In that it's a mesh network deployed and controlled by individuals, and provides a level of encryption, yes.
But the limited range and low bandwidth makes it ineffective at a large scale. Also a nefarious party (the government presumably in this example) could determine the rough location of nodes, were they so inclined.
But the limited range and low bandwidth makes it ineffective at a large scale.
It is good enough to usually work at a city wide level and between people within walkie talkie range. It's only ever meant for resilient local comms, it is not meant to be a state or even county wide system even with mqtt
Meshcore seems to be overtaking Meshtastic in adoption recently, and it handles long-haul router placement and high traffic, high density nodes a good bit better for metro areas.
The nearest router node is about a mile and a half away, so yes, meshcore is pretty great around the sound because of the amount of routers. Most people here have moved away from Meshtastic because meshcore can handle more nodes and hops.
I haven't either. My area is very small and barely has any meshtastic activity, but from asking the couple people on meshtastic public channel it doesn't sound like there's a single meshcore user in our area either.
It's mostly flying under the radar right now. But wait until someone does something really bad (from the viewpoint of the autocracy) with the help of Meshtastic.
It would be very easy to make Meshtastic unusable.
Put up a ton of fake nodes that register in the network but just don't forward packages.
Let the fake nodes send tons of packages to saturate the legitimate parts of the network, so that there's no bandwidth left for real users.
Use the fake nodes to triangualte any Meshtastic user.
Send the police after everyone using Meshtastic.
The internet once also was such a great tool against autocracy, until it stopped flying under the radar.
That's the game, keep adopting new strategies and technology faster than the opposition. Meshtastic is just the beginning, there are far more capable emerging options out there and having a bunch of people who have at least a rudimentary understanding of digital radio means we get to move faster.
Anything that requires radio is inherently unreliable. Radio is too easily regulated and controlled.
The only option in a hostile state is to use existing communication channels. Such as encrypted networks (or just vpns/proxies) over regular internet that pretend to be https traffic. This is what works now in China/Russia/etc.
Yes and no, if you have the right equipment there's a whole class is LPI waveforms that are very difficult to detect with cyclostationary analysis. You can also ride under existing broadcasts to mask yourself or even just mimicking cellular traffic. Kind of the same idea you're proposing but there are radio equivalents.
1 wouldn't be possible as there is no handshake involved with meshtastic. Messages are forwarded based on a set of algorithms that are designed to maximize distance
However jamming is a real threat along with people being attacked or arrested for using meshtastic. This was a shower thought so don't take it to seriously
The other issue is that you'll only ever see very sparse adoption. So what can you really do with it?
You'd need some kind of kickstarter for a wifi router than implements everything you need plus this and then have apps that make use of it.
But in my country it's basically illegal to have open wifi spots because you're held responsible for any "illegal" traffic going on. So everyone has their own internet connection and isn't sharing. And it's only going to get worse.
Adding to this, (even) if we encrypted the signals, would these small LoRa devices be able to handle the encryption overhead? On other words, how would that affect usability? We are unfortunately all too used to instantaneous communication, so I think the transition would be difficult for many, which would lead them to jeopardize opsec in some way.
You're right that reticulum is obscure, but so was meshtastic at some point. It's up to us to change that. I'm already quite impressed by the programs developed for reticulum and more will come as more people get eyes on it.
For the last part, I feel I have to mention that reticulum isn't limited to just LoRa nor is it limited to just text chat. It can also travel over packet radio, IP/TCP, and I2P just to name a few.
Right now it can do text, voice, and image sharing. But the coolest thing I think reticulum can do is serve markdown based web pages. All encrypted as a rule.
I would really encourage everyone interested in this kind of tech to consider reticulum.
Small pedantic note, Reticulum does not do text/voice/image, it is just the network layer, somewhat like OSI L2-3. LXMF or LXMS run on top of it (~L4), and finally actual applications providing media capabilities are on top of those at L7. The layering is a bit confusing at first, but I actually really like it and think it is part of its strengths - it was built to build things
Meshtastic is also obscure to the average person and reticulum is a superior protocol (capable of routing across multiple connection types besides just radio, bridging national borders via packet radio or TCP, etc.) and you can connect to to the reticulum network from a normal unmodified cellphone, so regular people are more likely to actually use it than something they need specialized radio hardware to even access. Plus nomadnet exists, so reticulum has actual webpages on it (I'm not as familiar with meshtastic, but I don't think it has webpages).
