[HN Gopher] Why are antennas popping up over the Salt Lake City ...
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Why are antennas popping up over the Salt Lake City foothills?
Author : RF_Enthusiast
Score : 155 points
Date : 2023-01-05 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ksltv.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ksltv.com)
| rolph wrote:
| P.O.W.D.E.R
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Ydb0rJbFk
|
| https://advancedwireless.org/salt-lake-city/#Map
|
| https://powderwireless.net/
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > 8 rooftop base stations with multiple SDRs and 8 fixed
| endpoints at ground level
|
| > 1 rooftop programmable massive MIMO array and multiple
| dedicated UE devices
|
| > 6 base stations on light poles with multiple SDRs each -
| coming in late 2022
|
| Interesting project, but there's no mountain location here and
| the antennas look more like 2m 1/2 wave from the video...
| rolph wrote:
| im curious as to how these [black] boxes relate to the
| project, if at all.
|
| is it part of it, is it someone taking advantage of it, is it
| unrelated?
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. this makes sense - except that project is well-known to the
| BLM and other folks. My brother is a ARC-GIS engineer for the
| BLM division and he confirmed the equipment in POWDER is
| registered with them, the state and the FTC.
| rolph wrote:
| this project has DOD involvement, it may be the case that
| someone is shy about it, because government project, or oops,
| i didnt realize anyone would care.
|
| https://advancedwireless.org/new-2-7m-pawr-project-funded-
| by...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| They wouldn't have funded guerrilla placement of the
| towers. That's just stupid and illegal.
| rolph wrote:
| * * *
| Octokiddie wrote:
| From another thread, the actual application appears to be
| something called a "hike and fly race":
|
| > The Global Rescue XRedRocks is a premiere hike and fly race in
| North America, organized in a similar way to the Eigertour,
| Vercofly and DolomitiSuperfly- multi-day hike and fly events that
| take participants into magnificent mountains to see what they're
| made of when we pair back free-flight to it's most raw and
| exciting form. Travel is only allowed by wing or on foot. There
| are no supporters. ...
|
| https://xredrocks.com
|
| The devices appear to be internet hotspots, possibly powered by
| the Helium network:
|
| https://gristleking.com/helium-deployed-the-network-in-actio...
|
| This could explain _why_ you 'd want to put a hotspot at the top
| of a mountain: to provide real-time tracking of paragliders
| during the competition.
|
| The hotspots in the local news clip could be put there either for
| real-time telemetry during the competition or for training.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Why would an internet hotspot use what looks like a 2m half-
| wave antenna? Is there also some built-in 2m repeater
| functionality?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| You can send digital packets over radio. 2 meter band can
| handle internet equivalent to dial-up speeds if reception is
| good enough.
| aliqot wrote:
| Interesting, thanks. I'd always been under the impression
| (maybe old folklore) that encryption wasn't allowed over
| some bands.
|
| .. Now that I type it out, this is probably a band that has
| no rule for this.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The ISM bands allow encryption. The HAM radio bands don't
| (except for satellite command uplinks).
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Transmissions to any remote controlled craft - RC planes,
| cars, etc. in addition to satellites - can be encrypted.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| It's LoraWAN at ~900 mhz.
| kenniskrag wrote:
| and here the specs: https://github.com/3s1d/fanet-stm32
| mNovak wrote:
| There are some Helium nodes along the SLC foothills [1], though
| I'm not seeing many so remote or far from a road. Unclear if
| this displays history or only active nodes.
|
| [1] https://explorer.helium.com/iot/hex/882696b829fffff
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Ha - for all of you "why blame crypto" commenters - this dude
| looks like the prime suspect based on "helium miner remote Utah"
| Google searches:
|
| https://gristleking.com/helium-deployed-the-network-in-actio...
|
| His setup looks remarkably similar to what the rangers took down
| and he's got several videos placing Helium miners or whatever
| they use on remote peaks in Utah.
|
| I suspect the "authorities say it may be related to Crypto" line
| was just an expert couching their highly confident assessment as
| a CYA, but it seems to be obviously crypto.
| closewith wrote:
| Good find.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| Ohmygosh... Good find! His images look very similar to those in
| the news report!
| Octokiddie wrote:
| The actual application appears to be tracking paragliders.
