The real obstacles here are political, not technical, as evidenced by the complete absence of any built-in solution that could be so useful in both everyday life (messaging a family member on the same plane when sitting separately, national park trips etc.) and emergencies.
We literally got smartphone-to-satellite comms now, but we're lacking the most barebones peer-to-peer functionality.
Apparently it's an optional part of Bluetooth 5, so not necessarily supported. However I just checked my phone (Pixel 8) and it is supported. You can check in the nRF Connect app.
https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/pos...
Also why would one want to have the data go over some servers thousands miles away when the device is right next to you? Seems like bluetooth is the perfect way to communicate for devices that are close to each other.
If I need to have all 4 members of the family meet me at the pool, first I need to go find each one of them. They could all be at different place. And then tell them individually to meet me at the pool? Is that the better solution you are proposing?
>Also why would one want to have the data go over some servers thousands miles away when the device is right next to you?
Why would that matter? Use Signal to protect the content, or use Cwtch to protect content and metadata. If you need to exchange secret communications that mustn't go through some server, why not discuss f2f with no phones around? You'd also eliminate attack vectors where your (chances are, Chinese Android) device spies on you, as well as anyone who has compromised it to read messages from screen.
Reliability? Why should we want to centralize things unnecessarily? It's nice as a fallback but then so too is P2P.
You shouldn't need any kind of permission to send a picture to your mum sitting next to you on the sofa.
I imagine in a situation like Iran, carrying a backpack full of WiFi gear to stay connected to the meshnet is a red flag.
Establishing a bunch of base stations is likely to raise red flags too.
It's pretty trivial for a nation-state that is jamming GPS to go around and jam WiFi or analyze WiFi spectrum for a meshnet operating in and around a protest area.
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/28551/why-cant-a...
For me the cell phone without internet is almost useless, not much I can do on it, might as well sue a purpose built device. They're also very cheap.
Even better if Nextel still worked on phones (but without service).
Projects like this one are a step towards fixing that. Personally I choose to keep both street and topographical maps of the entire continent locally on my phone. There are plenty of uses for a computer without a WAN connection.
And if nothing else, you can always rupture the battery and start a fire :-)
On the cruise I'd need to seek the written permission of the vessel's master's to operate :) (and ideally cruise company permission to even bring the transmitter on board)
Unlicenced passengers could probably plead ignorance and sneak UHF DMR radios.
Or get a business allocation and use P25 radios and once again plead ignorance :)
https://old.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1qd2z97/mestast...
I doubt that BLE can propagate well over a cruise ship.
technically possible but rather redundant and in most cases pointless. (yes, there are exceptions)
so i rather strongly disagree. 99% of my use of the internet is to talk to people across the globe. it's its primary use case. the example you mention is a fringe application, useful to a tiny minority.
"the network remains functional during internet outages"
that strongly implies that i can use this app to replace other apps that use the internet. but i can't, because it does not allow long distance communication the way internet based apps do.
so for 99% of my needs this app is not helping me. it does not make me independent of the internet. i have been in places where the internet was cut off due to political turmoil. and i have friends who have that happen to them. in all cases the main challenge was the lack of long distance communication. local communication was barely affected.
sms and phone still worked, and in fact the app that would have helped is one that can route data connections via sms and phone calls. like old acoustic modems.
infrastructure independence at a local level is nice, but much less serious or critical than independence for long distance communication. and long distance already starts at a few km.
Oops! You (unintentionally?) make it sound like protests are illegal.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-democracy-exist-witho...
They're definitely effective when most of the country wants the government out, but by that point a vote would certainly do just as well, and with fewer flying bricks.
Voting does not allow to express that a certain issue is politically important to you.
They also serve to draw attention to issues that aren't showing up on the ballot for whatever reason. The system doesn't always work in an ideal way. To that end protests are supposed to be annoying to those who don't care.
They are also a good communication tool for the world to see what the people are struggling with.
There was no signal in the remote Irish hostel so it was the perfect way to send messages covertly in the dormitory.
Fun night!
[1] Washington’s War on Iran: The Importance of Defending Information Space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJm4zwZZHY
https://www.reddit.com/r/InformedTankie/comments/ufq4oq/a_co...
https://forsea.co/bangkok-based-conspiracy-blogger-brian-ber...
There's a certain event-horizon where bitterness taints / skews perspective enough that even what would otherwise be helpful insights becomes so costly to disentangle from grudge-extrapolation that it's not obvious if any of it ends up being worth the cost of entry. At least to me, this person's work seems well beyond that point.
- You want to check in with people around you about what to do - You want to check on the health of your family, from whom you were separated
Would that actually happen? No, but it's an interesting thought experiment
Like I said definitely not practical for messaging but I think something along these lines is how airtags work?
Text based messaging ala IRC? Just how quickly and how much do you type? A few hundred KiB exchanged between nodes only every 10 seconds or so ought to be able to accommodate thousands of simultaneous users in most scenarios. The impact on battery life should be far less than using a bluetooth headset.
A messaging system that often takes hours or days to get messages to the receiver is fairly useless and people will continue to prefer centralised systems, so there's a severe chicken-and-egg problem to solve there before anything like this can work
When I enable WiFi calling on my phone that doesn't preclude it connecting to a cell tower.
Often one and the same since the first thing those in power try to do is make various activities by protestors illegal
Doctors Without Borders feeding centers in a famine far from anywhere, searching for people in the rubble of a building following an earthquake, searching for people in a refugee camp, etc.
Verizon went down in the US this past week - perfect use case for Bitchat (or Meshtastic with a repeater or some other LoRa BT network). Verizon goes down while you're at the mall or store or Disneyland or whatever and you can still text to find each other.
300m max range with line of sight would cover something like when I go to visit my parents who live in a desert canyon with lousy mobile phone coverage, I can send a message that I'm at the gate and put the dogs in the garage.
I also have recently got into caving, which usually results in 5-50 people camping over weekends in rural Kentucky. No signal most of the time.