Tails - portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship.

[Clayton]

Eventually, Urbit's networking should be able to work over ham radio. Or, basically, anything. It's extremely simple, like Morse Code, and so like Morse Code it can be conveyed over a huge variety of mediums.

Regarding the dial-in BBS idea, wouldn't you want to set it up so that the users had to dial in, with a dial-up modem, in order to access it?

Hams have been doing it since the earliest days of the Internet.

They sure have... Just a different carrier platform. That is how the old military phone systems worked. they were simplex and you had to take turns with TX/RX like a two way radio. The lines and current just carried a radio signal. Modems work the same.

I am approaching this from an aspect of multidisciplinary knowledge. I see you are too. :)

I haven't used it much over the years, but I am a licensed ham...

[Developer]

That is fantastic, I hope they can make it a trend again. I hated to see packet radio lose popularity. Basically the same thing as SMS. Did you see Clayton's post about something similar?

I think one way that we can increase the popularity of these systems is to get involved with local emergency response (the county usually has something for this). To keep a distributed network operational, you need to have a least a handful of pioneers that will reliably be on the network. Otherwise, if the main ISP connection goes down, you have no idea if your backup equipment is actually going to work when you switch it on. And a good place to find people willing to set up and run a tiny local network like this is your local emergency response. Purely as a matter of social resilience against foreign interference, we should be encouraging this (I specifically mean the libertarian community). It increases local self-reliance which intrinsically reinforces liberty against centralized tyranny.

Disclaimer: I'm preaching what I don't practice (atm) but I won't always be as overloaded as I currently am... :wink

I agree, and it sounds good. There is one problem and I have an issue with it. Licensing... Now that the code requirement is obsolete, and just about everyone now tests open book, why can't you get a License through online testing? Especially since the corona thing. lol

So do a background check to make sure someone is who they say they are, and let them test online and get a license? Control? Authoritarian complexes? This would be up to the HAM community to approve, why not? What would it hurt? And I am not even going to go into all the frequency ranges they have tied up with just a few users that the public cannot use... Just about ALL of them across the spectrum...

[3D.]

That is fantastic, I hope they can make it a trend again. I hated to see packet radio lose popularity. Basically the same thing as SMS. Did you see Clayton's post about something similar?

I think one way that we can increase the popularity of these systems is to get involved with local emergency response (the county usually has something for this). To keep a distributed network operational, you need to have a least a handful of pioneers that will reliably be on the network. Otherwise, if the main ISP connection goes down, you have no idea if your backup equipment is actually going to work when you switch it on. And a good place to find people willing to set up and run a tiny local network like this is your local emergency response. Purely as a matter of social resilience against foreign interference, we should be encouraging this (I specifically mean the libertarian community). It increases local self-reliance which intrinsically reinforces liberty against centralized tyranny.

Disclaimer: I'm preaching what I don't practice (atm) but I won't always be as overloaded as I currently am...

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time.

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

[Developer]

That is fantastic, I hope they can make it a trend again. I hated to see packet radio lose popularity. Basically the same thing as SMS. Did you see Clayton's post about something similar?

I think one way that we can increase the popularity of these systems is to get involved with local emergency response (the county usually has something for this). To keep a distributed network operational, you need to have a least a handful of pioneers that will reliably be on the network. Otherwise, if the main ISP connection goes down, you have no idea if your backup equipment is actually going to work when you switch it on. And a good place to find people willing to set up and run a tiny local network like this is your local emergency response. Purely as a matter of social resilience against foreign interference, we should be encouraging this (I specifically mean the libertarian community). It increases local self-reliance which intrinsically reinforces liberty against centralized tyranny.

Disclaimer: I'm preaching what I don't practice (atm) but I won't always be as overloaded as I currently am... :wink

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time. :smile

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

I want to find out more what those linux Ham software packages do that we found in Synaptic... I am going 20 directions at a time too. lol

[Developer]

That is fantastic, I hope they can make it a trend again. I hated to see packet radio lose popularity. Basically the same thing as SMS. Did you see Clayton's post about something similar?

I think one way that we can increase the popularity of these systems is to get involved with local emergency response (the county usually has something for this). To keep a distributed network operational, you need to have a least a handful of pioneers that will reliably be on the network. Otherwise, if the main ISP connection goes down, you have no idea if your backup equipment is actually going to work when you switch it on. And a good place to find people willing to set up and run a tiny local network like this is your local emergency response. Purely as a matter of social resilience against foreign interference, we should be encouraging this (I specifically mean the libertarian community). It increases local self-reliance which intrinsically reinforces liberty against centralized tyranny.

