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File: 1674296179251.jpg (40.7 KB, 600x337, 1633377220658-p1010573.jpg)

 No.18224

Hey comrades,

This article came up https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7e9y3/activists-are-designing-mesh-networks-to-deploy-during-civil-unrest about an open source mesh network (including the hardware made from easily accessible parts) to be used when governments shut down the internet. It seems the original project is dead, but I did manage to find this repo
https://0xacab.org/kirsa/mycelium-mesh-old/

I have (as of this moment) limited expertise in hardware and protocol programming but I have time and resources to delve into it and perhaps start it back up.

There's several things they mention in the description of the program, such as a lack of encryption, lack of peer to peer, how all messages are saved in nodes, etc. These strike me as someone with not too much knowhow, as bad design aspects.

I would like to dedicate this thread to trying to dig up more info on this project, and for people with more know how to chime in on what ought to be different, if you would restart as the sole dev(s) anyway, or pointers on where to start.

 No.18228

>lack of encryption
I haven't looked at any of the code, but the docs mention different types of encryption.

>lack of peer to peer
The network doesn't have any routing paths, so running a relay on a peer device shouldn't fuck with the network topology and work as a hack for p2p. It looks like relays need to be registered though. Maybe extend the protocol register for peer-bound relays to make them accept each others messages unconditionally.

>how all messages are saved in nodes
<Asynchronous: Messages should be cached in the network for users, in case they are offline or out of coverage area.
This seems to be the main reason for storing messages in nodes. Messages are to be encrypted and benign nodes won't retain any logs, yet leftover metadata would still be a liability in case of immediate seizure.

The transceiver type seems to be common enough https://www.hackster.io/pulsartronic/diy-smartphone-lora-connection-bde258

 No.18229

>>18228
><Asynchronous: Messages should be cached in the network for users, in case they are offline or out of coverage area.
Wouldn't this quickly clog up the storage? And doesn't this mean the network scales very badly if all messages need to be propagated and saved everywhere?

 No.18230

>>18229
Nah, data consists only of text. Plaintext is 1 byte per character, so most messages won't be larger than a couple of kilobytes, and it compresses very well.
>doesn't this mean the network scales very badly if all messages need to be propagated and saved everywhere
This can't be avoided without major gains in complexity and the network is probably not meant for fast high-volume traffic. IMO if the message was only broadcast over a few nodes yet, you could send an ACK from the peer to stop received messages from propagating.

 No.18235

meshnet is the perennial nerd trap

 No.18236

>>18235
why ?

 No.18237

>>18236
I've been through a couple of mesh hype cycles locally and nothing ever came of it. not that learning about this stuff isn't useful
I will also drop a warning here that LoRa is a proprietary waveform. it's been reverse engineered these days, but history shows building radio stuff on top of proprietary standards is risky. D-Star comes to mind

 No.18238

File: 1674321362409.jpg (390.44 KB, 1200x675, t2_shield.jpg)

>>18236
also the freedv.org folks have been working on a similar idea based around Raspberry Pi + RTL-SDR: https://www.rowetel.com/?p=7898 (parts 1-4 linked near the bottom)
finally there is NPR: http://www.newpacketradio.us/index.php?title=Main_Page and https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/1640927020512128/NPR_specification_v2.0.pdf

 No.18239

>>18237
LoRa seems nice, though it's meant for stuff like industrial-site sensors, that only produce sporadic communication traffic, and doesn't have to deal with a lot of network collisions. So i wonder if it would be suitable for a mesh-net. I don't really understand what "proprietary waveform" means, is this some kind of legal risk ?
There is no reason for cynicism about "mesh hype cycles", it's very difficult to figure something like this out, there's bound to be trial and error.

>>18238
thanks for the links, gonna check those out.

 No.18240

>>18239
> don't really understand what "proprietary waveform" means, is this some kind of legal risk ?
D-Star has the problem that it relies on a patented voice codec. IIRC the waveform (the actual on-air signal) used by LoRa is patented also
>There is no reason for cynicism about "mesh hype cycles"
true, maybe I'm just jaded
also check out https://m17project.org/


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