A connectivity blackout means people cannot contact friends, family or even ambulances to help the injured.

  • Kalkaline
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    261 year ago

    Are there internet-like protocols where you can daisy chain transmission of text and pictures from device to device over WiFi or Bluetooth? Seems like we see these situations pop up fairly frequently and there would be some value in being able to spread communications that way without an ISP.

    • @SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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      261 year ago

      Yes, there are a bunch of p2p mesh network apps. I don’t know of any that have widespread adoption. I think Google and Apple should consider building a “disaster mode” into Android and iOS so that you are guaranteed to have it before you even need it.

      Of course, governments won’t like that, because it means that people will be able to continue communicating despite blackouts.

      • @tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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        -71 year ago

        Maybe ask Elon, he’s literally got a network that can’t be blocked. (Unless he shuts it down again like he did in Ukraine)

        • @Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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          121 year ago

          Right. This is why we need a P2P network with no hubs that can be shut down by any government or individual.

        • @knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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          41 year ago

          A network bought and paid for by the US military-intelligence state. It would be of no use for, to paraphrase imperial speak, non-moderate rebels.

    • @TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub
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      181 year ago

      Briar can do this. One of the coolest things about it is that you can also share the app directly once you have it downloaded, so you only need one person to have it beforehand.

    • SilverserenOP
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      71 year ago

      Hopefully so. Most of what we’ve been able to see in the past 24 hours has been from people with satellite phones, which is a slow process.

      • livus
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        31 year ago

        We need more widespread use of solar recharging.

        • @Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          71 year ago

          You can already get crank, solar, battery chargers, although they aren’t too common. I have one, it’s pretty neat. The solar is probably the best… it takes a lot or cranking to retain a stable charge.

          • livus
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            1 year ago

            @Corkyskog the solar ones are readily available in my country (priced at about 2-3 hours’ worth of minimum wage).

            But we need to roll these out to places that might need them more.

            Crank ones sound interesting. I’ve only seen radios and torches.

    • livus
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      1 year ago

      Yeah it’s definitely emerging that we need some sort of backup system for communicating with each other when regimes pull the plug.

      I wish we could have a starlink-esque system that’s federated. But as @Silverseren says, that could be slow…

      • @pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
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        1 year ago

        Here’s what worries me: The U.S. Space Force revealed artist renderings of the X-37B grabbing satellites in orbit. Which means it’s now impossible to launch satellites and expect them to stay up there if there’s a war with the U.S.

        • livus
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          21 year ago

          @pinkdrunkenelephants yikes good point. Or even if the satellites are inconveniencing someone the US has “strategic” support for like Israel or Saudi Arabia.

          There must be a way though. Maybe something smaller?

          • @pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
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            1 year ago

            There are micro satellites you can build yourself and have launched. They call them CubeSats and they actually would be perfect for a grassroots rebellion.

            You’d have to bribe India or China to launch them, though, and keep the launch secret from the U.S. But in principle, it could be done.

            EDIT: A dude responded to me by saying:

            I want to know why such an innocuous comment would be removed, unless my conspiracy theory about the major Lemmy nodes being run by shills has some truth to it. Bro only said India and China are corrupt too so we need to look into other launch options. There’s no way that violates any rule of any major instance.

    • 👁️👄👁️
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      21 year ago

      Yeah that’ll be nice to setup with the technically challenged during missile strikes

        • 👁️👄👁️
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          11 year ago

          Tbh the way I see it, the first way forward is decentralization, like the platform we’re talking on right now. From there, I think the next step is portable accounts and mesh nets on top of our decentralization networks. That it should be a combination of the two, with mesh networking be redundancy for when situations like this happen. That’s what I think the optimal end goal with communication should be imo.

          • livus
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            21 year ago

            @mojo yes! That sounds really good. I know it might seem idealistic but I really feel like decentralization is freeing us from more constraints than we realize.