Hong Kong protestors using Bridgefy's Bluetooth-based mesh network messaging app
forbes.com
forbes.com
I am not sure why protestors did not adopt the open source serval mesh project apk and ios app. [1]
In Hong Kong given the density of building it's bit hard to have a line of sight, so it will still be hard to build a local network. But it's still possible to build a completely wireless network over the top of the buildings to communicate with each other.
This communications can be blocked, but then it will still work if enough people switch on their mobile phone and WiFi router to communicate with each other over peer to peer network which is a combination of wired and wireless. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
[1] http://www.servalproject.org/
Effectively sideloading does not exist. The fact that 0.001 percent of people who own an iPhone can, with great effort, sideload apps is irrelevant.
Which is why you can't buy books in the kindle ios app[0] among others.
[0]https://www.techspot.com/article/1597-how-to-buy-kindle-book...
https://servalpaul.blogspot.com/2018/11/serval-chat-ios-port...
2) This wasn't planned out months in advance. This is a protest that is organically sprouting up. Nobody wants to add jailbreaking or xCode to the onboarding process for people to join a protest movement.
3) I think worrying about Apple tracking what apps you install is the least of anyone's problems there at the moment.
This service even has different terms of service, than the standard iCloud offering (though I haven't done a diff to see what's changed).
The effect of this is that the encryption keys for the service for Chinese users, are in the hands of a state-owned company (not Apple).
I'm a big support of Apple's approach and ethics with respect to privacy generally, however if you're in China, or a citizen of China, then it's probably safe to assume that anything on or passing through iCloud, is fully accessible to the state, without requiring Apple's involvement (e.g. via subpoena).
Or do Chinese iCloud accounts still use the Chinese servers even when abroad while the western ones get to go through the great firewall for western iCloud?
> If you are not a Chinese citizen residing in China mainland, you can edit the country or region setting of your Apple ID to reflect your current country or region and continue using iCloud under Apple's current terms and conditions.
Hong Kong residents are not impacted by this.
The broader question is, if the Chinese state can demand this, then what (other than popular opinion) is stopping other states (with sufficient clout to meddle in Apple's markets and/or operations) from demanding the same?
Given that the protests are about China's over-reach into Hong Kong rule of law, Apple making any changes in the immediate future to impact Hong Kong residents would be a very challenging decision to make. It would also be particularly difficult to enforce, given that Hong Kong exists on the outside of the Great Firewall, with the rest of the wider Internet.
(I thought that was a joke/parody name, but it's actually true.)
The background makes it kinda hard to read
I like to add one point here: Mesh network is not only good for protest, it also useful when network is unstable, for example during bad weather, disastrous event etc. Let's don't forget mesh net can also be use to off-load some of the traffic from the "Normal network", plus good for privacy (If the network is built on top a verified open source structure).
I don't think it's a good idea of advertising a type of tech "good for protest/revolution/revolt/something like that". If you do that, the tech will never be adopted.
Meaning human-centric vs tech-centric morale/world-view?
Hey we used bluetooth to communicate to my next door neighbour while our internet was being sniffed by the government.
Other side of the world:
Hey man, looks like the bluetooth tech they were using is pretty outdated. I wonder how they are living.
How did the talk get diverted ?
Why the other side of the world didn't talk about whats important?
How can they start appreciating first than putting the intellect mind into work?
Whats feels wrong?
Something feels wired in the brain.
Haaa right!
Tech is as addictive as any other addiction.
Intellect is the addictive substance.
Big brains know it,
We use it,
We think along with it.
So what got lost?
When did we stop to think like a humble monkey instead like a greedy machine ?
couple more questions.
point - Balance the mind with its own nature and external influence.
Reject if something feels wrong. Or atleast dont express.
Depression is prevalent in tech.
Why ! Because brain was giving you signs from beginning that it isnt healthy.
Everything is connected.
Hope I gave you the message you needed.
> I am not sure why protestors did not adopt the open source serval mesh project apk and ios app.
Because they don't share your value system, and chose a better user experience over a more secure system.
I want free software to win, which is perhaps a more extreme value system than yours (if you understand the difference between free software and open source software). But it strikes me as a bit naive to assume that free software will win on superior ideology alone. It's no coincidence that free software is winning in areas where it provides the best user experience (server OS-es, browsers) and losing in areas where it provides a worse user experience (user OS-es, most web applications).