Disclaimer: I'm preaching what I don't practice (atm) but I won't always be as overloaded as I currently am... :wink

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time. :smile

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

The direction I am leaning is packet radio by phone to a central collection server. That is pretty much what the Simple Message System does.

[Developer]

That is fantastic, I hope they can make it a trend again. I hated to see packet radio lose popularity. Basically the same thing as SMS. Did you see Clayton's post about something similar?

I think one way that we can increase the popularity of these systems is to get involved with local emergency response (the county usually has something for this). To keep a distributed network operational, you need to have a least a handful of pioneers that will reliably be on the network. Otherwise, if the main ISP connection goes down, you have no idea if your backup equipment is actually going to work when you switch it on. And a good place to find people willing to set up and run a tiny local network like this is your local emergency response. Purely as a matter of social resilience against foreign interference, we should be encouraging this (I specifically mean the libertarian community). It increases local self-reliance which intrinsically reinforces liberty against centralized tyranny.

Disclaimer: I'm preaching what I don't practice (atm) but I won't always be as overloaded as I currently am... :wink

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time. :smile

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

I could set up a SMS gateway for just private group use. But... it still requires a webhost and the internet. I am trying to get away from needing the net altogether and do it all old school with phone numbers and packet connections.

[Clayton]

I agree, and it sounds good. There is one problem and I have an issue with it. Licensing... Now that the code requirement is obsolete, and just about everyone now tests open book, why can't you get a License through online testing? Especially since the corona thing. lol

So do a background check to make sure someone is who they say they are, and let them test online and get a license? Control? Authoritarian complexes? This would be up to the HAM community to approve, why not? What would it hurt? And I am not even going to go into all the frequency ranges they have tied up with just a few users that the public cannot use... Just about ALL of them across the spectrum...

Well, the licensing used to be done through private agencies and things were much more orderly then. You need licensing because the frequency spectrum is a common resource, so you need to divide the spectrum between separate uses so people aren't randomly stepping on each other all the time.

Now that it's the FCC, a lot of spectrum has been lost to the big tech giants. Anyway, it's not a perfect system, but it's better than nothing.

[3D.]

I think one way that we can increase the popularity of these systems is to get involved with local emergency response (the county usually has something for this). To keep a distributed network operational, you need to have a least a handful of pioneers that will reliably be on the network. Otherwise, if the main ISP connection goes down, you have no idea if your backup equipment is actually going to work when you switch it on. And a good place to find people willing to set up and run a tiny local network like this is your local emergency response. Purely as a matter of social resilience against foreign interference, we should be encouraging this (I specifically mean the libertarian community). It increases local self-reliance which intrinsically reinforces liberty against centralized tyranny.

Disclaimer: I'm preaching what I don't practice (atm) but I won't always be as overloaded as I currently am...

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time.

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

I could set up a SMS gateway for just private group use. But... it still requires a webhost and the internet. I am trying to get away from needing the net altogether and do it all old school with phone numbers and packet connections.

I was thinking more along the lines of a local network without the connection to the internet. Yes, it's line of site, but sometimes, that can be a very long distance.

Seems like with a tower and a parabolic antenna. Some sort of connection might be made to another router that's on a tower with another parabolic antenna pointing at the other tower/antenna setup.

If enough people are sharing the local network, someone might decide to share their internet connection. Thing is, that connection would probably be overloaded if a bunch of people sharing the local network tried to use it all at once.

[Developer]

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time. :smile

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

I could set up a SMS gateway for just private group use. But... it still requires a webhost and the internet. I am trying to get away from needing the net altogether and do it all old school with phone numbers and packet connections.

I was thinking more along the lines of a local network without the connection to the internet. Yes, it's line of site, but sometimes, that can be a very long distance.

Seems like with a tower and a parabolic antenna. Some sort of connection might be made to another router that's on a tower with another parabolic antenna pointing at the other tower/antenna setup.

If enough people are sharing the local network, someone might decide to share their internet connection. Thing is, that connection would probably be overloaded if a bunch of people sharing the local network tried to use it all at once.

Oh yes, they already have software for a "meshed" community using WiFi. But you need to have enough relay points close enough to each other to make it work. Unfortunately WiFi does not carry very far. Rural areas would have an issue... Although I have seen some "cantennas" reach pretty far. lol

[helmuth_hubener]

The internet just has too much baggage, too much crud, too many unsolvable problems.

It's not salvageable.