| Helium just provides the internet hotspot:
|
| > Over the course of a week, supported by Tommy and Ryan at
| Lonestar Tracking, Matthew at Digital Matter, Travis at Helium,
| and Jeremy C (@jerm on Discord), I deployed 2 off-grid Helium
| Hotspots high in the mountains of Utah (one at over 8,000' and
| one above 11,000') to track 30+ paragliders as they flew during
| the annual Red Rocks Fly In as well as raced during the
| inaugural X Red Rocks Hike & Fly race.
|
| This explains _why_ somebody would want a hotspot in such a
| remote, high location.
|
| The race itself is kind of wild:
|
| https://xredrocks.com/
|
| From the Rules page:
|
| > The task is to reach the control and turn-points defined by
| the Race Committee every day for three days as quickly as
| possible traveling only by paraglider or on foot.
|
| I imagine you'd want good tracking data to get an idea of where
| you're going.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| That seems plausible for that one specific setup - but it's
| obvious that all of these weird crypto grifters were trying
| to make money by deploying in remote spots with long range
| connections to capture the rewards.. there aren't very many
| paraglider canyons and there are far more of these in the
| foothills.
| danesparza wrote:
| No -- in the news report the antennas were different, the solar
| panel was much larger, the unit was much more permanently
| attached to the mountain, and there were guylines supporting
| the unit from severe weather.
|
| Those are from something much different.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| They really aren't though - that dude installed several of
| his own and consulted on others and the design shifted over
| time. From his blog;
|
| https://gristleking.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/big-
| anten...
|
| https://gristleking.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/03/Gristle-K...
|
| It's a cool project and I love the DIY aspect of something so
| technical, but don't love the dumping it on public lands
| aspect.
| Kiro wrote:
| Do an image search on "helium crypto solar power" and you
| will see many other versions that look much more like the one
| in the video.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| So...free solar panels?
| kotaKat wrote:
| And a free Linux SBC with an onboard data connection! :)
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| "Lord I've seen what you've done for other people, and I want
| that for me too!"
| jimjimjim wrote:
| yes. you would be doing the country a favor by removing this
| litter. e.g https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/why-is-utah-
| getting-tra...
| RajT88 wrote:
| Exactly my thought.
|
| I wish they were popping up near me!
| danesparza wrote:
| Yeah -- they looked nice, too.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| SLC's recreational trails manager says it might be related to
| cryptocurrency. This sounds like the Helium crypto network, which
| is an IoT network offering node owners payment in cryptocurrency,
| which has plummeted in value ($55.22 in Nov 2021, $1.73 today).
| FL410 wrote:
| It is almost definitely this. Plenty of discussion about
| exactly this thing if you look into the Helium
| subreddits/discord etc.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Anecdotally, rooftop telecom site operators, tower owners and
| WISPs have been approached by "helium" miner people for several
| years now, they're almost universally laughed at as a non
| plausible business plan and revenue source.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Somewhere in there is a gem of a good idea. Incentivize
| operators of a mesh network where you can buy credits to get
| data on the mesh. Like I can see the concept and in it's raw
| form it's exciting.
|
| Helium though got way overpriced and insane with the crypto
| bubble.
|
| Maybe they can rectify it and turn sane? I'd love a world
| where all this deployed helium hardware isn't trash.
| walrus01 wrote:
| LoRA as a method to implement serial bridges over very
| narrow channels and low RSL/CINR rates in radio is fine.
| LoRAWAN and similar are fine. Lots of possible
| applications. The crypto part is what's truly bizarre.
|
| I don't know how anyone who has spent any time researching
| bulk-data-service plans for embedded multi-band cat1 LTE
| radios (a few bucks a month from Verizon or Tmobile per
| radio) would think that a less reliable, vastly less-
| covered-area "helium" thing would be something you could
| rely on for actual traffic to/from your equipment.
| downrightmike wrote:
| I disagree, this sounds _exactly_ like what the drug cartels
| have been doing in Mexico for years. They build their own
| network so they can bypass the government. It makes more sense
| that they are connecting their operations further up north
| given the amount of security upgrades that the USA has been
| doing recently. One Example:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms-cartels-s...
