Speaker 1: Who Zone Media, Welcome back to it could happen here, everybody.
Speaker 1: I am Robert Evans, and I want to start today
Speaker 1: by kind of proposing a theoretical Right, you wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and something is awry. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe you hear shots, maybe there's some sort of natural disaster.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's that that weird Havana syndron death
Speaker 1: sound from the Obama movie that just came out on
Speaker 1: what was it Netflix? But something's fucked up. And you know,
Speaker 1: most people, I think especially most people who listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast, you've probably had conversations with your friends and
Speaker 1: loved ones about what do we do when the quote
Speaker 1: unquote apocalypse or shit hits the fan. You know, you've
Speaker 1: got your friends who maybe you know they have a
Speaker 1: lot of stored food, or they have some other skill
Speaker 1: that you think would be useful. And you've got some
Speaker 1: stuff that's that that that you know you know how
Speaker 1: to do. You've got your people right that you would
Speaker 1: want to be with and around if something's really going
Speaker 1: wrong out there, because you know how to take care
Speaker 1: of each other. But how do you get in contact right,
Speaker 1: assuming you don't all live together, assuming you're not all
Speaker 1: on some sort of commune type situation, as most people aren't.
Speaker 1: You're probably scattered throughout the city. Maybe you've got some
Speaker 1: friends out, you know, in the suburbs, Maybe you've got
Speaker 1: some friends who live out in rural land. Maybe you've
Speaker 1: just got a friend who lives halfway across town. And
Speaker 1: you know, that's no problem when you've got a phone
Speaker 1: and you've got you know, Google Maps working. But can
Speaker 1: you get there on your own? Can you get there
Speaker 1: or get into contact with them if the streets are
Speaker 1: all clogged up with cars or whatever, like, how are
Speaker 1: you going to reach them? How are you going to
Speaker 1: you know, get in touch in order to figure out
Speaker 1: what's going on? And how are you going to stay
Speaker 1: in touch while you handle whatever you need to handle
Speaker 1: for whatever is going wrong. Well that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about today, because if the cell networks are down,
Speaker 1: if they're being blocked, if you know, the Obama situation happens,
Speaker 1: there are things you can do to allow you and
Speaker 1: your friends, comrades, affinity group, whatever you want to call them,
Speaker 1: to stay in touch. And a lot of this revolves
Speaker 1: around a kind of technical usage called a mesh network.
Speaker 1: And I don't know much about that because I am
Speaker 1: a big dummy. But a person who is not a
Speaker 1: dummy is our guest today. They go by Hydroponic Trash
Speaker 1: on Twitter and they are going to talk to us
Speaker 1: today about how to set up independent communications networks that
Speaker 1: do not rely on the standard grid. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's up? Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for coming on. You posted a thread
Speaker 1: on Twitter about using You know, it's called like LOWRA
Speaker 1: low frequency radio. Is that what it stands for?
Speaker 2: Yeah, LORA stands technically for long range, but yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a long range frequency radio that broadcasts a pretty specific
Speaker 2: wavelength that can travel really far throughout the air. So
Speaker 2: it's perfect for communications long distance.
Speaker 1: And it's if you've got devices set up on this
Speaker 1: they each basically act as nodes, right, So the more
Speaker 1: you have the kind of wider signal distribution you get.
Speaker 1: If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, Like if you've
Speaker 1: got someone three miles away and then another person five
Speaker 1: miles to the west of them, then you kind of
Speaker 1: are able to cover that whole distance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So think of it like a relay system, right, Yah,
Speaker 2: one person has a message they send it off to
Speaker 2: another person. That person passes it on to the next node,
Speaker 2: and so mesh networks are really resilient when it comes
Speaker 2: to emergencies, when it comes to protests, when it comes
Speaker 2: to occupation and conflict zones, because if one node goes down,
Speaker 2: as long as there's other ones that can pick up
Speaker 2: that message and keep repeating it and broadcasting it out.
Speaker 2: So it's a really interesting piece of technology that is
Speaker 2: similar to traditional radios, but also different because all the
Speaker 2: communications can be encrypted end to end, which is a
Speaker 2: huge delay of security.