@jradmin had this same insight earlier in the thread, when he called for reverting to dial-up BBS boards. It's the same exact sentiment, and really the same exact insight, just expressed a little less technically.

The internet is an atrocious mess.

Time to abandon ship.

You're just proposing one mess to substitute for another. What makes the Internet "messy" is that it is an enormous, distributed network. Any other alternative that is equally successful will have exactly the same problem, no matter how "perfectly" it was originally architected.

I could list a dozen major problems that are anything but inevitable just because "durr, large distributed network." Like, why can I not just send an email to someone without being part of a surveillance panopticon?

There is no logical reason it had to be like this.

Anyway, if the goal is to be able to route around censorship and avoid surveillance, there is no need for complicated solutions, just use dead drops. You can make a fancier solution if you really need it, but the point is that this is a problem that is cheap and easy to solve.

I don't know what goal you have, what goal you're talking about. That's what I asked. "Route around censorship and avoid surveillance" what does that mean exactly?

I proposed something that actually is simple and practical and could fit into some actual person's conceivable life arrangements and objectives. Namely: have an extra computer you never connect to the internet.

You seem to be satirizing it by ironically offering secret-agent-type "dead drops" as a "cheap and easy" "solution". Right... So easy! "Solution" to what, exactly?

[helmuth_hubener]

[mention]jradmin[/mention] it is a cool idea. It sounds doable. I'm sure it would be a fun project.

[Developer]

I have so many things I want to do, I'm having trouble finding time to do any of them. lol
I want to learn more about Linux, yet I want to also get into the Amateur Radio Mesh system.

http://broadbandhamnet.org/

Maybe I can do both at the same time. :smile

What's to keep people from using those routers without the firmware upgrade and making a network as if they were amateur radio operators?

I could set up a SMS gateway for just private group use. But... it still requires a webhost and the internet. I am trying to get away from needing the net altogether and do it all old school with phone numbers and packet connections.

I was thinking more along the lines of a local network without the connection to the internet. Yes, it's line of site, but sometimes, that can be a very long distance.

Seems like with a tower and a parabolic antenna. Some sort of connection might be made to another router that's on a tower with another parabolic antenna pointing at the other tower/antenna setup.

If enough people are sharing the local network, someone might decide to share their internet connection. Thing is, that connection would probably be overloaded if a bunch of people sharing the local network tried to use it all at once.

OK, so in my research I found these. :)

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/gotenna

[3D.]

I could set up a SMS gateway for just private group use. But... it still requires a webhost and the internet. I am trying to get away from needing the net altogether and do it all old school with phone numbers and packet connections.

I was thinking more along the lines of a local network without the connection to the internet. Yes, it's line of site, but sometimes, that can be a very long distance.

Seems like with a tower and a parabolic antenna. Some sort of connection might be made to another router that's on a tower with another parabolic antenna pointing at the other tower/antenna setup.

If enough people are sharing the local network, someone might decide to share their internet connection. Thing is, that connection would probably be overloaded if a bunch of people sharing the local network tried to use it all at once.

OK, so in my research I found these. :)

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/gotenna

That's an interesting device.

I was looking at this...
https://www.amazon.com/Extended-Repeate ... 198&sr=8-2

If you have wifi within 3 miles, you might be able to get it with that device.

[Developer]

I was thinking more along the lines of a local network without the connection to the internet. Yes, it's line of site, but sometimes, that can be a very long distance.

Seems like with a tower and a parabolic antenna. Some sort of connection might be made to another router that's on a tower with another parabolic antenna pointing at the other tower/antenna setup.

If enough people are sharing the local network, someone might decide to share their internet connection. Thing is, that connection would probably be overloaded if a bunch of people sharing the local network tried to use it all at once.

OK, so in my research I found these. :)

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/gotenna

That's an interesting device.

I was looking at this...
https://www.amazon.com/Extended-Repeate ... 198&sr=8-2

If you have wifi within 3 miles, you might be able to get it with that device.

Cool stuff man! I have been digging for just a multifrequency signal transceiver amplifier most the day. They used to sell kits, but I can't find one now. They just passively receive and boost whatever frequency signal you send at it. they were pretty cheap too if I remember right...

[helmuth_hubener]

Now we are talking... We need a way to communicate without an internet connection. I have even been playing with FAX ware and dial in central server to figure something out. I would already have an old school dial in BBS set up, but my particular very remote situation prevents me from having a 24-7 landline available for the server. I tried to talk Swordy and Clayton into it.... lol

They have too much stuff on their plate already and I completely understand because my own is pretty full too.

