jcs

Imagine a world where we can adopt a scalable, secure, open communication protocol where users can use whatever app they want. Imagine humanity moving past the diaspora of special-snowflake chat apps and on to better things.

While not a physical radio, a Linux phone such as the Librem 5 in conjunction with an RTL-SDR dongle and external antenna may be a good candidate for a mobile software-defined radio (SDR) transceiver.

SDR frameworks such as GNUradio or REDHAWK are well-established by this point. Newer versions of REDHAWK are designed to run on CentOS/Rocky Linux, however, and they don't (AFAIK) come with a mobile-friendly UI.

I do know that there are some web-based SDR tools in the wild. I'm not very familiar with them, their system requirements/capabilities/limitations, but they could be worth a look to jump-start a Progressive Web App for mobile devices.

Turkey pesto sandwiches and combo pizzas - this must be a pre-pandemic photo.

Let me tell you a story.

December 2017. I was moving across the United States with my gf (now ex) from Maryland to Oregon. We were packing up a 1600sqft 3br house where 90% of the stuff belonged to her. About half of the way through packing, she took a 1-way flight to Oregon to start looking for houses to rent. I wasn't happy about this but I vastly underestimated the remaining work to be done and couldn't convince her to stay.

I rented a 26' Penske truck and car trailer and, after discussing the timeline and general itinerary, convinced a friend to drive my Miata to roadtrip with me since I can't tow 2 vehicles at once. I then spent the next 4-5 days alone (friends weren't available to help), sleeping about 3 hours at a time and making as much progress as I physically could before collapsing. I was behind on time and had to extend the move-out day with the landlords 3 times. My gf was sympathetic over the phone but couldn't help at that point. Two days before the move, my friend asks if he can bring his gf along. I said it wasn't ideal since this was gonna be a fun roadtrip as bros where we make an event out of it together, but he's doing me a huge favor, so... fine.

Now the day of the move, my friend and his gf arrive and we eventually load the last 20% of the trailer and get my gf's Prius on the tow dolly. It's now nighttime but I can't stay to the following day, my landlord said. But wait, there's an issue with the trailer brake. While inspecting the trailer, a neighbor yells at us and threatens to call the cops because we blocked her driveway while trying to pull away. I responded "great! You think they could help us with this?!" This only set us back maybe 20 minutes and we hit the road, driving through the night.

The next day was relatively uneventful as we cruised through the miles. My friend and I chatted a little when stopping at gas stations, but he wasn't super talkative with me; I assumed he was chatting with his gf most of the time. I had expected him to stay with the truck to help alert me if I was looking drowsy, had any breakdowns, etc, but to my dismay, he darted off. I called, asking where he went off to, and he said that he'd meet up with me later. Uhhhhh... not OK, but what else can I do? I can't afford the $3k to have my car hauled to Oregon at this point. Fine... I guess.

Many more hours go by and I don't hear much from my friend. I pulled over onto the hard shoulder to give him a call and... he's in an entirely different state! (I think I was in Iowa at this point and he was in Missouri.) He said that he got a hotel in Kansas City and invited me to stay there as well. It was about a 45-minute detour (IIRC) but I hadn't had good sleep in over a week, so I said I'd meet him in the room. Of course, as I was pulling back onto the road, the right-side tires veered slightly into the soft shoulder and felt the trailer lean drastically to the right as they sank into the soft embankment. I managed to correct onto the hard shoulder and felt the wave of frustration wash over me: I've never driven anything remotely this large and this is exactly why I was hoping to have a travel buddy!

I eventually met up with my friend and his gf in the hotel room and slept in a bed for the first time in a week.

The following morning, we met for continental breakfast and I managed to keep my cool about how everything had been going, but did make it clear that I'd expected us to stay together. That is, until he and his gf expressed how they wanted to reroute to go through the mountain roads (they're in my Miata, after all... but it's December) and then visit family in Salt Lake. What... my truck was overloaded and had difficulty making some of the hills already - I didn't feel comfortable traveling on the narrower mountain roads. The details of the subsequent conversation are fuzzy but we were at an impasse. They'd made up their mind and, despite my reasoning, them ditching my car in Kansas City and leaving seemed a much worse option than going alone.

So I went it alone.

I got very good at backing up such a large trailer (with a Prius on a trailer behind me) as I navigated the Pac-Man-esque parking lot, then was back on the interstate. With no one else to account for, it was just me and the road ahead of me. The hours flew by. Until... I got a panicked call from my gf. She was having a panic attack with the whole housing situation and felt like she needed me as soon as possible. She felt lost and I felt helpless. At this point, a switch flipped in my mind. New objective: get to Oregon as quickly as possible.

I drove through Kansas, through Colorado (not through mountain passes), through Wyoming (and saw a spectacular meteor shower in the jet black sky), and Utah. Another panicked call came while driving through Idaho, only more tense. The pressure was getting to her, and my cumulative stress and exhaustion was getting to me. The call went very poorly and we were on each others' last nerves.

Night fell as I drove through the Cascades. Snowfall was blinding as I gained elevation. I would call this a whiteout; the only thing I could see were the flashing red hazard lights from a semi in front of me. If the semi were to drive off the road, I was sure to follow. To my bewilderment, a bold BMV driver blazed past the semi and me. Even more astonishingly, they used their signal when passing. Not having had any positive human interaction in a long time, I started a Signal video chat with my parents. I showed them the whiteout I was driving through, which understandably made them extremely nervous. What made it worse is that the call dropped shortly after. I can only imagine how they felt...

I reconnected with my parents and my gf as I drove along the Columbia River. I drove from Missouri to Oregon in a single sitting and I was the most tired I have ever been; I apologize to anyone else on the road while I was driving. I eventually arrived at the Airbnb after what felt like an eternity. I shared an unenthusiastic greeting with my gf as the tension had not yet dissipated, and my friend (and his gf) met us for coffee. The next day or three were spent looking for a place to call home, which we did eventually find, but I have not heard from or spoken to my friend since. Nor have I paid him back for the gas charges he left for me in the center console.

Shoulda just hired movers.

We're just normal men.

I have a very hard time believing that an internal combustion engine would sustain significant damage prior to stalling. An engine could run, albeit very poorly, with extreme backpressure (say, an exhaust blockage but perhaps some leaks elsewhere in the exhaust system). If the exhaust was perfectly sealed, there would be so much backpressure that the mixture would be starved of air and there would simply not be any explosion in the cylinders. I have limited knowledge of diesel engines but would expect a similar result.

Here's a video where an exhaust pipe is plugged. You can see how quickly the car stalls (at 10:00): https://piped.video/watch?v=jnoW0skAChA

It's a valid point that it could potentially create some confusion when a user assumes that everything in Signal is secure. Unencrypted SMS threads could contain an open padlock icon and even an ominous red window border, but someone inevitably will not understand the difference.

However, my frustration has been how both convenience and security is reduced by removing SMS from Signal.

Many people will continue to use SMS for a variety of reasons, necessitating the use of an additional app. So now we have people continuing to communicate over this insecure protocol, but with the additional target vector of potential vulnerabilities in the supplemental app.