Communications Options in This Era of Civil Disasters and Internet Censorship

A couple years ago, I wrote a piece on this blog about the use of MESH networks as a means of circumventing communications blackouts resulting from a shutdown of conventional networks by natural disasters or the deliberate actions of ISPs, governments, etc. Tornadoes and earthquakes play havoc with most communications systems other than amateur (HAM) or CB radio, or MESH networks. Furthermore, the problem of governments shutting off or severely restricting Internet access to their citizens for political reasons has NOT gone away since I wrote that earlier piece on MESH networks; if anything, it has become more prevalent. But there ARE workarounds for both the above mentioned situations.

While reading the news tonight, I stumbled across the following article:
Internet Shutdowns Don't Make Anyone Safer

Anyone concerned about emergency communications, freedom and security should seriously research MESH networks, amateur radio, MURS(Multi-Use Radio Service) radio, or any other options that may suit their specific purposes.

MESH networks are a form of distributed network that can run on cell phones, tablets, PCs and other wireless-enabled devices - independently of an ISP or other central control. Each device, or node in the network, communicates with multiple neighboring units within its range, allowing for a network that can dynamically reconfigure itself in the event of the failure of a node or nodes. Thus, all the devices in a neighborhood could be configured with the appropriate software to discretely communicate with one another. MESH networks can be confined to a single block or, given enough nodes, can expand to the size of a small town to provide relatively large area communications. If one or more nodes can still access the Internet, it (or they) can share that connection with all the others via the MESH network : )

Such a network can help facilitate emergency communications. Using this technology, news and alerts could be "pushed" to all devices in the network. In the immediate wake of a civil disaster such as a tornado or earthquake, when cell towers and other networks are out of commission, a MESH network could be rapidly deployed among a group of wireless-enabled devices with the appropriate software installed. If the MESH network extends to areas unaffected by the disaster, then access to the Internet is a simple matter, as mentioned above.

If wireless options are 'off the table', there's always the old trusty "sneaker net" - whereby people carried and passed files to one another on floppy discs or CD ROMS. Nowadays, this is easier than ever using thumb drives that have tens of gigabytes of storage capacity, are cheap, are reliable, rugged, and are easily stuffed in a pocket. When I was in graduate school, I sometimes used thumb drives to store and transport educational or other home videos I had created - thus saving time uploading or downloading on slow networks. I also didn't have to worry about whether or not I had network access when I wanted to play the video; keeping it on a thumb drive saved laptop hard disc space and/or allowed them to be played on someone else's computer.

If one is using radio, discrete communications are certainly possible. Despite the legal prohibitions against using any form of encryption on HAM and other radio services, one can easily prearrange certain phrases to convey sensitive information without compromising it. This is done regularly on open radio channels to address privacy or security issues in situations involving EMS, search and rescue operations, CERT volunteer deployments, etc.

Amateur (HAM) radio also supports a number of digital communications modes that can allow one to transmit text or even pictures via amateur radio to another station equipped to receive them. During an emergency, snapping a picture on one's tablet or phone and then transmitting it over the radio would be a fantastic way to rapidly SHOW others the actual conditions one is experiencing. The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" certainly applies here. A computer with a sound card (or a tablet) and the appropriate software are all you need - besides the radio - for some of the digital modes available.

FWIW.

Latest example of Why We Need MESH networks, Amateur Radio, and Shortwave

There has been something of a news blackout in the Mainstream Media this week. The story involves a rancher in Bunkerville, Nevada; a little ways outside of Las Vegas, besieged by 200 ARMED Federal Government agents over a disagreement on land use. I'm NOT going to discuss the merits of either side's case; that's for another blog and another post. There is a far more serious issue here. And that is the nearly complete lockdown over information in this country.

During this week's crisis in Southern Nevada, cell phone and data services to the area were cut off. The mainstream media were virtually silent on this incident, which could EASILY have blown up into another "Waco" type scenario. That is, they were silent until an alternative media source exposed the apparent link between this attempt to remove a rancher from his land, a certain politician and foreign corporate interests. The report went "viral" within the last 24 hours; only then did the mainstream media see fit to cover the story at all. Prior to this exposure, amateur radio was about the only reliable connection between this scene and the outside world once cellular and data services were cut off.

