8 ms·

Ask HN: Iran's 120h internet shutdown, phones back. How to stay resilient?

116 points by us321 9mo ago

It has been 120 hours (5 days) since the internet shutdown in Iran began. While international phone calls have started working again, data remains blocked. I am looking for technical solutions to establish resilient, long-term communication channels that can bypass such shutdowns. What are the most viable options for peer-to-peer messaging, mesh networks, or satellite-based solutions that don't rely on local ISP infrastructure?

Nextgrid 9mo ago
Starlink and/or BGAN/satellite phones.
- cultofmetatron 9mo ago
  starlink was explictly blocked there. they are jamming gps which is needed for it
  - Nextgrid 9mo ago
    The jamming is expensive to maintain and not 100% effective. It's still your best shot.
  - jiveturkey 9mo ago
    you can unjam by providing the real signal locally, or a signal close enough for starlink to work. you don't need to be centimeter-precise.
- retube 9mo ago
  unless you already have the gear and a subscription, not sure how an Iranian citizen can get starlink set up: starlink doesn't ship there, so needs to be individually imported, plus will need to be paid for by a debit/credit card from a non-sanctioned country
toomuchtodo 9mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
- us321 9mo ago
  Thanks. Exactly how can I send this page to my friends and family back in Iran?
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    You cannot, they are on their own with what they have. My genuine condolences and sympathy.
us321 9mo ago
[dead]
ozozozd 9mo ago
Maybe https://meshtastic.org https://meshtastic.org?
AnimalMuppet 9mo ago
If the phones are working, 56k modem.
- badc0ffee 9mo ago
  Well, up to 33.6k modem. 56k required cooperation between the telco and ISPs.
- Nextgrid 9mo ago
  If you’re using the circuit-switched mobile phone calls it’s unlikely you will be able to negotiate that; GSM compression is optimised for voice and not data. If you have a phone or cellular dongle with a serial interface you might be able to initiate a “data” call which gives you a modem-like link at speeds much higher than running an actual modem on the audio path. Note that this kind of non-standard usage will stand out like a sore thumb so might not be advisable.
- segmondy 9mo ago
  without searching the internet. imagine you have no internet. do you have any computer with a modem? do you know anyone that does? can you get access to one? do you have dialup software? do you have a dial up international internet provider? can you find one? remember you need to do all of this without the internet. can you sign up for one? would they allow you to pay for it from Iran? the best time to get ready is before SHTF
ilhanomar 9mo ago
[flagged]
tekla 9mo ago
HAM radio is your best option.
- quietsegfault 9mo ago
  What do you think amateur radio does? Why do you think that broadcasting your location, and that you're looking to get information from somewhere other than the approved sources will end up in anything other than tragedy? What information do you think could reliably be provided with amateur radio in a situation like this?
  - tekla 9mo ago
    The OP wanted a way to bypass a internet shutdown, not a perfect solution. And you know, I'm fairly sure being able to talk to the outside world makes it so that you can at least get information out to others. Pray tell, what methods do YOU have to bypass a shutdown with privacy and no reliance on ISP and resistant to jamming?
    - quietsegfault 9mo ago
      There is no privacy in amateur radio. That is not a matter of preference, it is a regulatory and physical reality. Amateur radio transmissions are public, unencrypted, and attributable. Callsigns are required, modes and frequencies are well known, and transmissions are trivially direction-findable. In a country like Iran, where RF spectrum is actively monitored and unauthorized communications are treated as a security issue, transmitting on amateur bands is effectively broadcasting your location and intent. Direction finding is routine, fast, and does not require exotic equipment. One transmission can be enough. In the US and most other countries, amateur radio is tightly regulated. Encryption to obscure content is explicitly prohibited. Ignoring this can result in fines, seizure of equipment, and loss of license. Foreign operators encouraging or participating in such use are not insulated from consequences simply because the target country is authoritarian. I did not claim to have a better solution. That's the point. When the threat model includes surveillance, attribution, and enforcement, there may be no safe civilian workaround. Suggesting amateur radio in this context is not “imperfect but helpful”, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what amateur radio actually is and how it is regulated. Amateur radio can't provide privacy, safety, or reliable information flow under an active crackdown. Pretending otherwise is irresponsible.
