A combination of entirely predictable capitalist monopolies, increasingly tight domestic regulation of service & hosting providers, international treaties designed to quickly /dev/null "undesirable" websites, and a new generation of packet-inspecting AI means that one is no longer free to just log on and use or invent whatever new protocol. Sure you can still play new games, or type whatever you want and put it on a website, and there are a hundred billion gimmicky micro-transactional behavioral sinks available to the majority of humanity, but it's all funneled into an umbilical cable in Moloch's crotch and from there to one of dozens of commercially available modern equivalents to the primitive old NSA PRISM.
Posters of 2020, what is the state of the art in community/decentralized WiFi/Cell networks?
Where is it going right, where is it going wrong, what are common challenges or standout cases in implementation? Knowledge of non-capitalist network balloons especially welcome since they seem on paper to cut around some of the bullshit required for towers.
This is something I think about a lot as we spiral towards a more and more disastrous future. I'm still learning a lot, but I'm very interested in the idea of using LoRa capable hardware thrown up on old towers as a means of setting up a DIY post-collapse communication network. It's not a substitute for the internet, I don't think, but it should at least allow you too keep in touch with your local bubble...
#112 LoRa / LoRaWAN De-Mystified / Tutorial - this dude has a lot of videos on cool microcontroller stuff and using LoRa in action. Well worth checking out the rest of his catalogue.
I'm almost tech illiterate but local network infrastructure is super fascinating, thanks for the link
Sub ghz in general is great for pirate signals, for example depending on what you're doing you can even ditch the protocols and send short bursts of data at prearranged "random" times. Stuff like that can be pretty hard to pick out from noise, rather than relying entirely on encryption in a longer packet.
It's not really useful aside for GPS beacons, weather stations, and sending very short messages, but APRS is an example of a fully decentralized packet radio network which actually exists and can be used in a lot of places with inexpensive equipment. It uses 1200 baud PSK modems over more or less ordinary FM walkie talkies and there is no privacy. There are some interesting things which can use APRS as a backbone though, like the APRS-SMS bridge.
Another thing to keep an eye on is what people are doing with modified 802.11 (Wi-Fi) hardware. Things like NYC Mesh look very interesting.
We go back to shitposting the old fashioned way on the walls of the 7/11 bathroom