Regular readers of this blog will remember what I published about MESH networks, shortwave and amateur (ham) radio and why these things are of critical imnportance to citizens wanting to stay informed of important events. I discussed all this shortly after the events in Egypt a year or so ago. More recently I have discussed amateur radio and shortwave in more detail. THIS sort of thing, folks, is WHY I built the TenTec shortwave radio I wrote about a couple years ago.

Here's the deal in a nutshell: Wherever you have secrecy, and no open communication, you have the perfect petri dish for tyranny to flourish. Wherever you have a media that's more interested in "entertaining" the masses with lurid stories of celebrities and their sordid sex lives than actually reporting news, you run the risk of NOT getting information - information YOU MAY NEED to deal with potentially life-altering events. A couple years ago, there was a NEAR "Fukushima" style mess near Omaha, Nebraska at the Fort Calhoun generating station. The Missouri River had flooded, and nearly caused a mishap at the plant. Had the waters risen more than another foot, the equipment in the control room could have been shorted out. NONE of the media in the United States covered it, that I'm aware of. I first read about it on an obscure foreign website; later some bloggers picked up the story, and confirmed it. Had that plant melted down, 1/4 of the country could well have been in the path of a large radiation plume.

For those of you who ARE interested in REAL NEWS and want to take charge of your own destiney, I invite you to read what I have written about MESH networks, then do your own research on the 'Net and on YouTube to determine what fits your needs. YouTube users such as "Commprepper" offer great advice on amateur radio and other communications systems. If I were you I'd get this information NOW while it is still available.

FWIW.

SOPA, PIPA, and Citizens' Need For A "Backup" Internet

Well, it looks like we have dodged a bullet - for now.

News sources reported yesterday that our illustrious Congress critters have backed off on ramming through legislation that could have shut down many websites - possibly including this blog. President Obama has also backed away from his original position, saying he won't be signing any SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) or PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislation right away. No doubt he doesn't want to make any more adverse waves, given this is an election year and the outcry these bills have caused.

These bills were put forth ostensibly to stop piracy of movies, music, and other intellectual property. As one who has created my share of copyrighted property, I fully understand and sympathise with ANYONE wanting theirs protected. But what these pieces of legislation would do is basically allow an individual or company to sue you and have your website shut down if you as much as linked to a suspicious site. If a reader's comment published on your blog contains a link to suspicious material, that alone could prove sufficient cause to have your entire site shut down. This, BEFORE you even get a chance to argue your case in court!

ALL of this could happen WITHOUT due process, folks. This basically renders null and void the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" - one of THE founding principles America was based on.

Laws such as this could put sites like blogger, you-tube, ... out of business because the legal risk they would incur by hosting the millions of videos and blogs would be overwhelming. Imagine the undertaking it would be for blogger to check EVERY blog out on their system for possible copyright violations.

As someone said a while back, "SOPA and PIPA are basically the legal equivalent of burning down your house because you found a couple roaches in the kitchen." There are better ways of handling the problem.

An Opening For Repressive Governments
Regularly we read about how China, Egypt, and other repressive regimes curtail their citizens' access to information online. Thus far, the Constitution and other legal protections have kept this from happening here in America. We have seen how easily the USA Patriot Act was pushed through Congress with nary a whimper after the 9/11/2001 attacks. Bear in mind that the Republicans soundly defeated similar legislation - calling it "Draconian" - when Bill Clinton proposed it just a few years earlier. The USA Patriot Act opened the door for, among many other things, the gross violations of our dignity we suffer for the privilege of boarding an airliner nowadays.

It is likewise quite conceivable that SOPA and PIPA could start us on a slippery slope whereby the US government and/or others could also more readily clamp down on the flow of information when "inconvenient truths" on ANY subject threaten to surface.

