> in my experience, most Meshtastic nodes are NOT listed, while a good number of Meshcore nodes are.
I don't know about online tools, but it should be the opposite when actually using it, as by default Meshtastic is much more chatty (and wasteful) than Meshcore.
Meshtastic is horrible in a metro area. The area I live in has a huge user group and it's almost impossible to get a message across more than 3 nodes reliably. Meshcore, on the other hand, is far less popular but still has a nice amount of repeaters and it's, conversely, very good. I've since moved all of my devices to Meshcore. I'm on the edge of a metro (about 30 miles out) and have a repeater at one of the highest points in my geo and can seamlessly message users on the other side of the metro (~60 miles).
I tried Meshtastic here in London (UK), but was struggling with anything more than 1 hop away. There's no coordination, everyone's using the long fast preset, etc. Then found out about Meshcore, flashed the firmware, selected the UK narrow preset, and it's a day and night difference.
Still wouldn't rely on this for anything serious because it's not reliable at all, but it's nice to be able to send a message across the city or to the other side of the country.
Similarly, I put a repeater in an upper story of an apartment building in Boston and am reliably able to talk to people over 10+ hops. Right this second I'm able to talk to someone 99.5 miles away in Vermont.
We had to create different channels for different regions (connecticut, new hampshire, massachusetts, rhode island) just to keep from having hundreds of messages in a single public channel when posts are generally about local things.
Unfortunately it doesn't fix congestion issues completely, repeaters still repeat everything (and can't listen while transmitting) so packets from connecticut still put traffic onto the entire mesh all the way to new hampshire, but at least it's better organized.
It seems like there are some ideas to help with congestion, maybe making channels region specific (repeaters can be programmed to only repeat traffic with a certain region code) but for now it's shocking to me how far I can reach with a 0.125W radio.
But yeah, it's not "reliable", that's what TCP/IP is for =) Definitely a toy network for now, and a single malicious bot on the frequency band would absolutely wreck it. Or a single high power jammer sending out noise at just the wrong frequency. Definitely a fun project for people who would do ham radio if they had any interest in taking a test...
I wouldn't use it for emergencies though, it's theoretically a backup if the cell network and internet go down but the reliability just isn't there and I suspect never will be.
My understanding is that the split is more superficial than that. The contributor in question (he used to do YouTube videos mainly, no contributions to the firmware) created his own vibe coded app/client and is trying to own the trademark on the Meshcore name. He controls the .co.uk site, the youtube channel, and the discord group. The firmware is still the same, created by the people behind the new .io website.
So the split is just a "the development team has nothing to do with the .co.uk site, his youtube channel and discord group", not a fork.
That post is about the development team "splitting" with the PR guy that is trying to get a trademark on the name and creating their own vibe coded paid client/app.
There's a history between Tastic and Core, but it's a different one. Meshtastic doesn't scale that well in urban areas and it seems that some on the Mestastic team didn't see that problem as a priority/ignored the problem/are too stubborn. And then Meshcore is created with a different routing, works much better in practice, proving that the mesh could be much better. In countries like the UK it seems to have replaced Meshtastic in most places.
One guy associated with the project, but never a contributor to the firmware, decided to create his own vibe-coded client/app and to trademark the name of the project. The rest of the team said "no" to that and continued doing what they were doing before.
The reason Meshcore works better for texting is the different routing. It has nothing to do with the recent drama.
I'll keep using uBlock Origin, but I don't see having a built-in content blocker as a bad thing, especially if the lists are the same (easylist, etc). It's no different from the (very old) option to block popups.
Eh, it's a stereotype. In my opinion, they should always be questioned, especially when it's an unkind one like this.
Frankly I'm surprised to see this here. Hackers have had more than their share of hurtful stereotype applied to both our hobby and our personality. We should know better. But perhaps there's a generational divide at work there.
For now, I don't think it's fair to compare MeshCore with MeshTastic in terms of enforcement as that has not happened with MeshCore. This seems to be one guy getting a trademark in the UK without the approval of other members of the team. They're not going after anyone. Not yet, at least.
It means they are suspect. I think its right to be wary of motives if they are involved in the very thing they aim to bring awareness too. Questions arise in my mind as to why they would do something like this in the first place.
Its been my experience that the general public doesn't seem to follow patterns and instead focus on which switch is toggled at any given moment for a company's ethical practices. This is the main reason why we are constantly gamed by orgs that have a big picture view of crowd psychology.
I don't trust them more because of this and maybe they've disclosed it for the wrong reasons, like not allowing a competitor to use it when they don't, but at the end of the day they did disclose a serious issue, and that's good for users.
I understand where you're coming from, by the way, but sometimes the worst person you know does the right thing and it's not fair to criticize them for doing it (you could say nothing, don't have to change your opinion about them, etc). We also don't want someone to go "if I'm bad no matter what I do, then might as well make some money with this" and sell the exploit.
> I understand where you're coming from, by the way, but sometimes the worst person you know does the right thing and it's not fair to criticize them for doing it (you could say nothing, don't have to change your opinion about them, etc). We also don't want someone to go "if I'm bad no matter what I do, then might as well make some money with this" and sell the exploit.
I hear you. I guess I just want to promote more vigilance. Looking at patterns and motives helps us stay balanced about these things IMHO.
What are you even saying? It's like getting upset at somebody who criticizes a criminal because they once helped some grandma across the street. I'm not upset at the criminal because they helped a grandma across the street obviously that's not the fucking point.
I'm not upset, I just don't think we should criticize someone for doing something good. Maybe they're a terrible org, maybe they deserve criticism most of the time, but not in this instance.
It's not like you can't point out that they did a good deed, but that they're still in the shitty business of fingerprinting users.
Also, if people only get the stick no matter what they do, then eventually some will embrace the dark side and at least make money out of it. And that's not good for you.
The inverse is also true, letting them whitewash their image by pretending they care about your privacy and seek to protect you will be good for their public relations, but only if we let them. I refuse to be this gullible and run to their defense for no apparent reason.
They can pretend all they want. I know what their business is, my opinion on the practices haven't changed.
And yet, they did a good thing. I will criticize everything else, but not what they did right. It doesn't mean I'll go out of my way to praise them either... if it wasn't your comment, I wouldn't have said anything at all.
And like a broken clock that is right twice a day, sometimes a corporation also does the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons.
Nothing wrong with pointing out hypocrisy and bullshit, but criticizing something they did right? That's not how I operate. You are, of course, free to do things differently.
It's more like criticising a criminal when they are helping some grandma across the street, thereby treating them more harshly than the criminals that don't do that.
I don't know about online tools, but it should be the opposite when actually using it, as by default Meshtastic is much more chatty (and wasteful) than Meshcore.
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