4 ms·

This reminds me, whatever happened to mesh networks? If you wanted to be out and about in public, you could simply carry a very anonymized device that had only

This reminds me, whatever happened to mesh networks? If you wanted to be out and about in public, you could simply carry a very anonymized device that had only more basic abilities. But among those abilities, you could certain send messages and maybe even smaller-sized files - all over a mesh network. Feds could infiltrate it, but it wouldn't be nearly as trivial as it is right now. And users could rotate their devices. Furthermore, if the device in question wasn't a real phone, but rather something more generic (a wifi-capable device with a keyboard, virtual or physical), then it wouldn't even need to have an IMEI.

anigbrowl 3y ago
They're still a thing, and more of a happening thing than ever because they're useful for IOT. There's a bunch of private LoRa network operators offering a mix of free and paid services. Amazon is already a large player in this space because of their delivery network.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
I wonder if Apple's Airtag devices use mesh networking of some sort.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  I imagine they designed it the way they did specifically to prevent law enforcement from tapping them.
  - coolspot 3y ago
    Not law enforcement, but random punks. Law enforcement can get your airtag private keys from your iCloud backup.
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      That’s not how an AirTag works. Anyone can request any AirTag by simply knowing the public key (which is broadcast via BLE). Then you just need the private key which doesn’t need to be backed up by disabling keychain backups.
hedora 3y ago
Apple AirDrop was basically this, but they neutered it at the request of the Chinese government. It still works, but it automatically turns itself off every 30 minutes, so you can't (for instance) opt-in to allowing people to automatically push uncensored news to your phone during your daily commute (without interacting with the phone every half hour). (It isn't technically a mesh, since it doesn't support multi-hop routing. Still, it is peer to peer, and doesn't require a data connection.)
- mckn1ght 3y ago
  Apple also has an API called MultiPeerConnectivity[0] that handles this better than AirDrop. I’ve long wanted to try building a mesh network with this. Not sure about multi-hop, maybe that could be part of the business logic. [0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectivity https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectiv...
- kccqzy 3y ago
  A better example is perhaps Apple's Find My network in which they explicitly said that locations of your Apple devices (including AirTags) would be transmitted over a mesh network and eventually to Apple's servers so you can see them on your iCloud console.
  - hedora 3y ago
    From an anti-censorship / user interface perspective, AirDrop is closer to the mesh network dream, but, yeah, from a network topology perspective, Find My is an actual mesh network, and AirDrop is not. I'd love to see something with the characteristics of Find My, but open to arbitrary data transfers. The cell connectivity in my area is poor (due to monopolies not bothering to build out infrastructure, unless you believe there's no demand for network connectivity in the SF Bay Area...), and most places I drive to have guest wifi networks anyway. I can easily imagine dropping my cell phone plan and only being available for high-latency text messages (and emergency calls to 911) when out and about.

anigbrowl 3y ago

They're still a thing, and more of a happening thing than ever because they're useful for IOT. There's a bunch of private LoRa network operators offering a mix of free and paid services. Amazon is already a large player in this space because of their delivery network.

jjtheblunt 3y ago

I wonder if Apple's Airtag devices use mesh networking of some sort.

withinboredom 3y ago
I imagine they designed it the way they did specifically to prevent law enforcement from tapping them.
- coolspot 3y ago
  Not law enforcement, but random punks. Law enforcement can get your airtag private keys from your iCloud backup.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    That’s not how an AirTag works. Anyone can request any AirTag by simply knowing the public key (which is broadcast via BLE). Then you just need the private key which doesn’t need to be backed up by disabling keychain backups.

hedora 3y ago

Apple AirDrop was basically this, but they neutered it at the request of the Chinese government. It still works, but it automatically turns itself off every 30 minutes, so you can't (for instance) opt-in to allowing people to automatically push uncensored news to your phone during your daily commute (without interacting with the phone every half hour). (It isn't technically a mesh, since it doesn't support multi-hop routing. Still, it is peer to peer, and doesn't require a data connection.)

mckn1ght 3y ago
Apple also has an API called MultiPeerConnectivity[0] that handles this better than AirDrop. I’ve long wanted to try building a mesh network with this. Not sure about multi-hop, maybe that could be part of the business logic. [0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectivity https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectiv...
kccqzy 3y ago
A better example is perhaps Apple's Find My network in which they explicitly said that locations of your Apple devices (including AirTags) would be transmitted over a mesh network and eventually to Apple's servers so you can see them on your iCloud console.
- hedora 3y ago
  From an anti-censorship / user interface perspective, AirDrop is closer to the mesh network dream, but, yeah, from a network topology perspective, Find My is an actual mesh network, and AirDrop is not. I'd love to see something with the characteristics of Find My, but open to arbitrary data transfers. The cell connectivity in my area is poor (due to monopolies not bothering to build out infrastructure, unless you believe there's no demand for network connectivity in the SF Bay Area...), and most places I drive to have guest wifi networks anyway. I can easily imagine dropping my cell phone plan and only being available for high-latency text messages (and emergency calls to 911) when out and about.