|
| "Crypto" is just a buzzword that people who don't understand
| tech jump to as a kneejerk reaction.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| If they keep popping up after these initial ones are taken
| down, I guess that's leads towards the idea of whoever is
| doing it has a big incentive to do it.
|
| Would think that crypto would have too long a payback esp if
| the equipment keeps disappearing.
| [deleted]
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Which drug cartels are operating out of public lands in Utah?
| How did they get there? How has nobody noticed them? Why do
| drug cartels have interest in the snowy peaks of the SLC
| foothills of all places? Why are they _just_ in the foothills
| and not _checks notes_ all the way through Arizona to Mexico?
| runjake wrote:
| These units are far too small and low-powered to be cartel
| cell towers. The towers they're building in Mexico are more
| or less normal towers, supplemented by COW trailers (larger
| units with generator+solar).
|
| Cartels in CONUS are typically using regular cell and
| satellite phones. Ostensibly, the NSA and the various
| military "Activities" aren't paying attention to CONUS
| communications, unless it's near the border.
|
| There isn't enough information in the article to reasonably
| tell what they're designed for. If someone wants to post
| actual photos of the hardware, that would be swell.
| Kiro wrote:
| > "Crypto" is just a buzzword that people who don't
| understand tech jump to as a kneejerk reaction.
|
| Very strange thing to say when the parent explained exactly
| why this could be crypto and why it's plausible. Do you know
| how Helium works?
|
| Do a Google Image Search on "helium crypto solar power" and
| you will see many devices that look like that.
| walrus01 wrote:
| A cartel land mobile radio or cellular setup would be
| considerably more power hungry than this.
| pinkcan wrote:
| meh, you're writing comes of as defensive
|
| if you still have money tied up in crypto you can still try
| and sell it
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I may be stereotyping, but in my experience there is a strong
| ham community within the LDS Church. My first reaction was to
| assume something ham related, not drug cartel.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| There would be no reason for cartels to establish parallel
| cellular networks in Salt Lake City of all places.. and these
| devices don't sound remotely like what the cartels were doing
| - you need backhaul to have a cell site - these are remote
| mesh wifi devices. All of the cartel ones are 'parasitic'
| where they use the actual cell site's hardware to provide a
| standalone antenna.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| The Mexican cartels use actual cell/mobile equipment, and
| have kidnapped engineers from South Texas to gain additional
| technical knowledge. Also, these areas surround SLC are not
| territory they're trying to control in the same way. What
| utility would there be in this network vs simply using
| encrypted communication over the internet?
|
| On the other hand, solar powered mining with just good enough
| radios to do C2 and send back any hashes found would be an
| exact match to this scale of equipment.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| But why not just install solar panels on your house? Or
| legally, in some remote property? On top of the mountain is
| probably one of the most expensive places to deploy
| infrastructure. The elevation is almost certainly to
| provide radio reception coverage.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| There's networks like Helium that are based around
| LoraWAN mesh IoT minders. Assuming there's some financial
| advantage to having maximal connectivity to other miners,
| putting a few on the mountains above a major metro area
| seems like a very straightforward idea.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| It's not above a major metro area though, it's above Salt
| Lake City.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| 1.2 million people. And probably geographically the
| closest metro area to the people who did this; I assume
| whoever did it lives in or around Utah.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| The Salt Lake City Metropolitan Statistical Area is #24
| as ranked by population, so it depends what one would
| consider "major".
|
| To me, top 25 seems major, but to someone else top 20
| would be major. I don't think "major" in the context of
| metro areas is an official term.
| Retric wrote:
| I've heard major metro area as roughly being top 100
| cities in the world which Salt Lake City is nowhere close
| to.
|
| If anything Salt Lake seems about average size for a
| city.
| flatline wrote:
| Why on earth would cartels kidnap engineers when they could
| just pay them? This seems like the kind of specialized
| knowledge you cannot meaningfully get out of someone with a
| $5 wrench, just how they hire lawyers and other
| professionals to work with existing modern infrastructure
| that you cannot just avoid.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why would they pay someone when they could kidnap them,
| like they've done to many others?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _Why on earth would cartels kidnap engineers when they
| could just pay them?_
|
| Why would an engineer willfully take a cartel job, when
| there is a high risk of them killing you instead of
| paying you, and killing you by cutting off your face just
| because they were bored and disturbed? If a cartel even
| _offered_ me a job, I 'd fear for my life.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I have no interest of watching it myself, but there's an
| infamous video that's been talked about so much I'm
| reasonably confident it is more or less as described, and
| yes, it involves skinning someone's face off while
| they're alive, and using amphetamine injection to ensure
| they don't pass out.
