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How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

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41–50 of 116 posts

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#41

Oh, with a mesh wifi network. I have to stop taking headlines at their word.

"Without cell or wifi [to the internet]" is a reasonable implication.

Did you think this was an article about the human microphone?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microphone

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#42
post #37
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was talking about the surrounding businesses. Jamming or interference with business operations might provoke a flight of capital. Hong Kong is rather concentrated.

The police can blame the protesters for all the troubles - block traffic, stopping commerce, blocking cell/wifi/BT service. From what I read, not much different than the police strategy used the 99% protest in Wall Street.

I don't recall the US banning twitter or censoring any social network. No prohibition of coverage.

Not to mention there was a tremendous amount of sympathetic coverage. Time 2011 person of the year was the protester. It was a huge conversation that entered the common narrative.

Apples and Oranges. Yeah, there are best practices for dealing with crowds and there needs to be security at huge protests. The cloak and the shield is a very fine line.

I know for a fact in Canada there was no wifi/cell/BT blocking. And I cannot find a reputable article the provides any evidence that this occurred.

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#43

I wanted to like FireChat, as it was previously possible to use it entirely offline, in a purely P2P fashion. While this is still possible, you are now forced to first create an account online, and subscribe to a bunch of internet-based channels, before the app will let you use the P2P portion. This is frustrating. The market is wide open for someone to make a pure P2P communications app that doesn't require internet…

servalproject.org is free (and open source)

P2P voice, chat and online status.

Uses Ad Hoc networking, which iirc FireChat uses bluetooth so servalproject should get better range.

I'm not affiliated with the project in any way (I'm not in Australia) but I've happily used it for some tests.

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#44
post #22
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one abandoned Ukraine -- there's still a proxy war brewing there, between NATO and Russia. One might argue that it would be better for Ukraine if it was actually "abandoned". Between Russian "volunteers" and neo-nazis with EU/NATO support, I predict the ones loosing are "most everyone else".

> neo-nazis with EU/NATO support Apart from Putin and his supporters, who says the Ukrainian government are neo-Nazis, and on what basis?

Right Sector and Svoboda both have representation in the new Ukrainian government. Both are right wing, fascist parties, and Right Sector even has paramilitary forces which engaged in attacks on political opponents, for instance the attack in Odessa in which they killed and burned alive dozens of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Odessa trade union building...

Prior to the 'revolution', Svoboda was denounced by many European nations and the EU. Now they form a fairly significant part of the Ukrainian government, and they were a large part of the 'revolution'...

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#45
post #39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With out universal suffrage how can you tell the collective will with out an imposed narrative bias? Press is controlled and self censored. Many Chinese that I know simply stay clear of politics. Politics has very dark consequences in China. Even if you are a party member you can easily get caught up in an anti-corruption purge. Don't get me wrong, democracy is not a silver bullet... it is allot of work and imperfect…

Indeed, and posting to web forums, especially with connections to mainland China, can be risky due to the traceback of IP addresses, collected or "procured" by Chinese authorities. This happened even through the cooperation of Yahoo in Hunan Province. I highly recommend using the Tor network for political discussions.

Using Tor correctly as well..lol. Thanks for the worries, but no worries. I good old maple syrup blooded Canuckle head here.

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#46
post #3

If the authorities sought to disrupt these networks, would it not be possible to jam Bluetooth (and Wi-Fi) signals within a certain area?

yes it's not very hard to jam, there are many jammers available online, a top result in a quick search was ironically from a site called jammerfromchina.com...[1] Also, with an alfa wireless card and python (scapy module) it can be done pretty easily [2]. [1] http://www.jammerfromchina.com/categories/WiFi%7B47%7DBlueto... [2] https://github.com/DanMcInerney/wifijammer

Can light be used to send messages when wi-fi is jammed? I mean modulating the torchlight and using cams. I realize this would be very low bandwidth though...

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#48
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is good to hear but isn't state media now peddling that while the protests exist, they are being manufactured by "outside foreign forces" and not genuine? They are even calling for Chinese paramilitary to be sent it. That is scary.

I haven't really read the "outside foreign forces" line in chinese press. Where did you see that? Chinese understand their government and the Hong Kong situation. So I don't know why the government would need to lie about it? You are assuming the majority of chinese want a democratic government. I'm not sure that's true.

> You are assuming the majority of chinese want a democratic government. I'm not sure that's true.

This position always raises interesting questions for me: What do they want? How do they express their desires? Finally, how will they express their desires when they change?

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#49
post #43

I wanted to like FireChat, as it was previously possible to use it entirely offline, in a purely P2P fashion. While this is still possible, you are now forced to first create an account online, and subscribe to a bunch of internet-based channels, before the app will let you use the P2P portion. This is frustrating. The market is wide open for someone to make a pure P2P communications app that doesn't require internet…

servalproject.org is free (and open source) P2P voice, chat and online status. Uses Ad Hoc networking, which iirc FireChat uses bluetooth so servalproject should get better range. I'm not affiliated with the project in any way (I'm not in Australia) but I've happily used it for some tests.

terrible name!!! They need a catchy name like FireChat.

Re: How Hong Kong Protesters Are Connecting, Without Cell or Wi-Fi Networks

#50

Oh, with a mesh wifi network. I have to stop taking headlines at their word.

Does it use Wifi? Someone else posted saying it was Bluetooth.

i think its wifi else the reach of network would be far less
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