Security seems like a good reason to me.
"Security is more important than useability" is an ideology.
Good example of software that would be better if open source.
Combining mesh over some/several form(s) of 802.11, Signal protocol public key distribution "locally" via QR code, and Delay-Tolerant Networking (Cerf et al. 2007) would be the holy grail (and would have no reliance on SMS or phone number) and also could not be monetized. Which is a damn shame, because it's eminently technically feasible, but complicated enough that I'd probably need a professional team to implement.
Also this correlation could be done with stingray towers without bringing the cell carriers into the loop.
I don't think gp here is in china, but rather just offering their procedure for acquiring a burner phone.
If the legit phone goes off while the burner is on that's a pattern. If the legit phone goes off and (travel time / distance) elapses before burner appears (travel time / distance) away from the last legit ping that's a pattern. If the legit phone and burner phone hit the same towers at the same time more than 3 times that's a pattern. If the burner phone spends most of the time off (battery out, faraday cage etc) then the times it does connect are even stronger signals.
You need to generate a ton of "noise" data where both phones are hitting different towers at the same time on a constant basis; and never being together. Maybe mailing the burner phone on a regular basis between isolated locations that the real phone never goes to?
Cell tower data is incredibly powerful for tracking people.
They usually require a sign up before activation; I'd be interested to know of ones that are true "burner" SIMs that are sold here.
Vodafone just let you tick a box saying "i am who i say i am" https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-service-...
If I am Alice and know Bob, I want to know Bob's address. Using the cell phone number, an address I already have for Bob, solves that problem. Verifying the number via SMS provides some reasonable (but not ironclad) guarantees that it actually is Bob.
Yes, as an address scheme, it prioritizes convenience over other things. If you want wide acceptance, that's a requirement. Wide acceptance can be useful if you need to adopt something in a hurry and you didn't think to set up something in advance. It's also great because it isn't exactly great opsec to look different from the crowd, and using Tor is a giant "HI I AM DOING CRIMES" beacon to the world.
1) The Signal protocol, which can have multiple implementations (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Skype all use it), 2) The Signal client and server, which are open source, and 3) The Signal service operated by Signal Messenger, LLC.
You can use either 1 or 2 to implement a system that doesn't require a phone number to use. Wire, for instance, is a messenger that has adopted parts of the Signal protocol and the Signal source code. [https://github.com/wireapp/proteus/blob/develop/src/internal...]
What you can't do is change how the Signal servers operated by Signal Messenger are operated, or refer to your own client/server using Signal trademarks.
[1]: https://medium.com/@wireapp/axolotl-and-proteus-788519b186a7...
It also lacks the ability to use existing contacts (you have to do a QR code exchange).
Having seen FireChat, another closed source mesh network app that allows people to sign up without giving a phone number, there’s no reason for me to recommend your app or even for me to try it.
> [You could] chat on one of four available channels with nearby users over local wireless, by exchanging text and hand-drawn pictures.
> At about the peak of its popularity—right before smartphones became truly prevalent among kids my age—I was doing middle school science fairs. This involved lots of standing around waiting in front of your trifold posterboard while judges slowly worked their way along the rows and rows of other projects. We weren't supposed to leave our own stations in the meantime, and they were spaced out enough to make talking with your neighbors inconvenient. Instead, the whole room was on PictoChat, filling up all four channels with streams of chatter and doodles and mutual commiseration on our anxieties over presenting to the judges.
For a company known for perpetually trailing behind its competitors in online services, Nintendo was oddly ahead of its time here (and with the Download Play feature, too: peer-to-peer software distribution and wireless networking!).
And because Nintendo prides themselves on being a family company, in much the way that Disney does, they had less of a tolerance for looking the other way at just how bad other users can be. Microsoft would just throw out an "Online interactions not ESRB rated" warning and moderate the worst of it after the fact when building Xbox Live. I don't think Nintendo ever saw that as an acceptable option.
https://globalmeshlabs.org — goTenna’s open-source Lot49 protocol, to incentivize build-out of global ISP/carrier-free messaging network
This would be extremely useful since you can share your F-Droid archive over bluetooth, and that would also allow the app to be distributed the same way.
