153
Iran’s internet blackout left people in the dark. How does a country shut down the internet?
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
153 points (96.4% liked)
Technology
72263 readers
2629 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Set "Power at ISP provider" = 0
Done
Btw is it legal to own Walkie Talkies / Ham Radios in Iran? Maybe they should be trying to get those for communications... 🤔
ABSOLUTELY HARAM
OMG I didn't get the joke until someone mentioned "haram" 🤣
"I said I need a HAM RADIO, not a RADIAL HAM."
Stock traders use shortwave radio to transmit digital data. Over long distances it's apparently faster than the internet.
So yeah, there are always options.
Probably easier to do rather than laying your line through different jurisdictions and plots of someone's property.
My Iranian friend was talking to me about the Internet blackouts. I mentioned the ham radio thing.
He told me I would be hung by the regime, but only after being severely tortured for at least a week first.
Meshtastic would work too. But it’s banned in many countries. Or specifically devices that transmit in a specific frequency
Meshtashtic isn't really much better, in fact, its worse, the frequency is higher, therefore, it doesn't penetrate obstructions well, compared to like VHF (which can be pocket sized, like a walkie talkie), or HF (which is essentially like a console size). The only advantage is that, in some jurisdictions, it doesn't need license, and can legally re-transmit. All the legal benefits goes out the window when the country is authoritarian, so ham radio frequencies are much better for Iran.
On the other hand Meshtastic nodes can be solar powered and independent. You can easily build a big-ish mesh with a couple hundred western monetary units.
It also uses common frequencies with every single wireless weather display and garage door opener and wireless outlet.
Also HAM operators are required to not encrypt their traffic and are licensed/registered, thus easily found and their equipment taken away.
Neither is perfect tho
Licensing and encryption controls again, do not apply in authoritarian countries. You are already breaking the law by circumventing the communications blackout.