I've been streaming Netflix over it, one pixel at a time 😂

I haven't tried that out yet, I do use Meshtastic a good bit and this is on my to-do list when I get some time.

I was curious about it. I think everyone on here knows we need to start developing protocols to counteract hardware, and ISP level suppression, which are probably the most important to combat.

I am the ISP you wish to suppress 🥺 Yes, we want alternatives and in the event of a major crises, alternatives such as LoRa are great for getting messages out, but Ham Radio is better for range and bandwidth. Think of LoRa as the planets nervous system, it can deliver low level signals reasonable distances without formal infrastructure, but it isn't going to replace the Internet. I was involved with it many years ago, I wrote about it here:

Mike Hardcastle

Gaia, AI and Robots

Are we approaching a singularity and if so what form will that take. {N.B. Singularity in AI is defined as the moment when general artificial intel...

Ignore the AI predictions, I knew nothing then, I know even less now 😂 Look at Iran, Internet blocked at the flick of a switch. Starlink made a small impact, but unless you're on the government whitelist, you're disconnected from the rest of the world. I'm pretty certain Iranian Radio Hams are having a greater impact than LoRa Mesh operators are right now. Radio waves, while they can be jammed locally are difficult to jam at scale, so I agree radio is the right approach, but think of LoRa as the Twitter of communications and Ham Radio as the broadband of radio. The difficulty with Ham Radio is you need training and a license to broadcast. Why? Because there is only so much global ham frequency available, so operators need to be knowledgable and responsible.

It might not be perfect but as far as I'm aware this is one of the few methods to broadcast TCP/UDP via mesh. The meshing ecosystem as a whole is still early of course but it's the only way we can counteract the panopticon. If everyone self hosts, and run their own infrastructure. I know that's unrealistic but we should try anyways.

My failure to do this 10 years ago shouldn't put you off. Some feedback, not advice, cities are easy, so are towns, so is the countryside near towns and villages. It's all the stuff that even cellular companies struggle with. When network operators discuss 95% coverage, that's the bit that prevents your messages leaving your enclave without a backhaul. Work on a resilient backhaul, because we solved everything else a decade ago.

Also, just because you can run a protocol on a protocol, doesn't mean you should. LoRa messages are extremely simple, you don't need to waste bandwidth adding additional TCP layers on top. Google "LoRa chirp" to start understanding the fundamental radio technology behind this.

There's also fips.network Don't know much about it though.

I can't see myself moving fully to something like this but I love seeing actual decentralized options run by PEOPLE rather than corporations. At the very least, it's a solid backup option to have, especially if you live in a country with highly regulated internet.