One less way for the authorities to block the app from being acquired.
https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/
Seems to be available on F-Droid, but unfortunately is not cross-platform.
The correct url appers to be this https://bridgefy.me/
Pardon my ignorance but lets say that someone runs a typical cell phone jammer in the area, would that block the Bluetooth signal from working or are RF wavelengths not able to be jammed?
Hong Kong's ISP association published a public letter of protest about it.
Edit: Found it - https://www.hkispa.org.hk/139-urgent-statement-of-hkispa-on-...
This outrage came after some top pro-Beijing politicians said that declaring an emergency situation is still on the table, by doing so, it would allow the government to block certain internet services.
Pro-Beijing politicians always use harsh language. The same way PLA officers hinted that the PLA could be deployed in HK if requested by the government.
Dictators can cut off social media apps, even cut of Internet access. But they risk turning more people out in the streets if they cut the power.
Who's the authority on the identity of a recipient? Do you exchange something out of band (for example a QR code) first? How do messages get routed? How do messages behave under constant network partitioning and healing? Does it use your GPS location for network topology purposes? etc etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.A.T.M.A.N.
https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki
https://kb.datto.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024059951-Legacy-O...
http://developer.servalproject.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=cont...
there is also an open mesh for routers if you have the hardware and propensity look at openWRT and find a mesh add on for it find out what routers you have available to flash it onto and then you will have a MESH node.
@HN Crowd - is there something I could do to prepare for possible censorship? I was thinking of mesh Internet over the air, something like DN42 but over wireless links
I think that it might be possible to adjust the app to accommodate the esp32 mesh using the mesh security to identify it. Obv. not had time to look at the details, but you could start with this and the bridgefy SDK?
https://medium.com/bridgefy/creating-an-offline-messaging-ap...
Links: www.secfirst.org
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/umbrella-security/id14537153...
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...
EDIT: To clarify, I'm concerned about what could happen if China cuts HK off from the Internet.
A drone will act as a receiver/relay for the phone signal, and then triangulate the phone's location.
Or put an optical repeater at your target (bombable) site and install a long run of fiber to your safe location, which you then have to abandon. Doesn't seem very practical to me.
I'm thinking up scenarios of how China can do a modern Tianamen and get away with it.
I'd be happy to conclude that it isn't possible, but I'm not sure if I might be forgetting something...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/28/india-restore-kashmirs-i...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/internet-mobile-blackou...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/this-is-wha...
What's interesting is how quickly China has reacted to all this, in terms of pumping massive disinformation onto Twitter/Facebook/Youtube. There have to be upper limits on scaling that capability. And that is where China's weakness lies. The more they scale their Stasi bullshit the more likely we see a Chinese Snowden/Manning sooner or later.
What's important compared to other apps is that the protesters self selected it. If the US government were to provide some funding the next step would to build higher powered repeaters that can be placed on top of tall buildings. Can you imagine a city wide communication system for pro-Democracy forces in Hong Kong or Teheran?
Nice sentiment, but technically counterproductive for mesh networks. Wide coverage nodes create/suffer the “hidden transmitter problem”. Mesh performance degrades overall. Smaller footprint repeaters, and more of them, are a better solution.
> Nice sentiment, but technically counterproductive for mesh networks. Wide coverage nodes create/suffer the “hidden transmitter problem”. Mesh performance degrades overall. Smaller footprint repeaters, and more of them, are a better solution.
Could you go into more detail on this/share any readings? As a ham radio operator I have learned this through experience but wonder if there are any papers on this idea.
Basically, you probably already know this, but for others reading along: The RF networking channel differs from a wired net in that not all stations can hear each other. So for stations of relatively equal performance, the stations on the edges do not hear each other and must relay through a station in the middle. It follows that those stations perceive channel busy/clear differently.
With a high level station, first off it hears many more stations so can not transmit into a clear channel as often. Then, when it does transmit, it has a large footprint and prevents channel re-use by several lower-level stations that would otherwise have different locally-clear channels.
No internet being key here.
AFAIK, even in China you're not required to do such except perhaps being a Uyghur in Xinjiang...
However, the PRC government is believed to have full access to popular apps like WeChat, among other surveillance tools.
If I were to do it, maybe I'd just ask phone makers to install such tools as system or ring-0 apps. Why would I give the people a chance to choose whether to participate in my mass surveillance scheme?