To eveyone on Mastodon:
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@tk @LukefromDC It's not either-or. Mesh is fine for anything it can do, but there's nothing wrong with carrying at much traffic as possible over the internet as long as we have it. It's looming authority over naming/identity infrastructure, not the actual network transport infrastructure, that's a big problem.
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@tk @dalias More like parallel and intermediate preparation.
Note that those of use who live dozens of miles from other activists not in the same house cannot usefully install mesh networking hardware for our own use short of long range radio gear.
We have to distinguish here between three different things. One is operational communications, which need only reach a few people at a time and most be as robust and secure as possible. In the old days this was (very insecure) landlone phone trees.
The second is internal publication to our own folks, same job military newspapers had during WWII. This needs to be stay out of monitored spaces, and needs to be moving now to spaces that are more difficult to take down. This is where mesh networks in cities can really shine and .onion sites as well for temporary global reach. In the old days this was done with newspapers distributed at public protests and wheatpasted fliers.
The third task is external publication to the general public.
A lot of the folks who get everything from Meta are today unreachable without having cutouts who shuttle selected information between them and "rest of net." These cutouts do the work of the friendly reporters of past eras.
In the old days this job was done by communiques delivered to friendly reporters in the corporate media. Note that these are now much harder to find due to media consolidation, mergers, and precompliance with Trump. This is a problem WWII era militaries simply did not have of course.
Another mode we used in the past was pirate radio, whose range was similar to that of isolated mesh networks in small areas not connected to other mesh networks.
Widespread graffiti and huge posters (like the 1986 "Meese is a Pig" posters in DC) were another method that worked, and which were able to pierce media blackouts. Note that there were no Flock cameras, no facial recognition cameras, and a lot less outdoor CCTV in those days. It was thus a lot easier to get away with saturating a wall with giant posters or a massive "tagging" campaign.
We may have to accept that out of area comms are going to become slow and difficult, requiring things like sneakernet flash drive bridges as noted in the Crimethinc hypothetical at
https://crimethinc.com/2025/03/21/survival-a-story-about-anarchists-enduring-mass-raids
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@tk @dalias More like parallel and intermediate preparation.
Note that those of use who live dozens of miles from other activists not in the same house cannot usefully install mesh networking hardware for our own use short of long range radio gear.
We have to distinguish here between three different things. One is operational communications, which need only reach a few people at a time and most be as robust and secure as possible. In the old days this was (very insecure) landlone phone trees.
The second is internal publication to our own folks, same job military newspapers had during WWII. This needs to be stay out of monitored spaces, and needs to be moving now to spaces that are more difficult to take down. This is where mesh networks in cities can really shine and .onion sites as well for temporary global reach. In the old days this was done with newspapers distributed at public protests and wheatpasted fliers.
The third task is external publication to the general public.
A lot of the folks who get everything from Meta are today unreachable without having cutouts who shuttle selected information between them and "rest of net." These cutouts do the work of the friendly reporters of past eras.
In the old days this job was done by communiques delivered to friendly reporters in the corporate media. Note that these are now much harder to find due to media consolidation, mergers, and precompliance with Trump. This is a problem WWII era militaries simply did not have of course.
Another mode we used in the past was pirate radio, whose range was similar to that of isolated mesh networks in small areas not connected to other mesh networks.
Widespread graffiti and huge posters (like the 1986 "Meese is a Pig" posters in DC) were another method that worked, and which were able to pierce media blackouts. Note that there were no Flock cameras, no facial recognition cameras, and a lot less outdoor CCTV in those days. It was thus a lot easier to get away with saturating a wall with giant posters or a massive "tagging" campaign.
We may have to accept that out of area comms are going to become slow and difficult, requiring things like sneakernet flash drive bridges as noted in the Crimethinc hypothetical at
https://crimethinc.com/2025/03/21/survival-a-story-about-anarchists-enduring-mass-raids
@dalias @LukefromDC Realistically speaking, I'm pretty sure most folks would hear "there's nothing wrong with carrying at much traffic as possible over the internet as long as we have it" as a reason to not bother with looking into anything else. -
@dalias @LukefromDC Realistically speaking, I'm pretty sure most folks would hear "there's nothing wrong with carrying at much traffic as possible over the internet as long as we have it" as a reason to not bother with looking into anything else.
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@LukefromDC @tk Yep. The fediverse could adapt to this in a backwards-compatible way by ensuring all nodes have Tor routing available, and letting instances declare alternative .onion addresses for themselves, so that in the event a domain is seized, all existing users and posts persist via the .onion addresses which get transparently migrated in the federated data.
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@LukefromDC @tk Yep. The fediverse could adapt to this in a backwards-compatible way by ensuring all nodes have Tor routing available, and letting instances declare alternative .onion addresses for themselves, so that in the event a domain is seized, all existing users and posts persist via the .onion addresses which get transparently migrated in the federated data.
@dalias @LukefromDC The cool thing about Reticulum is that it can interoperate across all kinds of networks like the Internet, LoRa, I2p, and more. If we shift to that, it'll be trivial to choose whatever topology is suitable, with encryption as a baseline. -
@dalias @LukefromDC We need to move our activities off the Internet and switch to encrypted wireless mesh networking that can't be taken over by corporations.
