# Mesh Networking #Ideas ## Ideas - ### [[Starlink Internet via Lightning]] - ### [[goTenna Mesh Gateway via Starlink]] - See [[Build Your Own Mesh Gateway]] ## Use cases - Providing Internet access during times of government shutdown / censorship - Example: [[Cuba#Internet Censorship |Cuba shutting down the internet]] - Example: [[Internet Shutdowns in India]], particularly during protests ## Making it covert - The hard part re making it covert is the Starlink dish. But that's only required for the mesh gateways. - They might be able to set it up amongst a bunch of other satellite dishes used for TV broadcasting or something, and earn sats - For the primary mesh devices however... it might be integrated directly into cell phones. It might require a small amount of hardware integration, such as with the [[goTenna Pro Embedded Module]] - Ideally, it could be integrated directly as software If mesh networking requires a dish in the line of sight, it's not exactly covert. Starlink satellite dishes aren't exactly covert, either... But if you integrate the mesh networking deeper into the technology stack, i.e. as part of a cell phone. ## Enabling Internet access rather than short-burst communications - ![[goTenna Products#So goTenna Pro X doesn't support voice communications]] - You could write new mesh networking software that supports internet connectivity natively on existing mobile phones, or you could try to expand goTenna's hardware to support general Internet access - It seems that Lili has managed to send general data over a [[goTenna]] mesh though, if she was able to conduct a [[Bitcoin]] transaction using [[Samourai]]? - Hmm, so you can at least send free-form data, up to 235 bytes: - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-22 at 3.15.42 PM.png]] - Source: [goTenna SDK](https://gotenna.com/pages/sdk) ## Adoption Challenges ### Case study: Meshing up Puerto Rico - Meshing the entirety of Puerto Rico required installing receivers in the line of sight, due to the nature of their homes ![[TechCrunch - goTenna in Puerto Rico#^791550]]![[TechCrunch - goTenna in Puerto Rico#^11ed90]] - Installing necessary software ![[TechCrunch - goTenna in Puerto Rico#^70e1c9]] - Cost for meshing an entire city: tens of thousands ![[TechCrunch - goTenna in Puerto Rico#^310478]] ## General Appraisal - Recurring theme seems to be that there is more demand for mesh networking than you'd expect, given how obviously inferior it is to traditional networks: [[TechCrunch - goTenna in Puerto Rico#Recurring theme Unexpected success and demand]] - It might be a privilege thing: See [[Matt Blaze - The Value of Censorship Circumvention Tools]] ## Cuba - **Supplying communications technology is dangerous** ![['The contrarevolución will be livestreamed' by Antonio Garcia Martinez#^bfea35]] - See also: [[Alan Gross]] ![[Alan Gross#^0f4159]] - **Internet is extremely expensive** ![['The contrarevolución will be livestreamed' by Antonio Garcia Martinez#^d6d79a]] - Starlink might be much more competitive - **Mesh networks have been tried before and have been shut down** ![['The contrarevolución will be livestreamed' by Antonio Garcia Martinez#^6152cd]] ## Possible ### Integrate mesh networking into an existing open source messaging app, like [[Signal]]. - See [[In The Mesh Blog#History and explanation of the Github repos]]: "We would also be happy to help anyone that wants to integrate mesh gateway functionality into an existing open-source messaging app"