The Common Citizen's Workaround - Or Digital "Jungle Telegraph"
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Common citizens should have ALTERNATIVE ways of communicating, exchanging news and information, as well as storing and accessing needed web content should there be any kind of censorship or shutdown of the Internet. Just as Amateur (HAM) radio allows communications when the regular infrastructure is down, a "mesh" network could quickly serve as the modern, information-age equivalent to "ham" or CB radio in an emergency. The software to do this is available online for FREE right now. All you need is the software and a wi-fi enabled laptop or desktop PC. Any desktop PC can be made wi-fi capable with an inexpensively purchased USB dongle.

How it works:
With a mesh network, a person's PC, laptop, or even a smart phone becomes a network repeater. Let's say I want to communicate with someone several blocks, or even miles away. I'd send out a signal, which would be picked up by the nearest computer or phone running the appropriate software. That device would then forward that to another one farther away, and so-on, until the message reached its destination. The more devices you get involved the more robust the network becomes. If you have several nodes in a neighborhood and one or two are lost, the signal still can go elsewhere and eventually get where it is going. Since unlike the regular Internet, there are MULTIPLE WAYS for an individual PC to connect, these networks are quite reliable. You are NO LONGER dependent on just your DSL or cable connection to get out. And neither is anyone else running a wi-fi mesh setup. And of course ANY of these devices could be running a server or host a shared directory for sharing files. Short of a major EMP incident (which would destroy most electronic hardware anyway), such a network would be very hard to completely jam or take down. The phones and PCs involved would still retain their originally intended functionality - this software runs quietly in the background.

Scalability: A mesh network can be as small as a few PCs in an apartment building or it could quite conceivably span an entire city. Licensed ham radio operators routinely transmit computer data over their radios - this is called "packet radio". Imagine the possibilities that open when you combine packet radio with mesh networks.

For more information I have included the following links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html?_r=1

http://fabfi.fablab.af/

http://code.google.com/p/fabfi/

http://code.google.com/p/fabfi/wiki/HowToMake

http://inkarlslab.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-internet-censorship-on-way-in-good.html

http://inkarlslab.blogspot.com/2011/06/wanna-beat-internet-censorship-build.html

More Internet Censorship On The Way In Good Ol' USA?

As with most news that we really NEED to be paying attention to, the "Protect IP Act" is something the mainstream media is NOT covering much in its "news" programs. While billed as another attempt at stopping music and movie piracy, it definitely has the earmarks of something far more sinister.

Having worked in the electronics and IT-related industries, I have read much about the "Protect IP Act" recently - but for those of you who are uninitiated, here's a quickie 3-4 minute video that explains what could happen quite soon:

http://mgelei.eu/2011/10/the-great-firewall-of-china-might-move-to-the-usa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-great-firewall-of-china-might-move-to-the-usa

Kudos to Mate Gelei for putting this up on his blog!!

I am completely against piracy of other people's intellectual property and hard work. However, this looks like a tool more useful for social control, curtailing free discourse, and manufacturing consensus, rather than for protecting copyrighted work. As pointed out in the video, media companies already have a powerful arsenal of laws and regulations to use against piracy. This is akin to burning down the house because you found two or three roaches in the kitchen.

So, what can we do?
Besides boycotting companies who are spearheading this, there IS technology available to help.

A while back I wrote about "mesh networks" - which are a stealthy way of creating Internet access which bypasses the regular government or corporate controlled network infrastructure.
http://inkarlslab.blogspot.com/2011/06/wanna-beat-internet-censorship-build.html
Just as truckers use CB radios to warn each other of adverse road conditions ahead, such a stealth "internet" could well be about the only way the common man (or woman) will be able to get REAL news and information at some point. Just look at the conditions in China, the recent commotion in Egypt, ... for examples. In these situations even cellular and land line phone networks were mostly shut down. Another possible scenario where a mesh network could really help is a natural or man-made disaster that could take down normal communications services. During such emergencies, mesh networks and amateur radio could really make a huge difference in helping ordinary folks.

