Networking in Hong Kong
On September 26th of this year, a student-led pro-democracy protest broke out in Hong Kong. Though cell phone towers and means of internet have not been shut down by the government, protesters have taken precautions in order to stay connected. Between Sunday and Monday of this week, an app called FireChat was downloaded by 100,000 new users from Hong Kong and was reported to have 33,000 individuals on it at once. This app utilizes the Bluetooth capabilities of mobile devices to create a mesh network and connects two devices using FireChat as long as they are within 200 feet of each other. However, this network does not stop after 200 feet as it can span miles as long as there is a person within 200 feet of the next.
A mesh network is a unique type of network. In the case of Hong Kong, this network is created by the different cell phones with FireChat. Nodes are the cell phones and the connections between them are the Bluetooth connections that link the cell phones together. The reason why a mesh network is being used as a contingency plan in Hong Kong is because mesh networks are able to circumvent blocked paths. As long as each node in the network has connections to other nodes in the network, a path to the desired destination will exist even if a few paths are blocked or broken. Thus, one can see that mesh networks work even better in crowded areas such as the protester filled streets of Hong Kong because there are more nodes and connections which allows for more ways to circumvent blocked paths.
However, there are flaws with using this in Hong Kong. Gizmodo points out that the app is not encrypted so anyone with the app can see the public messages which limits its usefulness. But with the recent shutdown of Instagram in China due to the protests, Gizmodo also says that “the value of having an app that can resist government-imposed shutdowns is more obvious than ever.”
Sources: http://gizmodo.com/protesters-are-using-firechat-to-organize-in-hong-kong-1640271776
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2550305/mobile-wireless/mesh-networks.html