Reticulum is transport-agnostic, its main point is running across a dishomogeneous network that might be composed of classic copper/fiber IP links, satellite links, LoRa, laser, whatever
It is and it isnt, you do need to put in effort and manage expectations with meshnets (which makes it a hard sell for normies and people without a direct need). I was at DefCon a few weeks ago with my nerd herd and we functionally only used Meshtastic for our coms for the entire conference. On a few occasions I had to set the hop count to 5-7 but that was to get messages into or out of the main building. Once in the main hall (and using the cons firmware because it needed to default to shorter chirps to not saturate the airwaves) it worked just fine and our fleet of nodes was working perfectly.
Do note that there were ~2500 meshtastic nodes inside a convention hall, and electromagnetically speaking, that was probably the most chaotic place west of the mississippi that week.
As for out in the wild, Ive set up a small fleet of repeaters around town and can send longer range signals a quite a long distance away. Any further communication would require enabling MQTT, setting up servers and building real infrastructure. Thats a whole other can of worms I dont have the time to do yet.
All of them live at peoples houses (so access to a normal power source) and either have some small lithium cell or an 18650. Only expirmenting with small solar panels and you need larger ones to run repeaters or routers as they are more active.
You just need a cheap esp 32 LoRa board with tiny antenna. You can find it all for pretty cheap. Power it via usb. You then use your phone or computer to access it and send messages. There's a learning curve to using it. It’s been hit and miss for me in regards to messaging other people in my city. I think it would be great for telemetry in regards to other uses for it.
33 Comments
FunnySalt@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 43 pts · 2d
In that it's a mesh network deployed and controlled by individuals, and provides a level of encryption, yes.
But the limited range and low bandwidth makes it ineffective at a large scale. Also a nefarious party (the government presumably in this example) could determine the rough location of nodes, were they so inclined.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 20 pts · 2d
It is good enough to usually work at a city wide level and between people within walkie talkie range. It's only ever meant for resilient local comms, it is not meant to be a state or even county wide system even with mqtt
Meshcore seems to be overtaking Meshtastic in adoption recently, and it handles long-haul router placement and high traffic, high density nodes a good bit better for metro areas.
CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 2d
Meshcore is usable, indoors, in my basement, which is a surprise. It's much more active than Meshtastic in the Puget Sound area.
BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I'm in southern WV, recently switched to meshcore from meshtastic, it is about 200x more active here.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
Must be lucky and have a very close router node
CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1d
The nearest router node is about a mile and a half away, so yes, meshcore is pretty great around the sound because of the amount of routers. Most people here have moved away from Meshtastic because meshcore can handle more nodes and hops.
FunnySalt@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
I've been meaning to try out meshcore, but haven't gotten around to it. It does sound promising.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
I haven't either. My area is very small and barely has any meshtastic activity, but from asking the couple people on meshtastic public channel it doesn't sound like there's a single meshcore user in our area either.
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 2d
Not sure it is.
It's mostly flying under the radar right now. But wait until someone does something really bad (from the viewpoint of the autocracy) with the help of Meshtastic.
It would be very easy to make Meshtastic unusable.
The internet once also was such a great tool against autocracy, until it stopped flying under the radar.
potatopotato@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 2d
That's the game, keep adopting new strategies and technology faster than the opposition. Meshtastic is just the beginning, there are far more capable emerging options out there and having a bunch of people who have at least a rudimentary understanding of digital radio means we get to move faster.
yakko@feddit.uk · 7 pts · 2d
Feels like that's how it is with everything. Find the new thing and leave as soon as the uncool people show up
deadcream@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 1d
Anything that requires radio is inherently unreliable. Radio is too easily regulated and controlled.
The only option in a hostile state is to use existing communication channels. Such as encrypted networks (or just vpns/proxies) over regular internet that pretend to be https traffic. This is what works now in China/Russia/etc.
potatopotato@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
Yes and no, if you have the right equipment there's a whole class is LPI waveforms that are very difficult to detect with cyclostationary analysis. You can also ride under existing broadcasts to mask yourself or even just mimicking cellular traffic. Kind of the same idea you're proposing but there are radio equivalents.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
1 wouldn't be possible as there is no handshake involved with meshtastic. Messages are forwarded based on a set of algorithms that are designed to maximize distance
However jamming is a real threat along with people being attacked or arrested for using meshtastic. This was a shower thought so don't take it to seriously
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
The other issue is that you'll only ever see very sparse adoption. So what can you really do with it?