Such "mesh" or ad-hoc networks could span anywhere from a city block to a large metropolitan area - perhaps farther using some creativity. These would be relatively hard to control or shut down, and would be fairly robust even in situations that would knock out standard DSL, cellular and land line phone, or cable access.

Along with shortwave radios and amateur "ham" radio, this is something every freedom-loving person might want to look into.

Our Media Looks The Other Way While A Possible Nuke Accident Unfolds In Nebraska

In several of my recent posts I have written about why one needs alternative communications systems for getting news during emergencies - whether they be man-made or natural. I have mentioned shortwave receivers, amateur(ham) radio communications, and most recently - alternative "mesh" computer networks. None of these rely upon power lines, cellular/land telephones, and internet connections - all of which could be out of commission for any number of reasons.

Today, I read about a situation unfolding near Omaha, Nebraska. It has been going on since June 8. Today is June 17. Due to river flooding a nuclear power plant is in danger. The plant already experienced some flooding and an electrical fire involving pump controls for cooling the spent fuel rods stored on site. There is the potential threat of dam breakage on the river that could REALLY cause problems - anyone remember what happened in Japan this past March?

Read about it here:

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/06/nebraska-nuclear-plant-at-level-4-disaster/

So while the media distracted us with stories of congress critters tweeting lewd pictures of themselves, we had what could develop into a home-grown Fukushima disaster going on for over a week.

I have to ask: WHY wasn't/isn't this headline news???
Considering that nuclear power plant accidents tend to contaminate thousands of square miles of land, thereby rendering it unsafe or even uninhabitable for the foreseeable future, this SHOULD be PROMINENT on the nightly news until it is resolved.

It is increasingly clear that the media cannot be relied upon to report even on immediate emergencies. Whether it be a situation like this, a tornado, earthquake, terrorist attack, or anything else not enumerated here, it is clear one needs to have other means of getting information and communicating with friends and family.

Wanna BEAT Internet Censorship? Build Your OWN Internet!

We have read recently how the Egyptian, Chinese, and Syrian governments have cut Internet access to their citizens to control the flow of information and keep ordinary citizens from being able to report human rights abuses. In the case of Syria, cell phones have also been affected by government censorship efforts. Since time immemorial governments have treated their citizens "like mushrooms - keeping them in the dark and feeding ..." - well, you know the rest of the saying.

Even as the United States government talks of "needing" the ability to shut down Internet access to US CITIZENS in the event of "cyber terrorism" or "other civil crises", the state Department and Pentagon are spending American tax dollars to develop and provide alternative cyber networks to folks in other countries affected by such censorship.

Here's a link to an article in today's New York Times online edition:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html

While I think most of what the New York Times produces is best used as bird cage liner or kitty litter, THIS article actually has some VERY GOOD information.

Quoted directly from the article:
"The group’s suitcase project will rely on a version of “mesh network” technology, which can transform devices like cellphones or personal computers to create an invisible wireless web without a centralized hub. In other words, a voice, picture or e-mail message could hop directly between the modified wireless devices — each one acting as a mini cell “tower” and phone — and bypass the official network. "

"mesh networks - information hops directly between cell phones and computers without going through state-controlled networks. They do this with special software."

Given the natural disasters that have hit the US within the past few years, as well as other events that could suddenly cripple the ability of US Citizens to communicate freely by phone or Internet, perhaps we would do well as individual citizens to network with each other and create our own 'free' Wide-Area-Networks (WANs), or community Internets. This would go far in augmenting the services that amateur radio (ham) operators provide in times of need. Amateur radio operators use "packet radio" to transmit digital information. Unfortunately most folks don't have the training or the license to use it. But most of us who own laptops DO have Wi-Fi capability which are readily adaptable for use in mesh or ad-hoc networks.

Something for any concerned citizen to think about.

For those interested in developing this technology, a google search will turn up all the information you need to get started. I've included a couple links here:

"Fab-fi networks" - open-source systems using common, "every-day" materials and readily-available equipment for creating community wireless Ethernet networks.

http://fabfi.fablab.af/

http://code.google.com/p/fabfi/

http://code.google.com/p/fabfi/wiki/HowToMake