this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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Are LoRa networks a way around the surveillance state? (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 hours ago by brownsugga@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.world
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I’ve recently discovered meshtastic and related tech. With the trust vacuum around cell phones and data scraping and tracking etc, I basically assume the government et al can see what’s up on my iphone constantly.

For interpersonal communication regarding civil disobedience, protest, resistance etc-- do LoRa devices offer an actual solution? or am I very mistaken?

I’m posting from a laptop that I converted to Linux (not tech savvy so that was a project) from behind a VPN- genuinely looking to hear from smarter people than me regarding privacy and secure communication

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[–] XLE@piefed.social 8 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Meshtastic might start to be useful in a use case like

  • the Internet is demolished in an area
  • power is not out, or at least everybody has enough batteries to last for a while
  • a large actor is not driving around looking for LoRa device broadcasters (this one basically rules out avoiding surveillance)
  • All you need is SMS tier texting

It's also got so many limitations, I really don't know what an optimal use case would be.

  • Devices can't be too far apart or the connection won't work.
  • Devices can't be too close together or the network will get overcongested*
  • Devices can't be too many hops away, or the message won't make it.
  • Data transfer speeds range between slow and extremely slow
  • You need either a specialized piece of hardware - which currently isn't very good - or a separate phone to message people.

* I don't know what a network that's too congested looks like, but if a surveillance state feels like cracking down on communications to the point of shutting down the internet, they could probably rove around finding people with these stations.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 8 hours ago

...they could probably rove around finding people with these stations.

True, though the benefit of these and other kinds of community-run decentralized networks is that it becomes harder to disrupt those networks. It's not impossible, but they're often built around an idea of, "But what if this node goes down?" so they have ways to address those issues or make it so that it's easy to deploy new nodes.

Still, if things are to the point that the government is cracking down on hobbyist radios, you've probably got lots to consider regarding the best ways to communicate with other dissidents and activists.