Gizmodo reports on the use of mesh network by the Hong Kong protesters:
Tens of thousands of protestors are gathering in Hong Kong's financial district to protest changes to election policy that would let a mainland Chinese committee vet the city's political candidates, and many use their phones to organize.
College students spearheaded the initial meetup, and this protest is appropriately tech-savvy. In addition to mainstream social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Hong Kong's activists are using iOS and Android app FireChat.
FireChat's parent company Open Garden reports 100,000 new users from Hong Kong within 22 hours, and 33,000 users on the app at once.
[...] FireChat helps people create what are known as "mesh networks." These connections go between devices, using a phone's hardware to link people in a daisy chain. Right now, FireChat can connect devices up to 200 feet apart. The geographic limit means the app is really only useful in crowds...
[...] Mesh networks are an especially resilient tool because there's no easy way for a government to shut them down. They can't just block cell reception or a site address. Destroying one part won't kill it unless you destroy each point of access; someone would have to turn off Bluetooth on every phone using FireChat to completely break the connection.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 30 2014, @08:42AM
"You can't stop the signal, Mal, you can't stop the signal."
Of course, the Chinese government has historical reasons to be very wary of any new focus of power, especially about religious groups. The Yellow Turbans and the Tai Ping were not exactly forces of peace and stabiity. But once you have absorbed a Hong Kong into your body politic, what else do you expect to happen?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @08:46AM
The government could easily use a radio signal jammer, which is only slightly harder than shutting down BTSes.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 30 2014, @12:59PM
Or... you know... some lowtech tear gas canisters...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:35AM
That's much more public. A signal jammer wouldn't get them much bad press, and could also be turned on and off as they saw fit. Much finer control.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @09:06AM
you need a 12 dpi omni and a and then you got a base station abou 50 people can voice over
submitting ovjer onion domain doesnt work
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/09/cloudflare-gives-internet-a-present-free-no-hassle-universal-ssl/ [arstechnica.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @09:18AM
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/feds-butterfly-labs-mined-bitcoins-on-customers-boxes-before-shipping/ [arstechnica.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @09:29AM
Cosmos, the no-data connection web browser, is now in the US Play Store
http://www.androidauthority.com/cosmos-browser-play-store-531334/ [androidauthority.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @09:47AM
manually patching bash on osx how-to:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/29/apple-just-patched-the-shellshock-bug-in-os-x/?ncid=rss [techcrunch.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @01:15PM
a giraffe
http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/2600000/Giraffe-wild-animals-2614055-1024-818.jpg [fanpop.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @01:20PM
that's fap-tastic!
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Tuesday September 30 2014, @02:37PM
In a country without guaranteed free speech I'd be afraid to do activism over a cellphone. I know it's encrypted but who knows what is running on the background of that device? Just look at what the NSA does in the US and now imagine that in a place where the government OWNS the network!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @02:51PM
Yes it is a risk, but any form of activism creates risk for the participant. You work with the tools available.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mtrycz on Tuesday September 30 2014, @03:25PM
I suspect (and I'm afraid) that you wouldn't need more than metadata, which can't be encrypted to be of any use (like timestamp, destination, contact frequency, who know's who, who talks with/texts whom, etc.). I don't remember the details of the US silencing #occupy leaders, but I'd be suprised they'd need anything more than the metadata to locate the protest leaders [They could have used anything, but metadata should suffice]. Finding the leaders is as much as calculating the centers of the netwoks, or the nodes with most edges, and/or maybe outlayers.
All of the states have been doing it for centuries, the hard part is tricking people into trusting the transport layers. If you lived in east-Berlin you'd know better than writing odd things in letters. Now people trust technology blindly. No, actually they don't even consider that their cellphone is the gov't perfect wire.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday October 03 2014, @10:18PM
Well, the government owning the *network* doesn't mean much, since this tech isn't using the network. But yeah, same thing about owning the cell phone manufacturers and sellers probably.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday September 30 2014, @04:05PM
To have a reliable form of off grid communication is huge for protests/revolutions. Arab Spring is another example of how modern social networking really spurred revolutions on.
My point is, if the US wants to undermine tyrannical regimes, helping develop the software to ensure these communications would probably be one of the highest payback investments.
Before you go on making statements about how the US is a tyrannical regime, I'm just thinking along the same lines of why TOR receives so much money from the US government.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 30 2014, @11:13PM
Before you go on making statements about how the US is a tyrannical regime, I'm just thinking along the same lines of why TOR receives so much money from the US government.
Its not clear how much government money is still supporting TOR if any. But keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer is a well known maxim. If TOR is believed to be secure, it will be used. But the definition of security can be a fleeting thing.
I'm sure these HK Protesters know damn well that the government is listening in to their off-grid-communications. I'm sure they know it could be poisoned very quickly.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @08:54PM
The last thing an oppressive government wants to do is to shut these down as they are wonderful informants. These are the very tools they use to pin down the people they deem in need of reeducation or acute lead poisoning...
Oppression? There's an app for that!