Speaker 1: Because you can the thing most people's default if you're
Speaker 1: thinking like, well, how do you get some like walkie talkies?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You know, you get some and those can you know,
Speaker 1: those have their place and stuff, but they are also
Speaker 1: not always the most secure options. So being able to
Speaker 1: encrypt shit is a huge deal, especially when you're talking
Speaker 1: about like outside of a shit hits the fan kind
Speaker 1: of deal, which is less likely than you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of civil unrest protest use case. You know, being
Speaker 1: able to actually encrypt is huge. Yeah, So I'm a dummy.
Speaker 1: I don't understand much about setting up my own technology independently,
Speaker 1: but I find this interesting. I see the use case.
Speaker 1: I decide I want to you know, set this up
Speaker 1: and start, you know, building an emergency mesh network with
Speaker 1: a half dozen of my friends. Where do I start?
Speaker 2: So, first thing is you'll need some hardware that supports LORA.
Speaker 2: There are a ton of different things out there, ranging
Speaker 2: from maybe twenty twenty five bucks going all the way
Speaker 2: up to thousands of dollars, So there's a big range,
Speaker 2: and that range really depends on the enclosure, what's included
Speaker 2: in it, the broadcast strength, all that good stuff. So
Speaker 2: obviously the cheaper you go, the weaker the broadcast strength is.
Speaker 2: There might be development boards that are just literally like
Speaker 2: the PCB, like actual hardware with no case around it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's there's some that you can just pick
Speaker 2: up and immediately use, and so it kind of depends.
Speaker 2: But that's the first step is finding hardware that can
Speaker 2: handle LORA, and then you know obviously getting it and
Speaker 2: then flashing it with the correct software. And that sounds
Speaker 2: really complicated, but for our purposes of sending text messages
Speaker 2: without any kind of cellular, LTE or Wi Fi connection,
Speaker 2: you can use super cheap devices and flashing them is
Speaker 2: you click a couple buttons and you're done.
Speaker 1: So, first off, do you have any kind of specific
Speaker 1: you know, I know you're working on a text piece
Speaker 1: that you can put up to explain all this, and
Speaker 1: I I will certainly share that as soon as it
Speaker 1: gets up. But do you have any specific like if
Speaker 1: somebody's saying, hey, I've got you know, a budget of
Speaker 1: fifty bucks, you know, or so, is there a complete
Speaker 1: device you would recommend if they're or somewhere in that
Speaker 1: median range, like kind of on the lower end, a
Speaker 1: thing that someone doesn't know how to take, you know,
Speaker 1: a raw board and craft that into a usable device
Speaker 1: that you would recommend they purchase. Is to start us
Speaker 1: off here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So I kind of have two different options.
Speaker 2: One is a standalone option that can kind of work
Speaker 2: by itself, completely independent of anything else, and another one
Speaker 2: uses your phone, So you'll flash it to the board
Speaker 2: and then connective or bluetooth to your phone just like
Speaker 2: a pair of headphones.
Speaker 1: Awsot, Oh that's so easy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so you kind of have options if you
Speaker 2: want a standalone version. There's a company called Lilygo that
Speaker 2: makes a thing called a te deck and it's pretty small.
Speaker 2: It looks like a BlackBerry Clone. Yeah, it has a
Speaker 2: little mouse thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It looks like a BlackBerry kind of crossed with a
Speaker 1: game camera. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's like thicker
Speaker 1: in the back, it's got that big antenna. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And so the Lego t Deck is what this is called.
Speaker 2: It's a BlackBerry Clone. Basically, it has lowra built in,
Speaker 2: it has Bluetooth, and so all you have to do
Speaker 2: is get powered to this thing, flash it with mesh
Speaker 2: tastic and there you go. Now you have a Now
Speaker 2: you can type out messages, you can send direct messages,
Speaker 2: you can send encrypted messages, all with one device. That's
Speaker 2: thirty five dollars.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's great. And this is something you can
Speaker 1: get like Ali Express was your recommendation, right, yeah, Ali Express.
Speaker 2: Probably be the best if you're trying to order a lot.