You'd need some kind of kickstarter for a wifi router than implements everything you need plus this and then have apps that make use of it.
But in my country it's basically illegal to have open wifi spots because you're held responsible for any "illegal" traffic going on. So everyone has their own internet connection and isn't sharing. And it's only going to get worse.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 13h
not a good idea. apps are usually too wasteful for this
akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1d
Adding to this, (even) if we encrypted the signals, would these small LoRa devices be able to handle the encryption overhead? On other words, how would that affect usability? We are unfortunately all too used to instantaneous communication, so I think the transition would be difficult for many, which would lead them to jeopardize opsec in some way.
BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
They are encrypted. Handles it just fine.
Sicurio@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 2d
Meshtastic is cool but I think people would be better served by Reticulum
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 1d
Reticulum is sick and I'm glad to see it start getting mentioned more and more
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Reticulum is obscure and doesnt really have the same developed effort behind it. I also don't really see much point in it as LoRa is slow by design.
Sicurio@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 1d
You're right that reticulum is obscure, but so was meshtastic at some point. It's up to us to change that. I'm already quite impressed by the programs developed for reticulum and more will come as more people get eyes on it. For the last part, I feel I have to mention that reticulum isn't limited to just LoRa nor is it limited to just text chat. It can also travel over packet radio, IP/TCP, and I2P just to name a few. Right now it can do text, voice, and image sharing. But the coolest thing I think reticulum can do is serve markdown based web pages. All encrypted as a rule. I would really encourage everyone interested in this kind of tech to consider reticulum.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
Small pedantic note, Reticulum does not do text/voice/image, it is just the network layer, somewhat like OSI L2-3. LXMF or LXMS run on top of it (~L4), and finally actual applications providing media capabilities are on top of those at L7. The layering is a bit confusing at first, but I actually really like it and think it is part of its strengths - it was built to build things
Sicurio@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
True
gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 16h
Meshtastic is also obscure to the average person and reticulum is a superior protocol (capable of routing across multiple connection types besides just radio, bridging national borders via packet radio or TCP, etc.) and you can connect to to the reticulum network from a normal unmodified cellphone, so regular people are more likely to actually use it than something they need specialized radio hardware to even access. Plus nomadnet exists, so reticulum has actual webpages on it (I'm not as familiar with meshtastic, but I don't think it has webpages).
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Reticulum is transport-agnostic, its main point is running across a dishomogeneous network that might be composed of classic copper/fiber IP links, satellite links, LoRa, laser, whatever
Bahnd@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
It is and it isnt, you do need to put in effort and manage expectations with meshnets (which makes it a hard sell for normies and people without a direct need). I was at DefCon a few weeks ago with my nerd herd and we functionally only used Meshtastic for our coms for the entire conference. On a few occasions I had to set the hop count to 5-7 but that was to get messages into or out of the main building. Once in the main hall (and using the cons firmware because it needed to default to shorter chirps to not saturate the airwaves) it worked just fine and our fleet of nodes was working perfectly.
Do note that there were ~2500 meshtastic nodes inside a convention hall, and electromagnetically speaking, that was probably the most chaotic place west of the mississippi that week.
As for out in the wild, Ive set up a small fleet of repeaters around town and can send longer range signals a quite a long distance away. Any further communication would require enabling MQTT, setting up servers and building real infrastructure. Thats a whole other can of worms I dont have the time to do yet.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 14h
how do you power them?
Bahnd@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13h
All of them live at peoples houses (so access to a normal power source) and either have some small lithium cell or an 18650. Only expirmenting with small solar panels and you need larger ones to run repeaters or routers as they are more active.
daggermoon@piefed.world · 7 pts · 1d
What can I do with it?
Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
You just need a cheap esp 32 LoRa board with tiny antenna. You can find it all for pretty cheap. Power it via usb. You then use your phone or computer to access it and send messages. There's a learning curve to using it. It’s been hit and miss for me in regards to messaging other people in my city. I think it would be great for telemetry in regards to other uses for it.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
Unreliably send SMS messages a block or two.
beeng@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 1d
This is fun reportage on it from arte in Europe.
https://youtu.be/omvhi_6DfCc?is=1iUneC11YiPF_AZu