How do you communicate when the government censors the internet? With a peer-to-peer mesh broadcasting network that doesn’t use the internet.
That’s exactly what Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters are doing now, thanks to San Fransisco startup Bridgefy’s Bluetooth-based messaging app. The protesters can communicate with each other — and the public — using no persistent managed network.
The app can connect people via standard Bluetooth across an entire city, thanks to a mesh network. Chatting is speediest with people who are close, of course, within a hundred meters (330 feet), but you can also chat with people who are farther away. Your messages will simply “hop” via other Bridgefy users’ phones until they find your intended target.
That’s incredibly futuristic
Pi Zero W is $10 and has built in Bluetooth connectivity.
You can find Solar USB Power Packs for ~$25.
So for less than $50 and a little time investment to load some programs you can have an autonomous bluetooth repeater.
I think they only run at Class 2 or 2.5mw so 10 meter range… but there are DIY solutions to amplify it to Class 1 for 100 meter range.
But even at 10 meters, given this sort of program uses a packet delivery system, if you are constantly on the move you’re effectively a postman for the system as it will transmit every time it comes in range of another compatible program.
Carlotta Cardana The Red Road: Picturing Modern
Native AmericanIndigenous Identity*signal boost for indigenous solidarity #nodapl see more details on how to help here
support an Indigenous photographer here, working hard to document the Great Sioux Nation’s protests in North Dakota.
Photo #2: Ula and Tim Tyler. This Eastern Shoshone couple have been married for 54 years and experienced reservation life before there was electricity or running water.
Photo #4: Ishkoten Dougi. Ishkoten is an artist from the Isleta Pueblo Indian Reservation in New Mexico. He is portrayed in his studio, surrounded by his artwork that represents some of the atrocities inflicted on Native Americans.
Photo #5: Evereta and her Mustang. When Evereta Thinn, 30, entered college as the only Native American in her English 101 class, it was at that moment she realized that she needed to speak up and not be that stereotypical “shy” Indian who keeps to herself. She works as an administrator at the school district on the Navajo Nation and aspires to start a language and cultural immersion school for the Diné (Navajo) people.
Photo #8: Fast Eddie (left), a pow wow dancer, is pictured with social media celebrity, Two Braids.
Photo #10: Jarrod after the rodeo. Jarrod Ferris, Eastern Shoshone and Arapaho from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, has been bull riding since age 6. He hopes to one day win the title as world champion so that he can buy his mom a new house.
*Photo #13: Crisosto Apache, from the Mescalero Apache tribe of New Mexico, is an activist for LGBT rights in the Native community. He explains that there is no word for “gay” in any Native American language, but is referred to as being “two spirited.”
Photo #14: Maka in his classroom. After traveling the world and teaching English in Japan, Maka Clifford, from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, realized his calling was going back to the Reservation to teach his own people and inspire young kids to explore life off the reservation.
Fata Morgna
A Superior Mirage that comes from the Italian term named after the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, from a belief that these mirages, often seen in the Strait of Messina, were fairy castles in the air or false land created by her witchcraft to lure sailors to their deaths. It’s also believed that this illusion caused the myth of The Flying Dutchman to emerge.