notslow 9mo ago
WiFi Halow is a longer range protocol (still probably not long enough). But something like this can get people connected: https://openmanet.net https://openmanet.net
firefax 9mo ago
Old fashioned phone trees can be really useful IMHO OP. We used them when I worked in a school. If there was winter weather, you'd call say, everyone with a last name from A to G in the staff directory, someone else calls G to K, and so on and so forth. You can combine the phone tree with literal runners -- so basically, someone takes their burner and calls suburbs A,B,C and D and then the runners go out and pass the word about the protest or action.
- idontwantthis 9mo ago
  Radio stations too. The US civil rights movement sometimes used radio DJs to call people out for protests.
  - hoherd 9mo ago
    "Stay tuned boppers, stay tuned."
  - nerdsniper 9mo ago
    ClearChannel and Spotify certainly changed that potential!
  - tdeck 9mo ago
    I've read that pirate radio is still a big part of protest movements and Mapuche resistance in Chile.
- literallywho 9mo ago
  > You can combine the phone tree with literal runners And I thought Mirror’s Edge world was too far fetched back in 2008. But, apparently, it’s the reality now or where things are headed after all.
  - edgineer 9mo ago
    Using couriers, and not phones, was largely how bin Laden escaped capture for so long. Took months to track a courier back to him.
ronsor 9mo ago
V.92 dial-up. Slow and expensive, but it's Internet access.
- Cordiali 9mo ago
  I vaguely remember something like that happened during the Egyptian revolution/Tahrir Square protests.
bossyTeacher 9mo ago
Problem is that most methods involve making your location known openly. The Dark Forest book of the Remembrance of the Earth Past explains why it is not a good idea to do so in the current circumstances
dreadsword 9mo ago
For dense areas, mesh applications like BitChat (Jack Dorsey) could bypass the need for a network with p2p bluetooth mesh networks. And works with existing devices, vs something like meshtastic which needs an installed base (afaik). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitchat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitchat
- Gigachad 9mo ago
  Does it actually work though? My experience with Meshtastic is it’s so difficult to get a message delivered beyond the nearest hop that it’s almost useless. And Bluetooth has a significantly shorter range than LoRa.
  - wiml 9mo ago
    The LoRa enthusiasts in my area seem to all have moved to Meshcore, largely because of a quirk in Meshtastic's routing algorithm that doesn't handle nodes with widely varying visibility/power/noisefloor well. They report regularly getting traffic hundreds of miles. There might be a couple mountaintop repeaters in the mesh though. For OP's situation I think runners and a store and forward system like Scuttlebutt/Briar/etc might work better. But I'd love to see a couple of thorough case studies on that kind of system, they've been around for many years targeting related scenarios.
    - MarsIronPI 9mo ago
      Out of curiosity, how to Meshtastic and Meshcore compare to Reticulum?
      - wiml 9mo ago
        At a glance, Reticulum assumes more resources on a node and more stable and well behaved links than the others, and places a much higher priority on crypto. I don't know how it fares in real world LoRa deployments.
    - Gigachad 9mo ago
mosajjal 9mo ago
some DNS tunneling solutions work (dnstt for example). Also, many people have smuggled Starlink are are providing proxies inside Iran. Ideally cjdns or similar can be used inside the country to create an alternative encrypted mesh network inside the borders, with some "exit nodes" out.
_moof 9mo ago
HF radio. Highly depdendent on space weather, but generally I can communicate around the world with only 100 watts and a long wire. Be aware though that transmitting on any radio is like turning on a giant, extremely bright light bulb directly above your antenna. Anyone with basic radio know-how will be able to hear you and locate you.
- badc0ffee 9mo ago
  I had to think for a second to realize that HF means lower frequency than VHF, not high frequency in an absolute sense.