Speaker 2: If you want one right now, you can order them
Speaker 2: on places like Amazon, but it's going to cost you
Speaker 2: and also fuck Amazon.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean you are slightly doomed to support
Speaker 1: one horrible billionaire or another like Kelly expresses. But no,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean one of the upsides to like
Speaker 2: an all in one thing like this is like I
Speaker 2: three d printed this case, but you don't have to
Speaker 2: print a case. You can literally just set this into
Speaker 2: a shoe box or something and protect it. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of options on the cases that you want
Speaker 2: to use. You could buy pre made cases, or you
Speaker 2: could just, I don't know, just put something to protect
Speaker 2: the board back here and then screw on an antenna.
Speaker 2: You're good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I've seen some shit people do with
Speaker 1: duct tape. You can figure it out. So my question is,
Speaker 1: or my other question is, you were talking about a
Speaker 1: way that you can you can basically do the calming
Speaker 1: like communications through yoursel phone, right, you can hook that
Speaker 1: into the next mesh network. Is that something you're able
Speaker 1: to kind of go over at least in brief or
Speaker 1: provide people with, you know, here's where they can go
Speaker 1: to read about how to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the same company, Liligo, makes a smaller little device.
Speaker 2: It's really small, maybe about inch yeah. Yeah, and it
Speaker 2: has a screen on it so when you power it
Speaker 2: on you can actually see the messages come through on
Speaker 2: the screen on the board itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it connects through Bluetooth to your phone and you
Speaker 2: use the mesh Tastic app to basically text like you
Speaker 2: normally would on a phone. Yeah, it looks just like
Speaker 2: signal pretty much if you're used to that that UI
Speaker 2: but uh yeah it's super small. Yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker 1: And so you're just also using that that mesh Tastic
Speaker 1: app to flash the software on the devices once you
Speaker 1: get them. Am I am I understanding that? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm just asking. I'm re asking everything because I want
Speaker 1: to try to make this accessible for both me when
Speaker 1: I do it and for our listeners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So mesh Tastic is the software that's
Speaker 2: running on these devices, and what Meshastic does is a
Speaker 2: device that's also running Meshtastic can communicate with each other
Speaker 2: over LORA long distance. And so you need the hardware
Speaker 2: that supports the LORAW and a client which is mehtastic
Speaker 2: that will allow you to send tax messages and stuff
Speaker 2: like that and do the encryption handle all that stuff.
Speaker 2: To actually flash these it's super simple. Mesh Tastic has
Speaker 2: a link that you can go to. You plug in
Speaker 2: your device, depending on the version, you hold down a button,
Speaker 2: you press flash, wait like ten seconds, and boom, now
Speaker 2: you have a working mesh Tastic node, probably in underneath
Speaker 2: ten minutes after you get this out of the box.
Speaker 2: You could be up and running in about ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: That's great and so all right, if I if I've
Speaker 1: got like say, I'm the guy in my group of
Speaker 1: friends who has more disposable cash, and I want to
Speaker 1: get this going. So I pick up five of those
Speaker 1: lily like boxes three D print a case for them
Speaker 1: or just wrap them in something, you know, and I
Speaker 1: keep one. I hand them out to my friends. I
Speaker 1: get the software on all of them. How how do
Speaker 1: I get them all kind of in comms together?
Speaker 2: Right? Like?
Speaker 1: Or if you know, my friends buy them independently and
Speaker 1: we each flash them and get them up and running.
Speaker 1: How do we all kind of connect? Like? What is
Speaker 1: that process?
Speaker 2: Like? Yeah? So the good thing with mesh tastic is
Speaker 2: it automatically handles adding new nodes to the network, and
Speaker 2: so as soon as a new device that runs mess
Speaker 2: tastic comes online, it'll broadcast and tell the entire mesh
Speaker 2: Tastic network nearby, Hey, a new device got added. You
Speaker 2: can send messages to me. So mesh Tastic has two
Speaker 2: different things that it can do. It can do broadcasts,
Speaker 2: where you're sending out a message to pretty much everyone
Speaker 2: who has a device that's reachable, and that's good for say,
Speaker 2: for instance, you know your friend comes online, you can't
Speaker 2: talk to them directly. You could send them broadcast out
Speaker 2: and say hey Joe, what device are you and they
Speaker 2: could reply and broadcast everybody okay, I'm on this device.
