this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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Privacy

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Are you prepared for the day the #internet splits?

On the clearnet you will be

  1. Unable to watch porn.

  2. Required to give your real name and ID in order to use social media.

  3. Arrested for "mean tweets", "anti-government views", "liking subversive memes", etc

  4. Only be allowed to use approved applications from Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc

On #Tor and #I2P you can still be free.

What you can do to prepare

  1. Set your downlink speed to 10-15mbps to acclimatize yourself

  2. Encourage app developers to host their applications on Onion and Eepsite domains. (Git repos, fdroid repos, linux distro repos, etc)

  3. Run all applications that support SOCKS5 over the Tor SOCKS port (9050) (#Fdroid, #Signal, #SimpleX, #AntennaPod, etc)

  4. Use bookmarks or password manager notes to have the URLs of your commonly used programs, services, and repos (#Monero, #XMRBazaar, #Pitch, #Dread, etc.)

  5. Get used to text messages instead of audio or video calls. (Audio and video use UDP and generally give your real IP to either a central STUN server or the other peer. (it may be possible to force audio and video calls over TCP exclusively, but the latency would be high and therefore make the call unenjoyable.)

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[–] DerHans@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

Hate to be that guy, but there won't be an internet split because you won't be able to use the darknet anymore. Number 4 would also mean using only official OSes, no Linux allowed. This can be forced by only allowing the trade of PCs and mainboards with secure boot enabled and without a way to disable it or getting into user mode.

On any official OS you won't be able to install anything from unofficial avenues. You won't be the admin anymore, only a user. The Tor browser won't be available in any official store. And even if you could get the installer, the OS will forbid you from installing and using unsigned or "unknown" applications.

You probably could use your current PC for a while without these restrictions, but once it breaks or you need to upgrade its over. I hope we won't get even close to this, but it looks like we are on the way. Both, in the EU and the US. Moved along by both, left and right. The only thing we can do is look and see who positions themselves where and vote accordingly.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago

With all of this prepared, still, IT IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR POLITICAL ACTION

It will get worse. Harder. More inaccessible. More and more people won't be able to live in a free net, and with that, the prospects of fruitful coordination will wane as well.

And this is by design. If they make it inescapable, people rise up. If they slowly make it less and less accessible, people end up in disarray.

Going the Tor way is not a saving grace. It's a band aid.

Sincerely, A person living in Russia, one who has already witnessed it unfold.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Let's start hosting the Fediverse and Threadiverse on the Tor network.

[–] mistermodal@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 day ago

Let's follow each other on Xiaohongshu bestie I make calisthenics Content™ & high protein cooking videos

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

Umm.... apart from my ARR setup I use Tor and I2P for almost everything.

And for doomsday scenario I've several physical books I love and won't mind re-reading until the heat death. Also I've downloaded several GBs of EPUBs I still have to get to... I think I'll be alright.

[–] nyakojiru@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

guys vpns are made not for normal usage, even more that the normal usage implies using normal services . they are made for tor outbound and is very useful for selfhosting wen example your isp like many has trackers blocked . like that one the use case are a lot.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

I will play dwarf fortress until the power turns off. Then I'll read books. Nothing will stop me from ignoring this fucked up world i cant leave.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They'll require isps to block anything they can't decode and force MITM SSL keys

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And that is why we need networks like Reticulum

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

There's not enough non-ISP mesh out there. for it to be useful. If they block unauthorized TLS, You're limited to line of sight or VERY short range radio.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

This is true, and why we need to start building up the mesh networks before this happens.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

God, I can't even get enough meshtastic users to get out of my neighborhood :)

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Try meshcore. It's true that it's a smaller network with fewer users, but it also lets you do 16 hops instead of 7, so you're more likely to be able to get a farther distance.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I leave one up at the house jic, i went mc wardriving and saw nothing anywhere.

I am the only meshcore anywhere near me.

I am the only meshtastic for 2 miles, but topology is a harsh mistress

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago

Yeah, I am the only mesh core client I am aware of in my local area as well, but I still leave it up just in case, as eventually I know that I will start seeing things.

I know that the density is improving, as when I first started looking at the map in late April, I calculated the mesh core density to be 1:207,000 and now its 1:153,000.

As that density continues to improve, you and I are both more likely to see things show up.