|
| These people really are as bad as it gets. You don't want
| to be anywhere close to involved with them.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| The video is often re-posted on 4chan and is not the
| worst of their behavior.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| You vastly underestimate how intense the cartels are.
|
| They want total control, not bribes.
|
| One of the more medium size cartels, Jalisco New
| Generation, specializes in training assassins against
| their will. Let that just sink in. They do this by
| advertising jobs, kidnapping the people who show up to
| interview, and then torturing them in horrific ways until
| they get the total compliance of learned helplessness.
| Then they send them on suicide missions.
|
| I don't want to go into the details of the torture
| because its bad stuff, involving cannibalism even. If you
| are morbidly curious there's a couple interviews with
| survivors you can find somewhere on youtube.
|
| And this is far from the only instance of this sort of
| thing. Sinaloa has been known to kidnap entire buses and
| make folks fight to the death, winner gets the dubious
| honor of becoming a member.
|
| These are people who assume every single person in their
| world is plotting to overthrow them in an instant, and
| leave nothing to chance vs that. They don't want to hope
| their bribe is enough to keep you loyal, they want to
| know you're loyal because you've seen them torture to
| death countless people. You don't get any agency in the
| matter.
| toephu2 wrote:
| How do you know all this? Were you a former member?
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| There's a number of brave journalists that cover this
| stuff locally, but a lot of what I'm talking about has
| been covered in national media in the US, it just doesn't
| get much traction.
|
| I have friends that live in Mexico so we talk about it
| fairly often as well. One of my friends in particular is
| a wireless business owner with customers near
| Brownsville/Matamoros, where those telcom engineer
| kidnappings happened, so he's acutely aware of things.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >One of my friends in particular is a wireless business
| owner with customers near Brownsville/Matamoros, where
| those telcom engineer kidnappings happened, so he's
| acutely aware of things.
|
| ...and you just doxxed him?
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I clearly did not.
|
| Can you try to put more effort into participating here?
| This is actually a material conversation to me so I don't
| in the slightest appreciate some rando on the internet is
| trying to say I'm risking my friends life with sharing
| very innocuous general information as a zero effort
| rhetorical dunk.
| playingalong wrote:
| I don't think organizations like this have any former
| members.
| veb wrote:
| they do, they just might be... in a non-talkative mood
| ;-)
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Adding to this, they are growing fast [1] and rumor has
| it they are moving into Texas. Curious what the U.S. will
| do to _try_ to stop them.
|
| [1] - https://es.insightcrime.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/06/Mexic...
| metadat wrote:
| The drug angle doesn't make much sense in Utah. This State
| trends towards prescription drug abuse [0] [1], and
| aggressively prosecutes drug offenses to the max. How could
| antennas be relevant?
|
| [0] https://www.deseret.com/2008/1/31/20067144/happy-valley-
| delv...
|
| [1] https://imdb.com/title/tt1263682/
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Weren't they at least installing their stuff on existing
| towers etc to make it less obvious? Planting big solar panels
| into the landscape must be the stupidest attempt at creating
| a secret cell network...
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would think that if it was organized crime, the feds would
| be all over it already. Even stuff like pirate radio gets
| tracked and shutdown fairly quickly. I'd imagine the FBI
| still has significant sigint ops, even if they might be less
| extensive than during the cold war.
| HomeLine wrote:
| Wouldn't their best course of action be to locate the
| towers, hack into them, and continue to allow them to
| operate?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes, but if they were taking that action, they would have
| instructed the public land officials on a cover story,
| not allowing them to create a mystery out of and open
| those boxes.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| What you say sounds possible and plausible, although I would
| not immediately discount crypto, as the Helium map does show
| some cells in unpopulated areas in the hills surrounding the
| SLC metro.
