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Many of Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors are
messaging one another through a network that doesn't require cell towers or
Wi-Fi nodes. They're mesh networking, using an app called FireChat that lets
phones unite to form a temporary Internet.
Mesh networks are effective and quickly adopted during
times of disaster or political unrest, as they don't rely on existing cable
and wireless networks.
In Iraq, tens of thousands of people have downloaded
FireChat as the government limits connectivity in an effort to curb ISIS
communications. Protestors in Taiwan this spring turned to FireChat when cell
signals were too weak and at times nonexistent.
And FireChat's popularity is surging in Hong Kong.
About 100,000 users downloaded the free FireChat app between Sunday morning
and Monday morning. Hong Kong student leaders are recommending FireChat for
fear authorities may shut off communications.
Mesh networks are an especially resilient tool because
there's no easy way for a government to shut them down. They can't just block
cell reception or a site address. Destroying one part won't kill it unless
you destroy each point of access; someone would have to turn off Bluetooth on
every phone using FireChat to completely break the connection. This
hard-to-break connection isn't super important for casual chats, but during
tense political showdowns, it could be a lifeline.
FireChat has a "nearby" function enabling
communication with people in the same vicinity. Chats are organized by theme
and you can see everyone's location.
Open Garden, the company that made FireChat and an Android
mesh networking app also called Open Garden, has bigger ambitions for mesh
networking:
"Once you build a mesh network, you have a network
that is resilient, cannot be controlled by any central organization, cannot
be shut down and is always working," Christophe Daligault, Open Garden's
vice president for sales and marketing says. "None of this would be
possible without the rapid spread of smartphones, because that means no extra
hardware is needed. Each phone becomes a router and in a sense you're growing
the Internet — everyone who joins the mesh network creates an extension of the
Internet. In a year or two from now, I think people won't even remember that
you had to be on Wi-Fi or get a cell signal to be able to communicate."
One problem with FireChat is that all messages are
public. Staff at Open Garden have warned users about this and urged them to
use pseudonyms.
"We
hope FireChat will serve you well," Open Garden wrote in a Facebook
post. "Please remember messages are not encrypted at this point. Please
be cautious about what you say and do not use your real name."
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