[–] flameleaf@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I already download all my media so I have offline access.

I'm honestly sick of social media. I mainly just view it as a news source, only commenting on ~~Reddit~~ Lemmy threads because its convenient to do so.

How is #4 going to work if I use Linux on my primary devices?

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

If you're running Linux, you're probably not going to be affected by number four.

[–] dropdrip@lemmy.ml 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I urge users to become participants and contributors. As Kongar has written, we have access to sophisticated hardware, but we're not deploying it. If mobile-computer operators contributed to a mesh-network we'd be in a position to discard subscriptions for telecommunications access. Before this can happen the expectations of users needs to shift from contributing capital (paying for a mobile plan for instance) to contributing resources: running voluntary software on their machines.

The requirements needed to participate in mesh-networks are not just technical knowledge. If a user deployed a program like Briar they'd notice something rather swiftly: participating in mesh-networks demands more resources than not participating. The most obvious effect of this is that the mobile-computer's battery will drain faster. Carrying a spare battery seems to be common already and that's without participating in a voluntary mesh-network. The users' expectations would need to shift before they could adopt such software.

I'll refrain from commentary on Apple's iOS (though I expect it to be similar), but Google's Android is hostile towards user-software that needs to run constantly in the background. It will terminate those programs, even if the user has granted it 'permission' to run in the background.

Desktop and laptops provide a much more fertile environment in comparison. It is the norm to have long running user-programs. Even commercial operating-systems do not find anything amiss because it is the norm here. For the user in such an environment I do not see any possible objection to running such programs other than an increase in data usage, but even then these programs often allow for deployments that have a fixed quota.

Why then do we not see mass adoption of software like i2p, hyphanet, GNUnet and so forth? I exclude tor because it reinforces the status quo that must be changed. It allows its users to exit the tor-network and access the web. It's a good technical precaution against network surveillance, but the majority of that network's userbase want to exit the network. To contribute to the tor-network is to run an exit-node and that is not financially feasible for the vast majority of internet users. It is not democratic, but exclusionary and elitist. User-contributed nodes that run on the hardware they have, with the data connections they have, will see their nodes deprioritized in routing if not outright dropped. The other projects I've listed do prioritize peer-to-peer communication whilst tor's network has just become a way to access the web anonymously. I2p is technically superior to tor's for in-network communication; it supports tcp and udp. You can torrent within i2p's network. You can not torrent in tor's: you lose udp.

In my eyes the major issue of the current 'web' is the rent-seeking economy that upholds it. Technically we all have the tools to self-host a blog, e-mail, lemmy instance or whatever it is you want to share. We have a glut of cpu-capacity, storage and bandwidth. The hindrance isn't in the property we own, but in the capital expenditure demanded from a perpetual rent-seeking economy that's evolved around the 'web'. Users are behind cgnats and need to rent whitelisted servers. Users aren't allocated a static ipv4 address and need to rent one. Users then need to rent domain names and before Let's Encrypt they had to pay for a SSL certificate that had an expiration date--a perpetual expense. Completely arbitrary, artificial scarcity to create an economic system of rents. It's all absurd.

Software like lemmy isn't revolutionary either. It's retroactive. It wants to shift conditions back to when web-masters had privileges. Privileges that were taken away by the new-style of business that superseded them. If you want to run lemmy you need to pay your dues to the domain registrars and whitelisted server admins. The revolutionary act is to run i2p or gnunet and do whatever the fuck you want, but once you realize Alice and Bob can communicate with one another without paying tolls to DNS registrars or whitelisted server-admins nor subjugate themselves to that third-line--the forum administrators--lemmy becomes superfluous.

Users shift responsibility to the server-admins that run the lemmy instances they interact with. In exchange they give them all their content. That content has value. Lemmy is still a value extraction mechanism because everything on the 'web' has devolved into economic rent-seeking. To exist on the web is to participate in that system. It is the 'web' that needs to be ditched. Of the alternatives GNUnet is the design that makes the most sense, though it is still juvenile.

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can't get over how fucking stupid normies are to cause this in their wake everywhere they go. The web was fine when it only had nerds on it

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

The wage slaves must not know digital freedom, lest they desire something more tangible.

