Skip to main content

I always get excited by new Bluetooth mesh network technology

  I always get excited by new Bluetooth mesh network technology because it is extremely useful for pro-democracy movements. Wherever the Internet could be censored, monitored, surveilled, or shut down due to security reactions to social movements, protests, rallies, and marches, a Bluetooth mesh network like FireChat, which was used throughout the 2010s in Hong Kong during the protests against Chinese authoritarianism that came to be known as the Umbrella Movement, can keep communications flowing to a large group of organizers in the field, avoiding confusion, the fog of war, and other roadblocks.  Mesh networks are equally useful for underserved areas in rural or urban communities.  There have been some successful examples. One in particular comes to mind of an urban community that installed local Internet through a Wi-Fi network that was based on mesh networks.  Now, of course, the ideal mesh network would simply involve every phone that had downloaded an app onto it as transmitters in the network, and this would be immensely useful and especially if the phones could do this while they were not in use.  So we have the possibility of mesh networks installed in remote areas, and also created by the natural network effect of our phones.  These technologies should be more in use.  More to the point, Signal has accomplished a new level of communications for organizing; however, there are certain gaps such as sharing your phone number or the fact that it uses cell service to transmit although-encrypted messages.  I think this kind of work should be supported in some way, shape or form. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We wanted to you see this -- my copy of the Standard

To: Supreme Court, USA Care of: Sonia Sotomayor, A.J.  Attn: Elena Kagan, A.J., Ketanji Brown Jackson, A.J. LIMITED. From: .|Î|.  TrīangłeLāw.  .|Î|.   |. •        :::THE STANDARD::                — all the time; everything; everywhere.. Î.               ;::::::::*::::::================; ,;::*::::*::::*:===============;    the  ;:::::*::::*::::===============;  ;=======================;         Standard:  ;========the Standard..=====;  ;=======================;       å                 ;======================; newšmagåźîné  ı                               of commentary and analysis  ı         ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,...
Post a Comment
Read more

beyond necessary

  In the future, we must cleave to a principle of liberation and follow the right of self-determination wherever it might lead. The old saw of “every thing in its right place” has been shown to turn on subjective and not upon truthful measures - whose idea of what is the “right place” prevails, and for whom is it the “right place”? Are questions that after long experience always revealed strength and power, not reason nor rational government, have been behind the propagation of such a saying. The “right place of everything” comes from an ancient time when the mechanism for discovering the truth was still mistaken for the truth itself. It is assuredly not the case that if every “thing” has a “right place” it isn’t constituted in some transparent organizational scheme; and, although the evolution of knowledge may not be at its bitter end, it seems more likely that the proper “place” for every thing will fill space like the thousand points of light in the night sky of the visible univ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Geoengineering rests on shaky foundations and poor social planning.

Geoengineering rests on shaky foundations and poor social planning.  I think there’s evidence of the government trying to obfuscate information by changing the names of programs and initiatives, to try to render information exposed to the public in previous reporting facially out of date.   First off, this is reminding me of Naomi Klein’s chapter on geoengineering, which is very skeptical of the whole idea, as we should all be. Some highlights from that chapter: Alan Robock wrote a paper published in 2008 in Geophysical Research that geoengineering would “disrupt the Asian and African Monsoon and Pacific Monsoons, reducing precipitation to the food supply for billions of people.” Computer models show that geoengineering would crash crop productivity in the Sahel, leading to desertification. Further computer models show a 20% reduction in rainfall in the Amazon from geoengineering.   Historical evidence connects volcano eruptions with droughts, meaning we would be risk...
Post a Comment
Read more