Speaker 2: You can also do direct messages, so once you know
Speaker 2: that person's device name, you can actually send messages directly
Speaker 2: to them. Now keep in mind it's not encrypted because
Speaker 2: technically it's broadcasting throughout each node. It's just like filtering
Speaker 2: out the messages for whoever it was addressed for. But yeah,
Speaker 2: at that point then you could start dming people. And
Speaker 2: if you want to get started with encryption, it's also
Speaker 2: really easy. You can use the mesh Tastic client, so
Speaker 2: you can install it on your computer, plug it into
Speaker 2: your computer, and just sett in a encryption key, a passcode,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to do to secure your communications, and
Speaker 2: then once that person has that passcode key, whatever, those
Speaker 2: two devices can connect and talk completely encrypted, either one
Speaker 2: on one or if multiple people. Say, for instance, you
Speaker 2: have an affinity group of like ten people, you all
Speaker 2: say okay, hey, in an in an emergency, let's meet
Speaker 2: up at this place and physically share a key or
Speaker 2: passcode or whatever. Once everybody has that, you can also
Speaker 2: do encrypted broadcasts to multiple people as well, so getting
Speaker 2: up and running is super quick. When it comes to flashing,
Speaker 2: actually communicating with people makes sense, especially on your phone.
Speaker 2: It feels just like a normal texting situation.
Speaker 1: So that's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really it's really amazing. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: a really interesting technology because, like I've been interested in
Speaker 2: radio for a while. But the I guess downside to
Speaker 2: that is a you can't encrypt any kind of radio
Speaker 2: communications in the US b a license. Yeah, unless if
Speaker 2: you're the cops of the military or the FEDS, you
Speaker 2: cannot encrypt shit, and if you do, it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of an issue. But yeah, you can't encrypt messages on
Speaker 2: regular radios. Another thing is like usability. If you hand
Speaker 2: somebody like a bow thaying handheld radio, most people are
Speaker 2: not going to know what to do with it at all.
Speaker 2: They're gonna be like, what the fuck is this? But
Speaker 2: if I hand you a BlackBerry clon and say just type,
Speaker 2: and if you want to send a DM to somebody
Speaker 2: to find them and just send it like it's it's
Speaker 2: really easy for your average person to pick it up
Speaker 2: and use it, which is honestly the best kind of situation,
Speaker 2: especially in an emergency where you can't really rely on
Speaker 2: highly technical people all the time, because what if everybody
Speaker 2: in your affinity group isn't super technical, you know. So
Speaker 2: it's a it's a good common device that anybody can
Speaker 2: pick up and start sending messages, even encrypted messages, pretty easily.
Speaker 1: So I think that covers the technical basics of what
Speaker 1: you need to do. I did want to ask real
Speaker 1: quick before we get onto some of the more ideological
Speaker 1: you know stuff here conversations about like why you specifically
Speaker 1: gotten into this and why like this is important for people.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask just really quickly in terms of
Speaker 1: that three D printed case. Did you just go search
Speaker 1: in some repository and find when someone had made or
Speaker 1: is there one that you've put up somewhere that you
Speaker 1: might recommend to people?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Actually it was recently uploaded to thing thing everse,
Speaker 2: which is a website that has free three D print
Speaker 2: plans and files, And so I just searched up lilygo
Speaker 2: t deck on thing everse and the full case, I
Speaker 2: mean the back Yeah, I loves great has Yeah, it
Speaker 2: looks like an actual device.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm assuming that one's just pla Yeah, just
Speaker 1: type of classic, super basic Yeah, yeah, looks great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this only took all these pieces snapped together,
Speaker 2: so no glue required, and all these pieces took roughly
Speaker 2: about eight hours to print at one hundred percent density.
Speaker 2: So you have a pretty solid case with plans that
Speaker 2: are available online and in eight hours you can have
Speaker 2: a literal professional looking device that's protected and able to go,
Speaker 2: you know, in adverse situations.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So now I want to get into some of
Speaker 1: the more kind of like just talking about First off,
Speaker 1: what got you into this, Like when did you decide
Speaker 1: this is a skill I want to develop and a
Speaker 1: thing I want to figure out?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, so for my day job, I'm an
Speaker 2: offensive security consultant, which is just a fancy way of
Speaker 2: saying that.
