105
Meshtastic is a powerful tool (lemmy.zip)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 18 points 2 months ago* (10 children)

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.

  • 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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    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

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    I read up a bit on the meshtastic broadcast algorithm and you are right, 1 would only work if the node in question is the only one in range that could reach the target, so in real life, not so much of an issue.

    But it would be pretty simple to flood the network with garbage thus denying the service to anyone else. Would be even simpler than jamming, because you can abuse other nodes to rebroadcast your jams far beyond your reach.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •