or escalating behaviors afterwards. Nor does it show an officer in a using force inappropriately.

If you think it does you are overlaying your own biases onto the video.

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