Speaker 1: It's a cool job, pat living. Yeah, you're doing like
Speaker 1: Red Team stuff. It sounds like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I've always been interested in technology and specifically like
Speaker 2: how do you make technology work in the benefit of
Speaker 2: people as opposed to working the benefit for profits or
Speaker 2: corporate interest or state interests. So I think technology is
Speaker 2: a really good tool when used correctly and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of moral and social and political implications when when
Speaker 2: it comes to technology and actually making it. But that's
Speaker 2: kind of how I got into it, was kind of
Speaker 2: combining my interest in computers and hacking combined with kind
Speaker 2: of the social and political activism I've been a part of.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of my entry point into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes that makes sense because I do think,
Speaker 1: like when I think about what inspired me about the
Speaker 1: early Internet, about like file sharing back in the late nineties,
Speaker 1: about you know, when Wikipedia first started up and stuff
Speaker 1: all that stuff like that. We talk a lot about
Speaker 1: like the days when we thought the Internet was going
Speaker 1: to be an unqualified boon for human liberty, the ability
Speaker 1: to create effectively, like a smaller and more limited private
Speaker 1: Internet for like you and your people to communicate safely
Speaker 1: through definitely like scratches that itch. And when we say
Speaker 1: like more limited Internet, you're not through one of these
Speaker 1: networks we're talking about. You're not going to be like
Speaker 1: sending YouTube videos and shit, right, But that's not what
Speaker 1: it's for.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's got its own use and it's very much kind
Speaker 1: of what the Internet was about at the beginning, which
Speaker 1: is just allowing people to connect that otherwise wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to or wouldn't be able to as securely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And actually the same protocol LORA, you actually
Speaker 2: kind of can run a basic Internet protocol that it's
Speaker 2: called Laura WAN Laura Wide Access Networking, and you can
Speaker 2: run some pretty basic programs on it outside of just
Speaker 2: text based stuff. So it's a really interesting kind of
Speaker 2: rabbit hole to go down into. I will say, if
Speaker 2: you start looking at Laura and mestastic stuff, you will
Speaker 2: eventually start to run into like a right leaning, yes,
Speaker 2: sometimes straight out fascist people because there's a crossover between
Speaker 2: you know, the uh, the gun community and kind of
Speaker 2: off grid prepper doomsday prepper people, you know, so you'll
Speaker 2: run into that.
Speaker 1: Anyone who doesn't like like the government is going to
Speaker 1: have a vested interest in being able to communicate in
Speaker 1: a way that can't be easily intercepted, right like that,
Speaker 1: And that doesn't always mean your buddies. I think most
Speaker 1: people are pretty familiar with that.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yea, but yeah, it's it's it's really useful. There
Speaker 2: there are other ways to say, for instance, make your
Speaker 2: own kind of like micro internet. I read an article
Speaker 2: that talked about making kind of like a DIY internet
Speaker 2: in quotes, where you can basically take your home router
Speaker 2: and connect say, for instance, your neighbors to the same network,
Speaker 2: and then if you have a server of your own
Speaker 2: that has books, that has maps, that has music and information,
Speaker 2: you can easily share that with other people. And so
Speaker 2: there are other ways to kind of get your own
Speaker 2: off grid quote unquote internet together, but just outside of text.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's definitely possible. It's just needs a little
Speaker 2: bit more technical know how, but hopefully soon it'll be
Speaker 2: a little simpler to where you can just download something,
Speaker 2: get you a book server up and running, and then
Speaker 2: have anybody come along and download books about you know,
Speaker 2: permaculture or about you know, emergency medical aid or fixing
Speaker 2: infrastructure and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's huge being able to actually like transmit
Speaker 1: text and stuff through that too. So yeah, you said
Speaker 1: when we were chatting online kind of before we hooked
Speaker 1: this up, you said something along the lines of you
Speaker 1: had a bit of a tangent you wanted to go on.
