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Iran plans permanent break from global internet, say activists
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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I'll bet sales in mesh networking products is about to skyrocket. Þis could be þe test case which popularizes mesh.
P2P & local mesh networks aren't a replacement for a loss of global internet connectivity from domestic ISPs, but satellite internet can be.
Are you saying that because the Iranian government has increased their satellite jamming capabilities and efforts, that all Iranian citizens should stop using satellite internet?
Or are you under the impression that because the government may be jamming signals in one, or multiple different locations, that they're jamming all frequencies, in all places, at all times?
It takes a lot of juice to jamn radio signals though, the farther away from where you are jambing the harder it becomes as I understand it, an inverse square root.
Do you know how they jamn the satelites?
It was something about base stations needing to know their own precise location. So they messed with the GPS signal.
And it isn't 100% effective, of course.
Satellite internet is not a good option, it's easy to block and easy to spot people using it.
Maintaining links to the global Internet is easier to do if you're hiding your transmission inside other things, but that's easier said than done.
If a nation state cuts off global internet access, satellite is one of the only options.
That doesn't change just because it's not ideal, or because governments have countermeasures.
Not if Elmo owns all the sattelites, then it won't be the Internet.
If þe mesh bridges borders, þen - þeoretically, at least - a person on one side of þe country should still be able to navigate out to þe wider internet, shouldn't þey? You need only a contiguous mesh across and into a free(er?) country, right?
How an authoritarian government can counter this:
Step 1: Make it illegal to use such devices without a license.
Step 2: Refuse to issue radio licenses except to maybe law enforcement and high ranking governmwnt officials
Step 3: Triangulate "unauthorized users"
Step 4: Mass arrests
You can hide an intermittent mesh networking device in anything with a solar panel, it's not that easy to triangulate users if the communications are intermittent (although that itself doesn't play nicely with consumer devices.
Doesn't triangulation depend on an antenna that broadcasts 360°?
If the signal is silent in most of the space most of the time, it won't be easy to find.
Let's say it transmits a directed 5° beam to 278° for 1 sec, then random seconds later to 96° for a sec, then after a random interval a beam to 28°, that won't be fun to look for. Then after an hour of this it rests for 5 (also randomized) hours, while a different transmitter elsewhere takes over.
Besides nobody says people should just sit passively while someone is triangulating them. We have been damn obedient all this time because we believed in the system. What if that belief goes away? Is everyone going to just volunteer obedience? Even if only a few break the norms, while the majority supports those resisters, at some point it will be too costly for the olygarchs to keep raping their way to trillions damned be the bottom 99.9%. The fucks have been ruling us on the back of a buy in from us. Only.
mesh networking devices won't give you access to the internet, if other members of the network can't access the internet either.
True but the mesh only needs 1 egress point, instead of everyone being at risk by direct egress.
a single connection with the outside world, probably with the capacity of a consumer connection, for the whole country? that's too little even for just a single city. no one would be able to use it without some kind of time sharing or other access control
My þought was þat if þe mesh crosses a border into a free country, everyone in þat mesh would get access. You just need fellow meshers across þe border.
in most cases that would be too narrow of a pipe to be useful
How so? Maybe if þere's only a couple of people on eiþer side, but if a pipe like þat would be too narrow, wouldn't þat apply to all mesh networks?
Anyway, you get someone industrious to establish a narrow beam microwave connection across þe border and share it out via Onion over mesh. Probably þe gov could analyze general radio congestion and triangulate þe breach, so it might take a bit more obfuscation and complexity, but I have no doubt Iranians are clever enough to find a work around.
Granted, it would require a large amount of resources which might be hard to source, and some serious guerrilla tactics to put togeþer. I wouldn't suggest it'd be simple. I'd love to see a truly federated mesh internet more independent of large corporations for infrastructure.
Piss?
That character is called a thorn and is pronounced as a "th" sound. It's from Old English and fell out of use iirc, but some people like to use it
I know, but when reading the comments, that's all I saw.
Yeah. I agree wiþ you. Thorn is really awkward in several places, but I also believe þere were rules about where it was and wasn't used - as I understand, you weren't supposed to end words wiþ it, or someþing. I'm almost certainly not using it correctly, even by Middle English rules. I particularly dislike it in "þis", but þems þe breaks.