  - _moof 9mo ago
    It's very silly that "high frequency" is among the lowest frequencies, and that we wound up with Very, Ultra, Super, Extremely, and Tremendously High Frequencies!
    - badc0ffee 9mo ago
      Reminds me of High Speed USB.
      - c0balt 9mo ago
        Long live Fast Ethernet
    - squigz 9mo ago
      I thought you had to be joking, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremendously_high_frequency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremendously_high_frequency And here I was thinking that GregTech's "Ludicrous Voltage" sounded out of place...
      - CableNinja 9mo ago
        Scientists and engineers have fantastic senses of humor when naming things. > The time derivative of acceleration is called jerk, and the time derivative of jerk is called jounce. One published paper whimsically named the fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of "snap", "crackle", and "pop" after the cartoon characters on boxes of Rice Krispies breakfast cereal.
giantrobot 9mo ago
Couriers and USB flash drives can be pretty effective. They're high latency but can be very high bandwidth. Look at the El Paquete network in Cuba[0] as inspiration. Self-contained HTML/JavaScript SPAs can provide navigation and the likes of TiddlyWiki[1] can allow for collaboration. A network of couriers can move as fast as road traffic and distribute stuff pretty widely. Contents can be re-shared locally over ad-hoc or mesh WiFi networks even without Internet access. Encryption and steganography can obscure the contents of drives from casual inspection. You can stuff a lot of extraneous data in Office XML documents that are just zip files and look innocuous when opened. 1. For current events content add descriptions, locations, and timestamps to everything. The recipients need that context. 2. Even unencrypted files can be verified with cryptographic signatures. These can be distributed on separate channels including Bluetooth file transfers. 3. Include offline installers for browsers like Dillo or Firefox. Favor plain text formats where possible. FAT32 has the broadest support in terms of file system for the flash drives. Batch, PowerShell, and bash scripts can also be effective in doing more complex things while not needing local installation or invasive installations on people's computers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki
- floxy 9mo ago
  Do we need to come up with more internet protocols/services that don't require a negotiation process? So that it would work better with very high latency sneaker-net flash-drive networks? Especially for the already asynchronous ones like email? I could envision a user with a messenger/email-like client who "sends" (encrypted) messages that get put on a flash drive. This is carried around the neighborhood, etc, where others do the same. Eventually someone takes it to a machine with regular internet access, where the messages get delivered to their intended recipients. And then replies to these messages (coming hours, days, weeks later) also get put on a flash drive, and maybe hopefully get back to the original receivers. And if the internet-down situation has been resolved, the recipients will already have their messages, but if not, they'll get them when the flash drive arrives. I suppose this isn't complete without mentioning RFC 1149 (IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers). https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149
bb88 9mo ago
States like Iran have signal catchers, where they can get a rough idea where a signal is coming from through triangulation. The US military has had this for over 20 years now. Often these coordinates are fed in as targets into weapons systems. If you're going the radio route these come to mind: Meshtastic: 1W, one band, local. Useful if Iran doesn't know about it. But easy to jam and probably triangulate. Wifi Halow: 1W, can possibly hop between bands, but probably also really easy to jam and triangulate. WSPR: Possibly good, transmitters can hide in the noise floor, and can go long distances with 100mW of power, but slow. Probably triangulable, very easy to jam once located in the spectrum. Data can be transmitted and received with off the shelf components. Military Radios: Very good. Transmitters can frequency hop, making triangulation and jamming difficult. Also encryption. You can easily transmit in the same frequency space that Iran would be using to avoid jamming. But also, mostly unobtanium. I have heard stories about US military radios showing up at Ham Fests.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9mo ago
  Not knowing much about radio hardware your post made me wonder why we don’t see too many options for radios that can do this outside the military. Is it because there’s rarely a practical use case outside of avoiding jamming? Or is the hardware to do so prohibitively expensive?
  - deepsun 9mo ago
    Radio spectrum is licensed, and licenses are very expensive. There are several bands for Amateur radio in US/EU/AU, but it is explicitly forbidden to use any kind of encryption on them. So no one can sell devices that use encryption on those bands. And I doubt Iran was friendly to amateur radio in the first place. E.g. in USSR it was crazy to think of any non-approved radio.