Speaker 1: So I've asked kind of my questions here if there
Speaker 1: is anything else you wanted to get out or express
Speaker 1: or say, just kind of on the subject of people
Speaker 1: taking more autonomy for themselves in their communications technology. Well,
Speaker 1: now's the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds good. I mean so earlier you asked, like,
Speaker 2: what kind of got me into this? Yeah, But there's
Speaker 2: another situation that happened because I live in Texas, Oh
Speaker 2: and a couple Yeah, so you know where I'm going
Speaker 2: with this. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: there was a really bad winter storm. And for most
Speaker 2: people listening, you might be in the northeast, like, who cares?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was there for that storm.
Speaker 2: Oh it was it was crazy. It was crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so for people outside of Texas, you might be saying, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: winter storm whatever, like, how could that affect anything? But
Speaker 2: Texas's power grid is privately owned. Yeah, it's completely separate
Speaker 2: from the rest of us. Yeah. Urkat is a private
Speaker 2: company that runs the Texas power grid. And so we
Speaker 2: had a winter storm event happen, and our power systems
Speaker 2: are not in any way built for extreme cold, and
Speaker 2: so we had the situation where pretty much the entire
Speaker 2: state was out of power, except for maybe a few
Speaker 2: areas in certain cities that had, you know, a specific
Speaker 2: environment where they had backup generators and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But millions of people lost power. And when people lose power,
Speaker 2: it isn't just oh I can't like watch TV or
Speaker 2: like do anything. There's lies that are lost, you know,
Speaker 2: directly from people who require ventilators to live to people
Speaker 2: who need electricity to run their medical devices. That impacted everything, right,
Speaker 2: So the power going out impacted transportation, impacted water, it
Speaker 2: impacted sanitation. So all these bits of infrastructure are all connected,
Speaker 2: and communications is kind of at the core of our
Speaker 2: modern day infrastructure, right, because in order to run a
Speaker 2: power plant, you need to have power, but not only that,
Speaker 2: you need to be able to communicate with other places
Speaker 2: in order to properly run the water sanitation, you know,
Speaker 2: program same with transfera I mean, if communication goes out,
Speaker 2: you literally can't deliver food, You literally can't deliver water
Speaker 2: to people and places that need it. And so it's
Speaker 2: not just an impact directly to communications, but an impact
Speaker 2: to your entire life. And so when we're talking about
Speaker 2: these pieces of infrastructure, we really have to think about
Speaker 2: the larger picture of how all this infrastructure is integrated
Speaker 2: in our lives and how an impact to one part
Speaker 2: of it can impact your life in ways that you
Speaker 2: never even thought of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's also I mean, I think I
Speaker 1: would imagine one of the benefits I can say, just
Speaker 1: from sort of the fairly minimal degree to which I've
Speaker 1: done stuff like understand the basics of solar power and
Speaker 1: what I can do and can't do in my area
Speaker 1: with it, you know, even outside of the stuff that
Speaker 1: is green and renewable, understanding like how you can and
Speaker 1: cannot use generators in an out emergency, and like which work.
Speaker 1: It's just given me more of an understanding of how
Speaker 1: the regular stuff that I use day to day works
Speaker 1: a little bit better about what the real power draw
Speaker 1: of my life is, you know, and anytime you're kind
Speaker 1: of expanding your autonomy technologically, it also just increases the
Speaker 1: degree to which you understand what's going on every day,
Speaker 1: which I think is always of value, right, Like, even
Speaker 1: outside of whatever theoreticals we might prompt for like what
Speaker 1: could happen or what is likely to happen, because we're
Speaker 1: all going to deal with more disasters in our lives
Speaker 1: before they're over, hopefully more than one. The alternative is worse.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well that's kind of all I had to say.
Speaker 1: Did you have anything else you wanted to get into
Speaker 1: before we roll out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of use cases
Speaker 2: outside of like whether events or natural disasters to protests
Speaker 2: is one of them. A really big security concern when
Speaker 2: you're at a protest is bringing your cell phone. Not
Speaker 2: a lot of people know that your cell phone has
Speaker 2: a unique identifier number, and police governments states all have
Speaker 2: technology to basically like bring up a fake cell phone
Speaker 2: tower and have your device connect to it, so there
Speaker 2: are ways to track say, for instance, you go to
Speaker 2: a protest, you have your phone on. Now your identifier
Speaker 2: is kind of tied to being at this protest, right,
Speaker 2: But with technology like this, it kind of circumvents that,
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to the ability for a threat
Speaker 2: actor to track you or know that you've been there.