|
| They should be able to eliminate Helium as the culprit if
| they're able to inspect what's in the box, as Helium needs a
| Helium-sanctioned box, from my understanding.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| What does this provide that an encrypted cellphone messenger
| app does not? I'm sure they have the know how to acquire SIMs
| through intermediaries to remain anonymous. That's probably a
| lot less suspicious than setting up random radio towers, in
| fact this story is evidence of that.
|
| Presumably self-operated infrastructure could expand comms to
| remote areas that don't normally have cell service. They
| makes sense in stretches of the southern border. But right
| outside salt lake city is covered by cell access.
| mike_d wrote:
| Cell phones are basically locator beacons for the police.
| The cartels know this.
|
| It's not worth discussing the specifics in the open, but
| the investigative techniques have gotten good enough that
| even "anonymous" SIM cards don't buy you anything.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| A radio is inherently a locator beacon. Radio direction
| finding has been a cornerstone of signals intelligence
| for over a century. A cell phone sending encrypted
| messages over Signal or WhatsApp is way less suspicious
| than a radio mysteriously appearing on a hill. Just get a
| patsy to buy a normal sim card - not an "anonymous sim
| card" - I'm sure cartels are easily able to do this.
| mike_d wrote:
| Sure but one is inherently more difficult (radio
| direction finding) than the other (having your phone
| constantly beacon to a dense network of towers).
|
| What I was alluding to is when you have full access to
| the cellular network, there are other indicators that can
| be used to task tracking other than just the SIM card.
| You don't need to know that phone X is person Y, you just
| need to know that phone X fits the criteria of how a drug
| mule operates.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > you just need to know that phone X fits the criteria of
| how a drug mule operates.
|
| And my point is that this is way, _way_ harder than
| looking out the window and noticing a radio tower perched
| on a hilltop that wasn 't there before. It's far more
| clandestine to obtain security through obscurity even if
| it means operating in a network controlled by the
| authorities. Encrypted traffic looks like any other
| encrypted traffic. There's little to make a drug dealer
| stand out from other cell phone traffic, unless they're
| communicating over cleartext.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| You do not have any secret knowledge dangerous to share
| on this issue, I guarantee that, so drop the pretense and
| just say what you think clearly.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Is Helium still alive? I've seen a _lot_ of their used
| equipment pop up for sale on ebay.
| alexeldeib wrote:
| I have the same question. Seems like the crash hit them hard
| and last I heard they were rebasing (n.b., not using this in
| a technical meaning) on top of Solana.
|
| I also heard a lot of rumors it was a pump/dump or pyramid
| type scheme, but I haven't seen proof of that, only if
| premining (which is awfully scammy to be fair).
|
| Anyone have better details?
| amelius wrote:
| Or a new kind of crypto based on Proof of Solar energy
| collection?
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Proof of received and delivered packets.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I believe Helium does require internet access rather than just
| working as an offline relay. How's the 4G in those locations?
| The video shows only one antenna too.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You can do either. Non-internet Helium installs are less
| profitable though, if I understand their structure.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Very strange this would be reported without some very
| basic/obvious information. Like the data/frequencies transmitted
| in/out of the boxes. That should narrow down potential suspects
| substantially.
| dpedu wrote:
| It's common in investigations that authorities don't release
| everything right away. It gives them in an advantage in certain
| ways - playing your hand face-down, if you will.
| icambron wrote:
| They may also just not know yet
| poorman wrote:
| Most likely Helium hotspots
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if it was somehow related to Aereo
| [1][2]. My understanding is they were mostly working out of Utah.
|
| Edit: For those unfamiliar, they set up an operation to re-
| broadcast (free) OTA TV broadcasts out-of-territory over the
| internet for a subscription fee. They got shut down after a
| supreme court decision.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo
|
| [2] https://www.ksl.com/article/28788962/utah-judge-halts-
| operat...
| happyopossum wrote:
| This is nothing like Aereo equipment, nor would there be any
| reason for Aereo to put their equipment on mountaintops and
| ridge lines on public land...
