https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/28/india-restore-kashmirs-i...
It really makes me wonder whether a strong movement towards mesh networks could resolve this. What are the ways authorities could block a community network? At least information could be spread this way, and might have saved the Zimbabwean journalist.
They can find transmittors, but their objective is to find the studio, which needs a live link to the transmitter.
As I understand it, the pirates break out onto the roof of tall buildings, especially public housing towers, and place transmitters. These will be found, so they gotta have a way of linking them back to home.
Sure, they could use mobile data (has its own opsec problems), or hacked residential wifi and a VPN (add real prisong itme of a hacking charge to the sheet when you get court).
Apparently what they often do is use a cantena link - a focussed beam of wifi to some distant place, which can be very difficult to pinpoint accurately. I also saw a doc where they used lasers.
These days though, I think a lot of them just stream on the internet.
Plus the overuse of device radios, storage etc. 802.11s does great at keeping power low while acting as a pass through, but storing data on the device requires a lot of availability for the device, and duplication has to be done to make sure you can access your stripes. Good for single use messages, bad for anything large.
Below are some interesting reads on the culture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio_in_the_United_Kin...
https://www.transdiffusion.org/2008/08/01/on_the_run_the
http://www.thepiratearchive.net/
https://web.archive.org/web/20090324075718/http://www.freewe...
which is generally legal.
but then we are back to the original problem, the internet being down...
It also mentions this, which I found surprisingly high:
In all, more than a quarter of the world’s nations have used the tactic at one point or another over the past four years.
Even still, lately, its been a great place get back to after a day of further marching around, to watch movies and catch up on some writing work, listen to or make some music (electronic) or hack on some code .. the point is: solar-all-the-things is actually working. There is so much energy up there... and especially on the side of a mountain.
On some spots up there, I can hang a portable water generator, and the camp will have electric heat .. a small wifi hub .. a couple miniPC's worth of movies and so on ..
So, I dunno, I think there is quite a way to avoid grid-based electricity consumption, as long as you a) have the gear, and b) are willing to go to remote places to harvest the hell out of it ..
The thread on the front page about HK shows that's not true.