[–] Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

I mean, it’s always been this way on the internet. Somewhere in the mid to late 90’s, a language and communication program (http and web browsers) became very popular and synonymous with “the internet.” But us old farts remember when Usenet, gopher, ftp, fsp, irc, etc. were all used daily. As the World Wide Web enshittifies, people will either stay or move elsewhere, just like they always did.

The real question in my mind is more akin to the movement between physical networks - such as when we moved away from bbs, to college proprietary connections, and ultimately to the internet. I often wonder why - with all of the portable WiFi radios we all own - why hasn’t anyone created an encrypted protocol and software where we all join our personal hardware into one big giant mesh network? I don’t even live in a city in an apartment and I can pick up 4 neighbor’s WiFi signals, never mind all the cell phones and whatnot passing by my house. You’d think we could have an encrypted and robust way of sending packets to each other by now over our personal private hardware (albeit slow and probably prone to buffering as nodes move in and out of connection range).

Oftentimes I think that’s the next frontier.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 26 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Take a look at MeshCore and LoRa. Also Reticulum

[–] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 days ago (4 children)

What's wrong with me if all I read was "rectum".

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[–] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Meshtastic instead meshcore. The former is pure mesh the latter needs repeaters.

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[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago

except that laws about social media usually target any online service regardless of technology

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[–] myszka@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Allero@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago

Absolutely essential going forward. People need to learn their way around it - and around LoRa devices, too. Reticulum can operate on all sorts of channels, but LoRa is what keeps you connected to your city/neighborhood no matter what.

I'd even say try Meshtastic/Meshcore first, depending on what's more developed in your area, and then get to learn Reticulum.

[–] ghostcircle@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago

Set your downlink speed to 10-15mbps to acclimatize yourself

My ISP is way ahead of you. Must be looking out for me.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The tools are already there, the change is just cost optimization. Your age, post code and your buying and traveling habits identify you anyways. I remember from "Little Brother" how they identified people with the way they were walking. Protagonist was putting some pieces of paper into his shoes.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

As far as your buying habits, you can help to obscure this by using Monero.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wut. My home network requires all traffic to go out through a VPN, and I run Tor ontop of that for most everything else.

Who raw dogs on the internet??

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Almost everybody who's not you, lol You and I are basically the exceptions to the rule

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't think so. Definitely not in China, where almost everyone has a VPN.

And since about 10 years ago, the EFF said that Trumps change that allowed any ISP to sell their user's activity meant that effectively it created a VPN privacy tax for all Internet users in the US. Since then, I think a lot of folks have been using VPNs. That's like like 10 years ago.

And all these new countries pushing age verification will mean their citizens will join the ever-growing set of people who need to have VPNs just to sanely use the internet

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

VPN usage amongst the unwashed masses is extremely low.

The number of VPNs that allow port forwarding to properly support high-speed torrenting are in the single digits.

The number of actual trustworthy VPNs are almost non-existent.

The performance of tor over VPN is so bad that even though I could see the benefit, I would not do it.

I torrent over VPN. But that's it. The rest of my communication is TLS at best.

[–] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Alternatively, create your own private intranet and/or become a P2P node in something like YaCy, peer tube etc.

You can self host a lot (and I mean a lot) of what people think of as "the internet" using a busted $20 laptop and some decent storage.

I'd say you can get a really decent slice of the internet in 10-15TB of storage if you have the technical know how.

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[–] voxel@feddit.org 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I would say that isn't going to happen, if we don't stop fighting.

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[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 days ago

If you think you will get away with using either of those things on the internet once all that other shit happens, I’ve got a paramilitary police squad to sell you

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Good guide. Its 100% coming to this in 10 years. Or less. We will all be "criminals".

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

If you want to know where this is all going, look at the Internet in Russia.

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[–] isidro_carle@lemmy.today 11 points 3 days ago

This seems very plausible. Wouldn't say I am ready but will be prepared to adapt when the time comes .

[–] ISO@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

I2P is a fully connected network where everyone is a relay, a UDP transport exists iirc, and there are many other significant technical differences.

And if you're dreaming of significant masses moving to the shadows, you might as well dream of them using distributed solutions. Otherwise, the monsters will simply find and shutdown the hosts/servers of whatever the good kids are consuming.

There is a connection between August and freedom. Do you know what is it?

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