HONG KONG PROTESTERS USE A MESH NETWORK TO ORGANIZE: FireChat - TopicsExpress



          

HONG KONG PROTESTERS USE A MESH NETWORK TO ORGANIZE: FireChat came in handy for protesters in Taiwan and Iraq this year. Hong Kong protesters use a mesh network to organize By AVIVA RUTKIN AND JACOB ARON | NEW SCIENTIST | SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 Hong Kong’s mass protest is networked. Activists are relying on a free app that can send messages without any cellphone connection. Since the pro-democracy protests turned ugly over the weekend, many worry that the Chinese government would block local phone networks. In response, activists have turned to the FireChat app to send supportive messages and share the latest news. On Sunday alone, the app was downloaded more than 100,000 times in Hong Kong, its developers said. FireChat relies on “mesh networking”, a technique that allows data to zip directly from one phone to another via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Ordinarily, if two people want to communicate this way, they need to be fairly close together. But as more people join in, the network grows and messages can travel further. Mesh networks can be useful for people who are caught in natural disasters or, like those in Hong Kong, protesting under tricky conditions. FireChat came in handy for protesters in Taiwan and Iraq this year. But they also come with risks. Hans-Christoph Steiner at The Guardian Project, which helps activists circumvent censorship, warns that Firechat has no built-in encryption, so messages can be read by anyone within range. “This is not nearly as bad as one central authority being able to read all the messages. Nevertheless, it is something that at-risk users need to be aware of,” he says. FireChat has said it aims to add encryption in the future. Read more: infowars/hong-kong-protesters-use-a-mesh-network-to-organize/ HONG KONG POLITICAN FEARS “MINI-TIANANMEN” IN RESPONSE TO UNREST: Rumors swirl of Chinese army getting ready to intervene. by PAUL JOSEPH WATSON | WWW.INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 29, 2014 A prominent Hong Kong politician has expressed fears that a “mini-Tiananmen” could unfold as a result of the unrest in the city, invoking memories of the brutal 1989 Chinese government crackdown on student demonstrators which resulted in hundreds of deaths. Lau Suk-yee, who is a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and a former prominent government official of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, criticized the protest movement, labeling activists “uncivil and uncivillised” for disrespecting police and government officials. Tens of thousands of people continue to crowd the streets of Hong Kong after police used tear gas and batons to disperse demonstrators. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was also forced to deny rumors that the Chinese army was getting ready to be deployed. “They remind you of Tiananmen – the protesters asking for dialogue with the chief executive and surrounding the Chief Executive’s Office … If the police are driven to disperse them by force, it could turn sour and sinister,” Suk-yee told the South China Morning Post, adding, “I think the worry on the part of the Hong Kong government is, what if it becomes a mini-Tiananmen? Who is behind it?” Suk-yee, who represents the pro-China New People’s Party, also accused her political adversaries of stirring up the unrest. Suk-yee said that despite the ferocity of the protests, the demonstrations were unlikely to force China into changing a policy it imposed last month under which Hong Kongers must choose their next leader from a pool of hand picked candidates who have already declared their “love” for the Chinese Communist Party. China reacted negatively to a UK foreign office press release expressing its concern at the heavy-handed treatment of protesters, warning the international community not to “interfere” in Beijing’s domestic issues. Under the 1997 agreement which saw Britain relinquish control of Hong Kong, the city is supposed to remain as a “special administrative region” with guaranteed political and electoral freedoms until at least 2047. However, last month Chinese officials published a white paper in which they asserted that Hong Kong’s constitutional autonomy was not “an inherent power.” infowars/hong-kong-politican-fears-mini-tiananmen-in-response-to-unrest/
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 03:44:43 +0000

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