More evidence we need a form of mesh network peer to peer bridge to the open social web for time of internet blackouts. #iran
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@tchambers Maybe time to revive the PirateBox concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PirateBox
There was some effort ? 15 years ago to create mesh network capability.
I built 2 or 3 but have note fired up in a decade.
Folks are still at it https://patrickmccanna.net/creating-a-sustainable-piratebox-alternative/
And cool demo of #reticulum chat app in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-GbmlvPn4
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@tchambers
I just started to tinkering with reticulum this week. You on there too?
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@orci Not yet but if I am keeping my eyes open for easy ways to tinker and learn.
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@tchambers @orci Need to look into re-flashing my lora board with it instead of Meshtastic.
Woza, looks like some one has done work on bridging this already.... kudos @tj
https://indieweb.social/@brisbane_mesh[email protected]
"This bot bridges Meshtastic traffic from the Brisbane area onto Mastodon! It's currently under development, so maybe unreliable or spammy.
This bot is not official in any way. Its brain is here: https://github.com/tjhowse/meshtastic2mastodon and it was made by @tj
Depends on: http://meshtastic.org/ https://wiki.mbug.com.au/"
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@tchambers No worries! I hope someone finds it useful. It'd need a little bit of work to make it more generally useful, currently it only listens for messages on channel zero, and the "ANZ" topic is hardcoded.
I have vague plans to check out #meshcore sometime, and write a similar bridge. However I couldn't find any published protobuf definitions for meshcore, so it's on pause for now.
@tchambers Let me introduce you to @loriemerson’s work about alternative networks. Barbed wired telephone, anyone?
@tchambers Amateur radio. It's not encrypted and not private, but I passed a lot of messages in and out of Sarajevo during the siege, and also shared info on what was going on from some ham operators there. It's possible to run TCP/IP over ham radio (I did it during the war) and relay signals until reaching a working backbone.
Risky in hostile situations, should be low power & short transmissions.
Meshtastic is interesting (I just bought a device) but not sure yet how reliable.
I can't put my finger on it but I have been seeing more content about #meshtastic #meshcore and #Reticulum recently.
Maybe it's my algorithms but I've had IRL friends bring it up independently and we've all already built/bought radios and joined our local net (meshtastic for now).
As I'm learning more about these projects, the more I think we could get a real effective mesh going, even if for basic comms at first.
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@plasma4045 @tchambers It's also getting exposure at conferences like FOSDEM, that probably contributes to it.
Nots that the underlying lora protocol layer is the first thing that goes in a hypothetical scenario against a state actor. It's easy to jam.
For solar powered mesh for communication and collaboration via short text messages it's awesome.
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@djh @plasma4045 That would be enough I’d think…
@tchambers
That wouldn't work.
Mesh networks are short range low-capacity wireless. They'll work well enough in a large premises, especially if a good percentage have ethernet or fibre, to allow WiFi roaming on multiple airpoints with one name.
Iran also attempts to block satellite broadcast and Internet using a range of techniques.
The mass market use either Mobile or cabled internet (various technologies) all of which are government controlled, or can be in every country.
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@raymaccarthy I was thinking of something maybe Wi-Fi or Bluetooth enabled person to person even if phone to phone and that then would spill into the open social web when one of them hit a true open Internet….