    - whatever1 9mo ago
      I mean who can stop you from transmitting anything you want at any frequency? Licenses etc only matter when the rule of law is a thing.
themafia 9mo ago
An important factor to consider when answering this question, is that the average monthly wage in Iran is only $200 to $500 USD/month.
- bromuro 9mo ago
  Why it is important?
  - nubg 9mo ago
    I guess because a single Starlink subscription would be 30-80% of their monthly income.
    - ekr 9mo ago
      It has been reported in the press that Starlink subscription fee has been waived for Iran, so people with receivers can use it for free.
      - culi 9mo ago
        Pretty sure the cheapest receiver you can buy is still $600
        Rover222 9mo ago
        No, starlink Mini is half that price.
      - retube 9mo ago
        yah but not sure how someone in Iran can actually get the hardware shipped to them (I just tried Tehran as delivery, and starlink website said "no"), and also would need a bank or credit card from a non-sanctioned country to be able to actually pay for it
        themafia 9mo ago
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
LarsDu88 9mo ago
Is it possible to setup LoRA mesh networks in Iran? LoRA chips should be on the order of <$5 bulk shippable from China You'd have to have a huge network spanning the entire country to get a message out however
- jiveturkey 9mo ago
  I was going to suggest LoRA. But a country-sized network with the purpose of evading a blackout would likely have to be full mesh. A network organized into a hierarchy (aggregated routing tables) requires some coordination that could quickly be identified and squashed. The size of such a mesh is limited by scaling factors, so this couldn't span a nation. Let's say you could do that though. The network would be completely choked up with traffic to the point of unusability. I think starlink, satphone, maybe packet radio on small scale are the most realistic options.
uyzstvqs 9mo ago
Yggdrasil (mesh network) would be the longer-term solution. It is fast, resilient, and pure IPv6. But you'll have to establish IP links between interested parties to peer over. Eventually some will be able to peer over the internet, and connect everyone else to the rest of the world.
- orbital-decay 9mo ago
  Yggdrasil was never designed to be censorship-resistant and can be blocked with trivial DPI.
  - uyzstvqs 9mo ago
    That's correct. But it is designed so that it can run over PTP IP links, which is the only option in a full internet blackout. Yggdrasil is censorship-resistant in that it can form one big mesh network, without the internet or ISPs. Peering over the internet is just convenience. If you want to peer over a censored internet connection, you should set up XRay first and peer over that. Yggdrasil is not a darknet or anti-censorship tool for the internet. It's an alternative to the internet.
SilentM68 9mo ago
Doubt that one solution alone will be enough to counter info blackout in any country. You need a combination of old and new strategies. Starlink (satellite, bypasses local infrastructure; currently jammed but partially works in some areas, free access offered): Obtain smuggled terminal (dish + router). Place with clear sky view. Power on. Download Starlink app (iOS/Android) or use web interface. Connect phone/PC to Starlink Wi-Fi. Follow app prompts to activate (no subscription needed in Iran now). Meshtastic (LoRa mesh, long-range offline text): Buy compatible device (e.g., Heltec/RAK ESP32 LoRa board). Flash latest firmware via web flasher (meshtastic.org). Install Meshtastic app (Android/iOS). Connect via Bluetooth. Set region (e.g., EU433/US915 based on hardware). Create/join channel with shared key. Messages hop device-to-device. Noghteha (Bluetooth mesh, Iran-specific, offline): Download Noghteha APK (Google Play or sideloading). Install on Android. Open app—no account needed. Enable Bluetooth. Messages auto-hop via nearby phones in mesh. Briar (Bluetooth/Wi-Fi P2P, offline secure messaging): Download Briar APK (briarproject.org or F-Droid). Install on Android. Create account (nickname + password). Add contacts: meet in person and scan QR, or share link via other