Eventually, Urbit's networking should be able to work over ham radio. Or, basically, anything. It's extremely simple, like Morse Code, and so like Morse Code it can be conveyed over a huge variety of mediums.

Regarding the dial-in BBS idea, wouldn't you want to set it up so that the users had to dial in, with a dial-up modem, in order to access it?

Hams have been doing it since the earliest days of the Internet.

Yeah, I know.

And UDP should be easier than TCP

[helmuth_hubener]

[mention]3D.[/mention], you want Ubiquity.

That is what everyone uses.

It can do what you want.

It can see for miles.

Edit: Ubiquiti, doi. I'm sure either search would find it though.

[helmuth_hubener]

Just as yet another item showing [mention]Clayton[/mention] has no hesitancy in talking about things he has no idea about:

Actually yes, it is perfectly easy to block your users from using TOR. Managed networks already do it commonly. Nothing to stop ISPs from doing it.

Go down to your local internet hotspot. You may find that they already block TOR. Just as [mention]jradmin[/mention] discovered that his own web host blocks TOR.

Blocking TOR is fun. Good times had by all.

[Clayton]

Just as yet another item showing @Clayton has no hesitancy in talking about things he has no idea about:

Actually yes, it is perfectly easy to block your users from using TOR. Managed networks already do it commonly. Nothing to stop ISPs from doing it.

Go down to your local internet hotspot. You may find that they already block TOR. Just as @jradmin discovered that his own web host blocks TOR.

Blocking TOR is fun. Good times had by all.

Just as yet another item showing [mention]helmuth_hubener[/mention] has reading comprehension below that of a 5-year-old. I never said it's impossible to block Tor, rather, it is impossible for the ISP to block a .onion address over Tor. That is, the ISP cannot permit a Tor connection, but selectively block a specific .onion address. That is because the .onion address you are accessing is encrypted over the Tor connection.

Back to first grade with you!

[helmuth_hubener]

Just as yet another item showing @Clayton has no hesitancy in talking about things he has no idea about:

Actually yes, it is perfectly easy to block your users from using TOR. Managed networks already do it commonly. Nothing to stop ISPs from doing it.

Go down to your local internet hotspot. You may find that they already block TOR. Just as @jradmin discovered that his own web host blocks TOR.

Blocking TOR is fun. Good times had by all.

Just as yet another item showing @helmuth_hubener has reading comprehension below that of a 5-year-old. I never said it's impossible to block Tor, rather, it is impossible for the ISP to block a .onion address over Tor. That is, the ISP cannot permit a Tor connection, but selectively block a specific .onion address. That is because the .onion address you are accessing is encrypted over the Tor connection.

Back to first grade with you!

It may in fact be impossible to block TOR for that matter.

Your clear point in the context of the conversation -- that is, what literally everyone (with the possible exception of me ;) ) thought you were saying -- was, in reply to [mention]jradmin[/mention] (see, I'm tagging, you, jr! Don't jump me again for not tagging you, bro!), "do not fear, mein frau, ISPs cannot prevent the TOR. Can't stop the signal."

One can, in fact, probably not stop the signal.

Except for 99.9999999% of the population. For them you can stop it.

But screw them, amirite?

[Developer]

Just as yet another item showing @Clayton has no hesitancy in talking about things he has no idea about:

Actually yes, it is perfectly easy to block your users from using TOR. Managed networks already do it commonly. Nothing to stop ISPs from doing it.

Go down to your local internet hotspot. You may find that they already block TOR. Just as @jradmin discovered that his own web host blocks TOR.

Blocking TOR is fun. Good times had by all.

Just as yet another item showing @helmuth_hubener has reading comprehension below that of a 5-year-old. I never said it's impossible to block Tor, rather, it is impossible for the ISP to block a .onion address over Tor. That is, the ISP cannot permit a Tor connection, but selectively block a specific .onion address. That is because the .onion address you are accessing is encrypted over the Tor connection.

Back to first grade with you!

It may in fact be impossible to block TOR for that matter.

Your clear point in the context of the conversation -- that is, what literally everyone (with the possible exception of me ;) ) thought you were saying -- was, in reply to @jradmin (see, I'm tagging, you, jr! Don't jump me again for not tagging you, bro!), "do not fear, mein frau, ISPs cannot prevent the TOR. Can't stop the signal."

One can, in fact, probably not stop the signal.

Except for 99.9999999% of the population. For them you can stop it.

But screw them, amirite?

Feel free at any time, everything in life is always a buyer beware situation for me... :)