Hong Kong Protesters Use Mesh Networks To Organize

wabrandsma sends this article from New Scientist: Hong Kong's mass protest is networked. Activists are relying on a free app that can send messages without any cellphone connection. Since the pro-democracy protests turned ugly over the weekend, many worry that the Chinese government would block local phone networks. In response, activists have turned to the FireChat app to send supportive messages and share the latest news. On Sunday alone, the app was downloaded more than 100,000 times in Hong Kong, its developers said. FireChat relies on "mesh networking," a technique that allows data to zip directly from one phone to another via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Ordinarily, if two people want to communicate this way, they need to be fairly close together. But as more people join in, the network grows and messages can travel further. Mesh networks can be useful for people who are caught in natural disasters or, like those in Hong Kong, protesting under tricky conditions. FireChat came in handy for protesters in Taiwan and Iraq this year."

Comments

Re: Seattle Times looking for first hand reports

[atrimtab]

This is easy to defeat with a simple 2.4ghz jammer in the protest area. Both Bluetooth and most WiFi would be disabled. So the devices cannot mesh. Turn off the cell networks and ability of protesters to coordinate is gone.

So it could be useful when Government is not the adversary such as in a disaster, but is easily disabled by Government if that is it's intention during protests.