[sph]

I've always thought the world needs a project to provide guerrilla internet connectivity to a large area using cheap, common hardware like a Raspberry Pi for situations like these which are increasingly common.

Basically a 12V battery-powered Wifi+3G(+Wimax maybe) antenna for clients and an outbound Ethernet port to plug to some illegal internet socket. Make it open-source, able to be built with a little ingenuity and low cost.

[ninalanyon]

Surely the real cost of such a device is not the hardware or the software but the organizational effort required to install it and make it useful without anyone involved getting caught.

[XorNot]

Anything persistent at all is downright unusable - they'll be tracked and destroyed, people near them arrested etc.

We're basically talking attritable devices being needed and protocols which make them useful - i.e. something you can release that stands a chance of getting information out before its destroyed and where the users are nowhere near it when it's launched.

EDIT: I mean realistically you basically would want to just toss a handful of cheap USB memory sticks out across a city.

So if we're being realistic it's just more USB-C OTG devices. Ideally what you want is it to become standard for USC-C memory sticks to have a USB-C port on them so they can be daisy chained and copied stick to stick if given a power source so they're easy to copy and spread.

[ninjagoo]

> Anything persistent at all is downright unusable - they'll be tracked and destroyed, people near them arrested etc.

That's a really good point. Maybe the tech needs to be in reasonably widespread use prior to when it's needed, then it becomes harder to strangle in the moment. A product in everyone's home and office.

Wi-fi routers with long-range capabilities and automatic mesh fallback in case of isp outage?

[sph]

The target audience is people fighting for their lives. When you've lost connectivity and everything around you is on fire, you don't have much time to faff about with designing such a system. This is why I believe it should be a premade and tested open-source kit for preppers and people in high-risk areas.

[ninjagoo]

perhaps it needs to be tech that is useful in daily life, with the ability to switch channels automatically when the main isp is unavailable. An example is the HNT helium network - an alternative data transport mechanism. Not saying that is what should be used - that's a crypto thing - but the principle is the same.

thinking about it in terms of "getting caught" might be the less ideal way to approach it - think of it in terms of building a more reliable system, which is a goal everyone can get behind.

[femto]

There are a number of projects that do this, using mobile phones to form ad hoc / mesh networks.

https://www.open-mesh.org/

https://briarproject.org/

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

The original but now defunct?

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

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat

Seems similar to Briar but it has an iOS client.

[stogot]

I assume that these are blocked by sanction-following CDN firewalls? The first link paused to “check if I’m a bot” and I’m sure they check if I’m from Iran too

[alexey-salmin]

Surely governments will not see any issues with this project whatsoever.

Though in US I think you can try publishing the code and blueprints as a book and claim the First Amendment, following the PGP story. May or may not work.

[Telemakhos]

Starlink now offers direct-to-cellphone 4G coverage, no extra equipment needed.

[frrn]

An extremely centralized network like Starlink depending on the wishes of its owner is the opposite of freedom. We need sovereign alternatives.

[mixermachine]

Don't get me wrong, but somebody has to operate an exit node and somehow there needs to be a consensus on the protocol + routing.

If the network is only earth bound fixed wireless, the distance might be small enough that the state comes for the operator itself... This raises the cost of running this network from just money to life threat.

Getting many open source satellites up in orbit might not be feasible.

[frrn]

Agreed that nothing is fully trustless on Earth. The point isn’t eliminating operators, it’s avoiding single points of coercion and failure. One exit can be shut down but many exits and type of networks (includong more alternative infra like the Guifi.net’s meshnetworks in Spain for example) across jurisdictions raise the cost from “call a CEO” to sustained political pressure or directly a CEO that has control over an entire network and its also a billionaire CEO with a messiah complex, far-right leanings and tendency to drug abuse.

Absolute decentralization is impossible. Reducing capture and increasing resilience is not. That’s a meaningful difference.

Said that, I’m happy with Starlink as an extra actor for a healthy mix of ISPs and networks that brings resilience.

[greenie_beans]

positive change will never happen as long as the workers require the owner's property to help make the change, because the owners can control what happens on their property.

we need a mutual aid web services (MAWS). a sharedflare. everybody's link. etc.

this was an insight of fannie lou hamer and other freedom fighters from the civil rights movement after they had their food stolen/destroyed/poisoned. they were focused on food and education and healthcare but the idea can be applied to technology infrastructure, too.

[hdgvhicv]

Sovereign like one controlled by the Iranian government?

[frrn]

That’s a false dichotomy. Saying Starlink isn’t sovereign doesn’t imply support for state-controlled networks. Criticizing corporate centralization ≠ endorsing government control.

