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meshtastic should not be used for protest communications
(hexbear.net)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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its quite a bit of effort to come up with such coded language ahead of time and get everyone to remember it in a high stress situation without it also being decipherable, IMO. But I agree it has its uses.
but if you're forgoing security anyhow, you could do the same with meshtastic and instead of a person on a roof it could just be a node on the roof, or in a tree, or routed via existing mesh infrastructure (many cities have quite a few nodes already). And that would have significantly more security than a walkie, even if its still vastly insufficient. especially with standalone lora mesh devices, which often dont have persistent storage of messages, or with some firmware modifications to make them more secure, it could be halfway decent.
I have mixed feelings about the practicality of either option really but I think radios stick out more in a crowd, and so does a person on a roof
So for the person on a roof this would depend entirely on the roof your on. If you find a rooftop resturant and simply order lunch there your good to go for example. Looks totally normal. The radios would need to be concealed yes, but theyre not that big. You could fit them in a backpack, or inside pocket of a jacket.
I think it's best used for like a small group of well organized people who manage comms. Like get 5-6 people spread them around the area evenly, and let them be peoples go to for communicating with the rest of the group. Rather than everyone having one. Then you rely on just word of mouth when in the local group. Or you could combine the radios with the briar setup. You send a message over the radio, it gets to all the other radio holders with 1-2 miles, then you use briar to disperse it locally among the crowds.
Hiding a few radios in a big crowd is easy, and having only 5-6 people who need to know the coded language makes it easier too.