Absolutely not. It is a fairly insecure encryption layer on top of an openly broadcast wireless layer. Its only benefit is being decentralized for local communications and as such cannot be remotely disabled.
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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From what I understand the communication transport is encrypted so it's designed to be secure.
The problem with this however is the sharing of the key. To be truly secure you'd need to share the key securely (i.e. in person), and explicitly trust everyone in that group not to leak the key, so it depends on which group you join and their opsec.
This is all based on my rudimentary understanding though. I am very interested in Meshtastic but UK law is quite restrictive about encrypted radio communication.
Pegasus runs on the device of the target, it can read everything before encryption
be aware that radio transmissions like this are likely to be recorded no matter if these are encrypted or not (also goes for other parts of radio spectrum)
Private networks have been a target for a long time even just for local law enforcement you can easily imagine the illegal stuff that could be shared in a private network. Anything that is secure is only that temporarily because it instantly makes itself a target for the world's intel agencies and private companies that sell stuff to governments.
Pegasus is an Android/iOS spyware.
Meshtastic devices do not run Android or iOS and so would not be affected by this spyware at all.
Uhhhh I mean Pegasus is simply a VERY different thing, so no. But most certainly the protocol is full of security holes.
Meshtastic uses end-to-end encryption, without any central authority. There are circumstances under which that encryption can be compromised.
The strongest thing Meshtastic has going for it right now is obscurity. No one is likely to be looking at it, to say nothing of tracking and decrypting it. You can pretty much guarantee that your cell is being identified if you attend any kind of protest. There's also a good chance that all of its voice and digital traffic is being intercepted and analyzed. Until and unless Meshtastic becomes far more common, it provides a good alternative.
Nah they really aren't obscure. There have been publicly released FBI powerpoint slides that link meshtastic radios to "extremist" groups. They've already been on the radar and targeted for years now.
[…] There have been publicly released FBI powerpoint slides that link meshtastic radios to “extremist” groups. […]
Do you have a source, by chance?
DBBS, the question is to play Red vs Blue games with comrades until you find out all cons that need to be tackled.
The software stack is a lot less complicated but OTOH the most common hardware (ESP32) has its own vulnerabilities. But, the exploit gear is in all likelihood less commoditized. And in principle you could make a more secure version of the hardware, that would cost more but not crazy amounts more.
Overall ask yourself what you are trying to keep secure, and take a more global view of how private info could possibly escape from where it belongs, rather than starting on specific parts of your network such as the radios.