The goal is systems where authority is fragmented enough that capture (by states or corporations) is structurally hard

[nicepost]

Would starlink be reliable in countries where it's leadership wasn't politically aligned though?

[lostlogin]

This has already been established with Ukraine.

It’s weird there and seems to be running now.

Though Russian troops have been pictured with it too.

[heraldgeezer]

If the device is in Ukraine, how would it distinguish between russians or ukranians using it in the same country?

Like, decide.

[anabab]

A government may introduce a list of identifiers of devices allowed to operate in their territory. With relatively frequent verification to prevent the use of captured devices.

[stogot]

Not a bad idea, but I doubt they know how many they have or their citizens have. Let alone serial numbers

[lostlogin]

That’s very clearly a problem. But that wasn’t the one Musk weighed in on, he just blocked Ukraine at some points in time.

[aspect0545]

Starlink is Musk. That‘s not reliable

[heraldgeezer]

Starlink is now the only way to get internet in Iran bro.

I heard somewhere.

[comfysocks]

It’s great that starlink is there, but it can still be shut down on the whim of its owner as seen in the past. So hurray for starlink! (unless the opportunistic tides of politics change)

[lucasRW]

I know you hate it, but X and Starlink are the only channels giving us information on Iran right now. If X was censored (like many leftists are advocating), we wouldn't know anything about those riots.

[djeastm]

What are Iranians posting on X that the left would want censored?

[lucasRW]

People rising against a regime that the left sympathizes with, obviously.

Iranians describing how Isam destroyed their country within one decade (the UK establishment is very unconfortable with that truth, for some reaslon...).

Iranians calling on Trump and thanking Elon. That tends to make leftists mad.

[djeastm]

>That tends to make leftists mad.

Being mad is one thing, but demanding X censor that speech is another. I'm not really involved in this debate so I haven't seen anything like that. Can you provide some examples of any prominent people on the left calling for X to censor that speech?

[comfysocks]

You know, not everyone on this site has an absolutist binary opinion on the Elon. Some people can give him credit for what he gets right, while simultaneously calling bullshit on his bullshit.

[girvo]

It's apparently being jammed in Iran from what I've heard/read, though I don't know how reliable that is.

[heraldgeezer]

Cant be jammed.

The dishes can be found and disabled ofc.

If it could be "jammed" like that Russia would "jam" the Ukranian ones.

[ninjagoo]

Why can't it be jammed? Can't any radio signal can be jammed by a stronger one?

[slumberlust]

The way it's been presented in other threads is that the narrow beam makes it quite difficult to jam at scale.

[girvo]

> If it could be "jammed" like that Russia would "jam" the Ukranian ones.

They did, though, in a few places? It was reported as such anyway, again this is not something I'm an expert on.

[lostlogin]

Putin found a way of achieving that at a couple of points in time.

[pelagicAustral]

You do still need an ISP playing ball with Starlink for that to work.

[hdgvhicv]

You need Musk to play ball. Starlink worked fine when Afghanistan turned off the internet. There’s a lot of rhetoric about the evil musk internet there - the government don’t care about things like vsat, it’s very specifically framed as anti America and anti Musk

Remember the people enforcing it (going to businesses and checking their connections) are thick as two short planks.

Iran I expect has a more effective enforcement than the taliban, but the principal is the same - starlink works fine in these countries and downlinks elsewhere (Europe in the case of Afghanistan). GEO providers like Inmarsat downlink in places like the Netherlands.

It’s all rather meaningless as only a tiny number of people have access to these systems, compared to access to the Internet via phones.

[lostlogin]

Musk has to agree though - and he was shutting this down at various points in Ukraine over his support for Russian.

Ideally Starlink wouldn’t be involved.

[stevenhuang]

The situation was more complicated than that, there was pressure from the US gov (itar) and desire not escalate the situation at the time.

Now that the geopolitical situation has changed and funding concerns mostly alleviated, there are 200k terminals in use in Ukraine.

https://circleid.com/posts/starlink-in-ukraine-what-three-ye...

[lostlogin]

He took a very public approach to navigating that and while that would be on brand, it’s wild. He seem to have been directly communicating with Putin.

Disconnecting Ukraine at key points in battles would fit with the current administration’s flip flopping approach, but again he is at the front of it and on Twitter slagging off supposed American allies.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/10/why-is-elon-musk-talki...

This may all get weird again as the US seems to have blundered into conflict with Russia over Venezuela so maybe the Ukraine may see some support.

[IlikeMadison]

also mesh networks

[elbci]

mesh networks! peer-to-peer, not (oligarch/gov/corporation)-to-(gullible maneuver mass)