channel. Enable Bluetooth/Wi-Fi for sync when in range. Messages store & forward when devices meet. Delta Chat (email-based, works if any outbound email possible): Download Delta Chat app (delta.chat). Use chatmail server for auto-account (no personal email needed). Or add existing email. Add contacts via QR/link. Send messages (E2EE). Relies on email transit; resilient to blocks if email partially works. Carrier pigeons: (communications w/ nearby states). Code Talkers: Use minority Iranian languages (e.g., Kurdish, Balochi, Azerbaijani) as codes for voice/radio comms, training speakers to encode military/civil strategies, similar to WWII code talkers—resilient if monitors lack fluency. Sci-fi alien languages (e.g., Klingon, Na'vi) could work if users learn them for encrypted messaging apps or calls, but impractical due to learning curve and detection risks in which case create your own code talker language with an AI. e.g., StratCode System Alphabet: Use 10 simple symbols for phonetics (easy to draw/speak): ⊙ (oh) - Open circle for vowels like O/A. | (ih) - Line for I/E. △ (ah) - Triangle for A/U. × (kh) - X for hard consonants K/G. ~ (sh) - Wave for S/Sh. □ (th) - Square for T/D. ○ (eh) - Empty circle for E. / (fh) - Slash for F/V. \ (rh) - Backslash for R/L. (mh) - Plus for M/N/H. Combine for words (e.g., ⊙| = "oi" sound). Vocabulary for Strategies (map to animals/plants for disguise; speak/draw symbols): Attack/Advance: Eagle (△×~) - △ for sky, × for strike, ~ for swift. Defend/Hold: Turtle (□\⊙) - □ for shell, \ for slow, ⊙ for safe. Retreat/Evacuate: Rabbit (/~) - / for jump, \ for run, ~ for quick. Scout/Observe: Owl (⊙○+) - ⊙ for eyes, ○ for night, + for wise. Supply/Logistics: Bee (~\□) - ~ for buzz/work, \ for hive, □ for store. Communicate/Signal: Wolf (×/+ ) - × for howl, / for pack, + for alert. Protest/Rally (civil): Flower (△⊙|) - △ for grow, ⊙ for bloom, | for unite. Hide/Conceal: Fox (~/) - ~ for sly, / for trick, \ for burrow. Alliance/Join: Tree (|+) - | for trunk, \ for roots, + for branches. Disrupt/Block: Storm (×~○) - × for thunder, ~ for wind, ○ for rain. Encoding Example: "Attack then defend" = "Eagle Turtle" (△×~ □\⊙). Learn by associating symbols to sounds/objects; practice short phrases.
ChrisArchitect 9mo ago
Related today: 90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from the internet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603910 What we know about Iran's Internet shutdown https://blog.cloudflare.com/iran-protests-internet-shutdown/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/iran-protests-internet-shutdown/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602066) Among a number of other posts previously getting into it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542683
mhitza 9mo ago
Briar is an option in such cases but its not realtime. Mote of an email/newsletter app that hops delivery across Bluetooth/ WiFi. https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/
- cl3misch 9mo ago
  But unfortunately Android only? (not the fault of Briar, still unfortunate)
dyauspitr 9mo ago
Say I wanted to send out one important 1 min long video and I only have access to long distance calling and a PC at home. How could I send that file over? Would that just be dialup and if so why can’t that be used in this situation?
cl3misch 9mo ago
Bitchat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitchat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitchat Surprised to not see it mentioned (more) in this thread. Uses Bluetooth and can bridge via Nostr.
innagadadavida 9mo ago
A while back there was a lot of hype on ultra wide band that is some sort of pulse code modulation and it being trails t to jamming. Can military jammers jam these too? Or is this similar to spread spectrum and the same jammers work for UWB as well?
wildylion 9mo ago
Get a dial up line into Europe. Maybe somebody like MiCT could help with setting up a modem pool. 33kbps is enough to get on IRC and spread the news.
atzpawn 9mo ago
I think Pirateboxes could be interesting for exchanging infos in offline scenarios, they would work like wireless bulletin boards and file exchanges that you could access ad hoc via wifi.