Most of them are already banned or restricted. I think Briar is still accessible. But it entered into maintenance mode.

Change your dns??

Also Meshenger

https://f-droid.org/packages/d.d.meshenger/

[I have not tried this software. Test before deployment]

exactly. we need to decentralise communication very desperately considering the direction big tech and the entire world seems to be going in. we're planning on supporting LoRa radios as relays in this app as well.

i was thinking we can crowdfund a few but then they need very tech forward people to set up, which are scarce. most "tech people" in india including most engineers, are just corporate slaves with no thinking for themselves. Open Source enthusiasts are so rare.

This is also a reason to have functional LoraWan mesh network

fyi LoRa is a useful building block for building offline (non-internet) mesh networks but LoRaWAN is not: LoRaWAN is for IP-over-LoRa and it requires one of the nodes to have internet access to talk to a centralized server which mediates everything. (tldr: forget about LoRaWAN.)

Sorry I don't have time to braindump on other things in this space, but I will say https://columba.network/ looks interesting - it is a reticulum client for android which can use LoRa (if you have a LoRa radio) and also BLE (100m range) and WiFi (both locally to other nodes and to the internet to talk to distant nodes). I have not actually tried Columba myself, but i think it looks promising.

edit: looking closer i think the one big missing feature in Columba for this type of application is group chat. Unfortunately Reticulum doesn't have a decentralized group chat yet; its 1:1 chat protocol (LXMF) is completely decentralized (two people can keep talking if they're in range of each other even when they can't see anyone else in the mesh) but the group chat protocol it has now (called RRC, similar to IRC) requires a centralized relay server. You can run an RRC relay yourself, including on a non-internet-connected network, but it only works for people who are able to reach that relay (and it doesn't keep history so you miss what was said while you couldn't reach it). I see that the Columba author has actually implemented RRC for Android, but it's currently in a separate app called eridanus. I don't know if anyone is trying to build a decentralized group chat protocol on top of reticulum yet but probably someone is. It's a very complicated problem to solve well, though.

will have to research on this! isn't reticulum specifically for stuff like LoRas though? can it use just phones as relays in a mesh?

Briar is our next best option. We have shared with our communities a proper guide on how to set up and use Briar. The only issue with Briar is that mesh communication can happen only through Forums and its functionality appears to be a bit un-intuitive for people not that comfortable with such technology.

No! We have to the develop a new better app!

https://xkcd.com/927/

We are not using anything on ground that has not been audited, especially for mass use. Thanks for your concern though!

yes. and for this we were planning on implementing the same feature as briar which allows the app to be shared offline over wifi direct from within the briar app.

Will keep in mind!

hey! we did fork an existing project only. we didn't use briar because briar doesn't have the mesh capability, and also, it was WAY too unstable and will hinder wide adoption. if it's not adopted widely, it's basically useless.

bit chat was removed from both the app store and the play store and its latest release had a pretty big stability issue where it straight up crashes when you try to scan a qr to add someone. also it can't be shared offline like briar can. I don't know, i guess you all right, we just built this out of desperation because the mesh feature is the most necessary one which actually allows information to get OUT of protest sites and into the view of the internet.

and as of the last protests, removedat didn't have the talk over internet feature implemented at all.

and I mean, we're only just looking for guidance to make the most accessible and widely adoptable route for communication and organising. any help is definitely appreciated :)

Luckily things are not that bad (yet)! SMS texts were working during the last protest (NOT the July ones which eventually led to the resignation of the Education minister) and Supreme court has directed that internet facilities shall remain unhindered amid the ongoing protests. So this does not have to be done within even a week or so. If you are willing to help though, it would be great to get in touch on Signal. Can I DM you?

Indeed! Looking for experts to help with this. We will NOT go forward with publicising and having anyone use this until its audited and worked on properly. Cheers!

What is this, can you provide a link? Will check it out.

I just tested this one its really good on Bluetooth only. It doesn't have chat rooms which kinda feels like a missing feature.