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| No, I can confidently say it's not. They'd need significant
| wired bandwidth to the node.
|
| Plus the mountain top location would not provide any advantage
| over almost any other lower elevation location in the metro.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Can't wait to see how these start to get camouflaged! I doubt
| it's a helium miner, the project is dead and now a known scam.
| Breefield wrote:
| I betcha it's https://gristleking.com, he's been advocating for
| paragliders to use LoRaWAN for a tertiary emergency
| communications network (primary being Garmin's Iridium network,
| then cell or perhaps iOS 14's GPS SOS).
|
| The idea is to have multiple means of calling for help + tracking
| location when free-flying.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| So he accomplishes it by covertly installing thousands of
| dollars of hardware on PUBLIC land and opening himself up to
| thousands more dollars in recovery fees? Not likely.
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| He might be at one of the higher levels on the Helium
| "pyramid" (sorry-- couldn't think of a better term).
|
| A year ago, that may have meant significant earnings.
| kenniskrag wrote:
| Fanet works over loraWan and here are the specs:
| https://github.com/3s1d/fanet-stm32
| teewuane wrote:
| It's got to be some sort of Multi Level Marketing thing. You buy
| three towers, sell your friends three towers, they sell 3 towers
| each. Boom. Money. Wait, that is actually a good idea for a mesh
| network.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| That's actually how the stupid Helium network was setup.. it
| used to (maybe still does?) provide rewards for setting up a
| hotspot and much much less for data throughput so it was
| basically a big grift to sell miners. Then they gave a huge
| proportion of the earliest miners to their executives and
| family members so that commoners buying miners were basically
| just funneling money to the execs.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2022/09/23/helium-...
| scottpiper wrote:
| I live in SLC, and I saw one of these show up over a year ago.
| The location was about here:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B047'58.0%22N+111%C2...
|
| It was a very well built setup that I assumed (as did everyone)
| that it was put there by the gov in some capacity, such as for
| weather observations. It wasn't hidden or hard to find by any
| means and on a fairly popular trail. I would bet during nice
| summer weather a few hundred people per week walked past it.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. from a fellow DarkNetizen: ".. we all concur it's either one
| of the 2 major w coast drug cartels since SLC is smack in the
| middle of a 'major flight trade route' tho SLC is not a major
| market in and of itself. A crypto repeater network makes sense,
| but why SLC? The other assertion is a DOD project since BLM and
| other vast expanses of open lands are popular test grounds for
| new comm tech. I believe it's the latter."
| poorman wrote:
| You can see where all the Helium hotspots are. They have a
| mechanism called Proof Of Coverage so that they can be used to
| tell devices communicating with them what their geolocation is.
| It's pretty easy to tell which devices are on top of the
| mountains over salt lake.
|
| https://explorer.helium.com/coverage
|
| https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/11f1b3jVrJ9mh1KebQY5oVm...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| I don't think there's hundreds or thousands of them up on the
| mountains like the image shows?
| walrus01 wrote:
| The PV setup is too small/weak to support an very cheap and basic
| off grid WISP setup, even a very basic one, one small panel of
| that size won't handle the mid winter cumulative kWh in one month
| from even two small PTP 5 GHz band 5W load radios and one 5W
| Mikrotik router (15W 24x7 for a month).
|
| Whatever it is has to be very low power or spend a lot of time in
| sleep mode.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Wow, whether or not this is helium... I just learned about this
| thing and I'm like "okay, so you have LoRaWAN and blockchains and
| yes I can see how you _could_ combine these together but what 's
| the effin point?
|
| Don't get me wrong, I get that some people want to do stuff just
| for the fun of it and IMHO that's humanity at its best. But this
| just looks like "new tech -> magic happens -> profit" 0_o
| petre wrote:
| Too bad you don't have enough scrap metal collectors. Beats any
| cryptocurrency. This network wouldn't resist a week in my
| country.
| walrus01 wrote:
| You're not wrong in being puzzled by why people would try to
| glue LoraWAN stuff to "blockchain" BS, that's been pretty much
| the reaction of everyone who works professionally in wireless
| telecom industry/applications.
|
| Helium is (was) yet another pump and dump cryptocoin hype
| train.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I think it was mostly a strategy of combining IoT hype with
| Blockchain hype, details be damned. Helium isn't nearly as
| crazy as IOTA, which was blathering on about a starlink style
| network powered by trinary circuitry (no, I'm not kidding).
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| I'm very much a cryptocurrency-sceptic, but the basic idea
| seemed interesting.
|
| There's a whole lot of companies that do want to deploy various
| sensor things - fixed and mobile. They're using cellular
| networks at the moment, which comes with
| costs/capacity/coverage issues.
|
| LoRAWAN would seem to solve some of these - it's unlicensed
| spectrum, it's low rate, but high enough for basic signalling,
| and the coverage vs installation cost/complexity thing is
| amazing.
|
| If you could convince enough people & businesses to drop mesh-
| nodes on their window sills, ideally with access to their wifi,
| it could be a relatively cheap way of bootstrapping a large
| mesh network.
|
| The crypto-mining thing... well I guess that's one way to pay
| people without involving actual direct cash payments. But like
| so much in the cryptocurrency space, the actual ROI was far
| over-sold.
| slicktux wrote:
| It's really about the "crypto hype" and that's really the only
| incentive behind most of these helium hot spots... They are
| expensive and the return is slow. Really nice idea in the grand
| scheme of things but it's not DIY friendly network...well it is
| but if you want to send data via the helium network you MUST
| pay per message using the helium currency; that and a lot of
| these hotspots piggy back of internet...sadly not completely
| decentralized.
| cozzyd wrote:
| It's annoying if you use LoRa components for something else
| since they are more likely to be out of stock
| [deleted]
| RajT88 wrote:
| I was just mulling over the other day that this sort of thing at
| smaller scale would be a neat idea for guerilla file sharing to
| work around copyright infringement bots on torrent networks.
|
| Hope on a wifi access point downtown, pull some movies down while
| you're waiting for your train.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| freifunk.net :-)
| green-salt wrote:
| Looks fun, but its on the other side of a continent and ocean
| for me to participate in.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Why not just get a vpn rather than create overly complicated
| and expensive hardware installations?
| mihaaly wrote:
| - We do not know what it is and for what, it just stands there,
| so we must destroy it!
|
| "Nice"! : /
| akira2501 wrote:
| If they actually cared about their use of public land or what
| they were doing, then the _very least_ they could have done is
| put their name and phone number on it.
|
| They didn't.
|
| So, yes, it absolutely gets destroyed. If you fail to take
| responsibility for your actions, you can generally expect this
| to be the outcome.
| googlryas wrote:
| Well, yes. You can't just erect stuff on public land willy
| nilly.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Right, right, people are not supposed to build a dam or a
| T-shirt factory wherever they please but a small device left
| in the middle of nowhere difficult to find and comprehend,
| out of the way and sight literally for everyone, well, next
| time I will think twice if I make a small rock formation or a
| tent made of branches against rain in a nice hidden spot
| without proper signed permission from the authorities,
| erected on public land.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >well, next time I will think twice if I make a small rock
| formation or a tent made of branches against rain in a nice
| hidden spot
|
| "Leave nature as you found it"? Making shelter seems fair
| enough, but those fucking rock 'formations' are just
| narcissistic environment destroyers.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| I find it weird that they jump right to crypto.
|
| Couldn't it be something else? Some projects come to mind like
| https://www.blitzortung.org/en/cover_your_area.php or the one
| where people have boxes that track gravitional waves.
|
| Did I miss something that hinted at crypto in the article?
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| The Helium network is basically just IoT miners meshed with
| LoraWAN. The description and picture very much do sound like a
| solar powered Helium node.
| Kiro wrote:
| Watch the video and do an image search on "helium crypto solar
| power". You will see many devices that look like that. Crypto
| is a plausible explanation.
| mjfl wrote:
| or perhaps a means to control hobbyist drones at a longer
| range...
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. exactly. My brother is an ARC-GIS engineer with BLM and
| the have a fleet of drones that tie into SAT info.
| bcraven wrote:
| Final paragraph:
|
| "Fonarow pointed out that cryptocurrency is just one idea the
| city has heard. Trail officials may learn more once the locked
| boxes are opened."
| throitallaway wrote:
| > once the locked boxes are opened
|
| Find someone with a big hammer or drill?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Or good at locksport
| babypuncher wrote:
| They want to open these boxes in a way that minimizes the
| risk of destroying any evidence they contain.
| madengr wrote:
| [dead]
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