Speaker 2: And it's encrypted, so even if say, for instance, a
Speaker 2: police department was able to intercept low raw, they wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to read the messages period. And so that's
Speaker 2: another good thing. Same with you know, conflict zones. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we're seeing now with the genocide that's happening
Speaker 2: in Palas in the Palestinians, it's increasingly harder for people
Speaker 2: to communicate what areas are safe it's hard to communicate,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, we need to get out now, have
Speaker 2: an early warning system of there are literal tanks coming
Speaker 2: down the highway towards us, we need to leave. And
Speaker 2: so something like this can also be you know, really
Speaker 2: good in that situation because again the messages are encrypted,
Speaker 2: it can go pretty long range, especially if you have
Speaker 2: direct line of site. We're talking like up to ten miles,
Speaker 2: and so being able to just send a text message
Speaker 2: to somebody can save someone's life in a situation like that.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different use cases outside of
Speaker 2: you know, emergencies that this stuff can be used. But
Speaker 2: that's where building the autonomy kind of comes from. And
Speaker 2: if we're talking about like leftist political organizing and talking
Speaker 2: about building a better future, being autonomous from stay in
Speaker 2: corporate control. Infrastructure is really important, right because if say,
Speaker 2: for instance, hypothetically we had the big r Revolution, right, right,
Speaker 2: the first thing that people in power are going to
Speaker 2: go after is power, water, sanitation, and communications. Right, They're
Speaker 2: going to go after the main infrastructure. And so if
Speaker 2: we want to have an autonomous and free future, we
Speaker 2: have to think about collectively owning the means of infrastructure,
Speaker 2: not just to means of production. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and even outside you know, the big R scenario,
Speaker 1: something that I think is probably at least certainly more
Speaker 1: immediate is continuing sort of downs in social order and
Speaker 1: areas expanding where non state actors, including the aforementioned Nazis
Speaker 1: that we had talked about, are able to get bolder, right,
Speaker 1: And like, one thing we've seen right now, if you
Speaker 1: watch videos of cartel operations in parts of Mexico right now,
Speaker 1: one thing you will see on their really good guys,
Speaker 1: right on their special ops style teams, is they will
Speaker 1: all have these weird looking things, look kind of like
Speaker 1: a microphone attached to their plate carriers, and that's a
Speaker 1: cell jammer. It's the standard thing for them to carry
Speaker 1: into the field because it stops people from reporting in
Speaker 1: real time when they're carrying out an operation. And cartels
Speaker 1: are not the only people who do that, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it is a widely used tactic now. You see it
Speaker 1: all over in Ukraine. Right it's in part not just
Speaker 1: because of like cell phones, but because of like shit
Speaker 1: like drones and stuff. It's just an increasingly common thing.
Speaker 1: And so when you're talking about what our threats that
Speaker 1: are realistic, well, it's not just the state that can
Speaker 1: interrupt your ability to communicate traditionally, right, it's also your
Speaker 1: non state opponents. And so for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 1: having backups, having alternates is just an incredibly important thing
Speaker 1: to be able to do to some extent, Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well anything else.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, right now, I'm working on a kind
Speaker 2: of step by step article that kind of goes into
Speaker 2: more detail on what you need to do this, all
Speaker 2: the equipment you need, how to actually flash devices, how
Speaker 2: to start sending messages, and so once that's ready, I'll
Speaker 2: publish it. I publish you know, diy articles and stuff
Speaker 2: to my substack. It's an Archo solar Punk or you
Speaker 2: can go to hydroponictrash dot solar and I have a
Speaker 2: link there that goes to substack as well.
Speaker 1: Beautiful. Well, all right, Hydroponic Trash, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for everything. This has really been useful and enlightening. I'm
Speaker 1: going to go hop on to Ali Express in a
Speaker 1: second here and make a couple of purchases, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's going to be a number of folks doing
Speaker 1: a version of that.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: You can find our guests at Hydroponic trash on Twitter,
Speaker 1: where you can get in touch with them and keep
Speaker 1: an eye on what they're writing their substack. Very very
Speaker 1: excited to play around with this technology. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for working to make it more visible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, it could.
Speaker 2: Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.
Speaker 2: Listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening,