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Queue IT Crowd episode…
What time zone?
I am literally building a network in my town. Love this project, so much fun and useful
The internet will get back up if it goes down. It is very decentralized. Sea cables and DNS is where most of the centralization occurs, and DNS going down is not at all the end of the internet. How man sea cables have to be broken at once for the internet to break, I’m not entirely sure.
Meshtastic is a cool thing and it is very useful, internet up or down.
That won’t help for situations where a government shuts down access to the internet.
How resistant would this be to jamming? Iran managed to black out Starlink.
And how trackable is it? Not sure how many people would be prepared to run one of these boxes if the Revolutionary Guard are going to come knocking.
If they shut the Internet and there is a decent meshtastic network they will jam that as well.
This is a non answer. yes, hypothetically they can, but the whole point of finding alternative channels is to make it difficult for them to do so, to the point that they might not even try.
That pessimism of “they can jam it anyways” is like saying do not wear a helmet while riding a bike, if you are meant to die that day, you will die regardless of head protection.
Plus, it will take resources for them to jam things, and the more resources they need to do that shit the faster it will deplete them and the less they can do, it is so obvious I do not know how to write it without sounding demeaning.
Maybe so, but incompetence is persistent within fascist organizations, and it adds an extra problem for them to deal with, which has value for that fact alone.
Riots fix that, not meshtastic
Riots are better coordinated when people can communicate wirelessly
A government can shut down a riot of 10,000
It struggles with 10 1,000 person riots.
I think at that point it’s more of a revolution than a riot, but I agree
No doubt, but meshtastic really is a temporary solution, but a very good solution since it’s only necessary for a temporary amount of time. I’m just saying there aren’t really many cases outside of a catastrophic mass human extinction event that would disable the internet infrastructure beyond maybe a few years if that. Won’t be a library of alexandria moment from a connectivity side, but which servers are still up is the real question
I didn’t know riots and protests 50+ years ago depended on the internet. Crazy.
they depended on communication
You missed the word “better”.
I never said meshtastic is a hard requirement.
There are normally only a few points at which traffic enters the country. Shutting them down will effectively cut you from most of the Internet, and the rest that remains will be fully in the jurisdiction that oppresses you.
Just installed two Bluetooth mesh messaging apps on my phone, just in case. Is there one y’all recommend? Are BIT and Berkanan ok?
I already have too many hobbies, not going to get into amateur radio. I guess I’ll go buy a battery powered radio receiver when I get a chance, or one with a crank.
So, I setup meshtastic.
Put an antenna on my roof.
Have a decent number of mesh radios. Put one in each car in relay mode.
Setup a locally run LLM and made an interface to it.
Working on setting up a BBS.
I’m in the high density suburbs, I can, when the weather is just right, reach a single node that doesn’t seem to be able to reach any other nodes.
If I go on a drive, I can see 5-10 nodes.
Adoption in the mid-Atlantic US is just so damn low, it’s not really usable.
We need some antennas up high, but there aren’t any reasonable options around me.
How resilient is something like Meshtastic? My understanding is that anyone can configure their device poorly so that it can become overly chatty, congesting the network. Even in ideal an ideal scenario with properly configured nodes, could this actually survive if it saw more than hobbiest adoption?
I think it’s really cool and i like having this idea of a backup communication system, but if has serious range limitations and is likely to be overwhelmed in a no-cell scenario is it even worth it, or is it just fun to play around with?
So much of our infrastructure uses the internet now that if it goes down I wouldn’t be shocked if electric grids, healthcare, shopping, public transport, etc also shit the bed.
Add some batteries to the meshtatic nodes. and even if all electricity and networks go down, you and your friends can still organize and plan.
I wonder if that fancy bed company that saw it’s beds freeze 'cos no AWS ever sold to hospitals…
Internet outages happen all the time. Most of these networks can run independent for a time. And are designed to be so. Only smaller networks have issues because they are not designed as such. But things like toast make a small store feasible to run. If electricity goes out then it has bigger issues, but I’ve seen stores go to hand swipe cards before to keep from closing.
I can only speak for the US, but our electric grids and production are supposed to be air gapped for critical infrastructure. Healthcare? I doubt it based on the continuous leaks there - and medical supply chains are tightly integrated with internet/cloud… Shopping still has a fairly sizeable local accessibility for staple items, certainly food distro where the internet wouldn’t matter for at least a short while, but it’s also tightly integrated for Supply Chain Management, much like Health care - so there could be a run on it.
I’m not sure on public transport, but most are goverment led, so probably air gapped.
There’s also a shitton of dark fiber laying about. Internet infrastructure COULD be brought back up depending on the damage that triggered outages in the first place.
I can only speak for the US, but our electric grids and production are supposed to be air gapped for critical infrastructure.
Do oil pipelines count? 'Cos Colonial got hacked and everybody thought they were airgapped.
I think some water facility was too but no serious values were changed - 'cos and admin preferred to sit comfy at home.I’m not exactly standing behind it - just saying what I’ve read. I’m confident nuclear plants are after 9/11. Anything else is probably hit or miss, including petro/gas pipelines, coal, and generating plants specifically. Plus if a bad actor (likely state sanctioned) decides to, they can get through air gaps with spies/traitors/unwitting idiots with a simple USB drive. After air gapped uranium processing centrifuges were wrecked with an errant USB drive, I would expect all systems to disable or remove USB drive connectivity, but I’m sure that’s inconsistent… at best.
Literally all the ordering for stores uses the internet now; we’d be absolutely fucked for a good while if the internet actually went down in the USA.
I’ve not been recycling my tin cans and I have a whole shitload of string. Happy to share.
I’ll take 3 bags full. One for the master (coordinator) and one for the slave (endpoints), and one for the little girl who lives down the lane (Fitgirl Repacks)
My remembering of that line is “and one for the dame”, and I grew up in the deep south…strange
I ad-libbed to make my horrible analogy work. I am beyond regret
I got a visa gift card for Christmas I’m spending on LORA today. Western NY here. Probably gonna build some decent nodes at home and office. Will add to the map to help encourage others.
Lot of complex discussions here about Ham radio operator, new hardware or protocol like Mestastic, SDR, etc so I’d start with “just” what people already have at home and only AFTER go there, if need be.
If you have WiFi Mesh at home or IoT via ZigBee or Z-Wave you already are doing mesh networking. Sure you might not have Internet access this way but the principle is already there via your existing relative affordable infrastructure.
If this is something I can setup with no need of complex licenses, it would be interesting.
I live in a small town and it could prove as a useful city project for cheap, reliant, local communications.
setup with no need of complex licenses, it would be interesting
It doesn’t seem like you need any licensing, it’s like a walkie talkie.
it could prove as a useful city project for cheap, reliant, local communications
I’m not sure if that’s the right usecase. Meshtastic seems to be for short-range, line-of-sight-ish communication. Apparently, you can set up repeaters to expand the coverage area, but it seems like buildings, trees, etc will dramatically affect the signal strength. (I think?)
I’m fairly certain that this requires a Ham radio operator’s license (in the USA at least). It uses frequencies that are regulated.
No US license required ISM band 915mhz < 1w
Licensed amateur radio operator here in the US. Meshtastic does not require an amateur radio license.
Nope, it specifically uses free frequencies. The same ones that are used by RC hobbyists and RF based remotes
I don’t actually own a Meshtastic device… but I did blow off work to do a little browsing and found this:
Meshtastic does not require any license and is open for anyone to use.
Meshtastic does not require a HAM radio license to operate
don’t need an amateur radio license for the low-power bands used by Meshtastic
Huh? Can anyone explain what all these words mean? Mesh? Ham radio? How does this work is it like toy walkie talkie?
I think Ham radio means hobby and amateur radio, I.e. not professional. Radio is a type of radiation at very long wavelength. From the wiki:
long waves can diffractaround obstacles like mountains and follow the contour of the Earth (ground waves), shorter waves can reflect off the ionosphere and return to Earth beyond the horizon (skywaves), while much shorter wavelengths bend or diffract very little and travel on a line of sight, so their propagation distances are limited to the visual horizon.
Others have explained mesh pretty well.
They’re a mesh walkie-talkie, but you don’t need to walkie or talkie 😁
Meshnet means that if A can see B and B can see C, then A can message C, it’s routed through B automatically.
Also it’s text only, not enough bandwidth for speech
Isn’t this just like the internet though?
Internet routing is a bit more complex, but basically yes.
That’s the point, but it doesn’t require an ISP
So it’s like a pager?
When I think of pagers I think of receiving only, not sending. Meshtastic devices can typically do both.
Kind of. But it is my understanding that pagers work with centralised transmitters/stations. I am no expert though, so maybe there is mesh-like pager protocols.
This is decentralised, a mesh. Routing is done through the terminals themselves, rather than through a centralised transmitter.
walkie talkie
Yeah, I think so. I saw a video where someone called it “a walkie talkie, but for sending text messages”. People use these for going on remote hikes, hunting trips, or protests. Basically, any area where you can’t use a cellphone. They’re not a replacement for cellphones, they fill a different usecase.
Is there a map that shows where are using them? It looks like a fun idea, but I don’t want to get something and no one is using it in my region. (Outback Australia)
Being shown in maps like this is opt-in, so there’s an unknown amount of users which are not displayed.
I’m 100% OK with it being opt-in. If there is at least 1 in my state, I’ll bite.
Welp, I guess I’m biting…
Welp, I guess I’m biting…
On the up side, you can get a Heltec V3 for ~$20
On the down side, since everything is super low power, you absolutley need line of site to get our of your neighborhood
One in your state? Wouldn’t you need one in your line of sight?
If everyone opens the map, sees the blank space, then walks away, no one will start.
I’ll be willing to start, and hopefully others will join.
Yup, same thoughts here (Norway). I doubt anyone near me uses it.
There are some, there are probably more than are in the picture, map access is opt-in
You’d be surprised.
In NSW Australia there are hardly any two near each other. What is the point of all these people even buying one if you don’t team up with at least one neighbour?
If you can get one up high, they can reach hundreds of kilometers.
They’re all over the West Coast of the US because of all the hills, and there are generally decent nets in cities with high rises.
Be the change 😎
It is delusional to think the chances are good of a neighbor just looking up the map and joining in. Geeks need to talk to people in real life, especially in their neighborhood. Team up with at least one other person. Use word of mouth. That is effective change.
Unfortunately I live in a remote area with non-tech people who are not conservative enough to be preppers. I will still run it past them though.
I’d talk to you if you were on the map 👍
A grumpy curmudgeon like me? You must be crazy!
Groucho Marx - “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”
I love Meshtastic. Had a nice convo with a stranger last night while I was LoRa wardriving to test out the range of my new rooftop antenna on my house.