@tk @dalias @LukefromDC Suburbs and car-dependent nightmares beg to differ.
Sufficiently low population density and inability to link up with other clusters as to make mesh networks impractical. -
@tk @dalias @LukefromDC Suburbs and car-dependent nightmares beg to differ.
Sufficiently low population density and inability to link up with other clusters as to make mesh networks impractical.@dalias @LukefromDC @lispi314 That's why people have been putting up discreet repeaters in rural areas.
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@dalias @LukefromDC @lispi314 That's why people have been putting up discreet repeaters in rural areas.@tk @dalias @LukefromDC They haven't here, and those should be fairly easy to foxhunt should opposition care to.
Onboarding is also a problem without explicit introduction. -
@tk @dalias @LukefromDC They haven't here, and those should be fairly easy to foxhunt should opposition care to.
Onboarding is also a problem without explicit introduction.@lispi314 @tk @LukefromDC Nobody is doing this, but the way you make rural repeaters discreet is with line-of-sight optical in place of RF for long stretches, only switching to RF at the endpoints.
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@lispi314 @tk @LukefromDC Nobody is doing this, but the way you make rural repeaters discreet is with line-of-sight optical in place of RF for long stretches, only switching to RF at the endpoints.
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@tk @dalias @LukefromDC They haven't here, and those should be fairly easy to foxhunt should opposition care to.
Onboarding is also a problem without explicit introduction.Onboarding is also a problem without explicit introduction.
Not any different from the Internet's early days.
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@tk @LukefromDC @lispi314 Oh, sweet! TIL.
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@tk @LukefromDC @lispi314 Oh, sweet! TIL.
@dalias @tk @LukefromDC They are yes, but encryption is illegal on amateur radio in a lot of countries. -
Onboarding is also a problem without explicit introduction.
Not any different from the Internet's early days.
@tk@f.kawa-kun.com @dalias@hachyderm.io @LukefromDC@kolektiva.social Worse, because at least then one could openly advertise the information in magazines and public messaging.
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@dalias @tk @LukefromDC They are yes, but encryption is illegal on amateur radio in a lot of countries.@dalias @LukefromDC @lispi314 HaLow can supposedly reach up to 5km of range, so you wouldn't need as many repeaters for that mode.
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These national payment systems are generally a good thing though I have no details how everything works behind the scenes. The problem is that these are typically only for digital payments and payments in person (by card) still rely on US infrastructure. Another issue is that these systems typically only work within the respective country.
Both Brazil and India have their own payment systems that work both on- and offline and are incredibly successful. They are interesting cases, but they too only work within the borders.
The Digital Euro and Wero are supposed to address this and I hope it comes soon. While Wero replaces some national systems it's also intended to tie in with some other national systems across Europe (not just EU eventually). I am unaware if there's anything here in regards to the UK but it could be a worthwhile effort (though the UK being the UK that might be easier said than done).
At its most basic premise I find crypto interesting, especially given the massive flaws in our banking system globally. Sadly, the way it is being employed, and by whom, seems to make it more an evil than something good.
@thisislieven @bms @s1m0n4 @LukefromDC regarding UK: wero is based on SEPA Instant payments (SEPA instant credit transfer). UK stayed in SEPA after brexit. SEPA is supported by 36 countries in Eurpe. So the regulations are there already.
Plus: Revolut is from UK. Revolut supports wero already in Belgium, France and Germany.
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@dalias @LukefromDC @lispi314 HaLow can supposedly reach up to 5km of range, so you wouldn't need as many repeaters for that mode.
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@lispi314 @tk @dalias Amateur radio licenses would be another chokepoint for government to attack, and pirate radio running 24-7 is as said above very easy to find using RDF.
I've done that myself with a Part 15 device in the bushes, nothing more than a whip antenna and a crude 5 bar signal strength indicator were needed to find that at ranges inside 50 feet or so. Kept finding it exactly where the antenna pointed end on at least signal (the null).
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@thisislieven @bms @s1m0n4 @LukefromDC regarding UK: wero is based on SEPA Instant payments (SEPA instant credit transfer). UK stayed in SEPA after brexit. SEPA is supported by 36 countries in Eurpe. So the regulations are there already.
Plus: Revolut is from UK. Revolut supports wero already in Belgium, France and Germany.
@Socltime @thisislieven @s1m0n4 @LukefromDC Hate to point out a rude awakening here, but... Good luck getting UK retail banks to support SEPA payments via IBAN correctly, at least, when I tried in the 2000s with Halifax as a personal retail customer, I got NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER when I asked about it in writing, despite an earlier grudging compensatory response when I was the target of ATM card cloning. As far as they were concerned at the time, the regulations may as well not have been written, and I was well aware of them then and now. The situation may be somewhat better now, but it entirely depends on which specific UK bank one is using.
I can't do Revolut because they're avid LLM users and are too tied to Google in their tech stack, and their privacy policy is quite abusive. They make exercising GDPR Article 17 difficult as they are obstructive in that sense. I CANNOT condone or recommend Revolut in any way.
