Software Survival
2025-11-11
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One of my all-time favorite Raspberry Pi projects was the PirateBox. First created in 2011, the PirateBox was a self-contained, offline network server that allowed users to share files, stream media, chat with others, and even post on a local image board. It was designed to run on cheap SBC platforms, use open standards, be censorship-resistant, and promote freedom and privacy. Even better, it runs on my old RPi 1B boards that I stubbornly refuse to let go of. The project shut down in 2019, but to this day, I still seed torrents of the last release for RPi.
What I appreciated about the PirateBox the most was its robustness. It didn't rely on any large-scale technological infrastructure to enable users to communicate. It couldn't be stopped by government firewalls or social media censorship. With a self-sufficient power source such as a windmill or solar panel, it could even be impervious to blackouts. It was a powerful tool that used an astonishingly small footprint, and even successor projects like the FreedomBox don't come close to matching its reach.
The PirateBox was created in a time when governments and businesses still didn't fully understand the power of the Internet. Social media helped to fuel the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and even played a minor role in the formation of South Sudan. Many oppressive regimes didn't know how to stop grassroots organization on the Internet, reverting to outright blocks to try to suppress it. Twitter still had no algorithmic manipulation; tweets became the primary source of information for people both inside and outside of political hotspots.
This was such an important issue in the early 2010s that in response, many groups published resources on how to avoid government spying and suppression online. I talked about one of them in a previous log.^
In 2025, the landscape of the Internet has changed radically, but global imbalances of power remain. Several governments still outright censor public discourse--and some countries that previously valued open expression quite highly have begun sliding down the slippery slope. Wars still rage and revolutions still rise, but social networks, the lifeline of honest and independent news from the front lines in 2011, are now highly-curated troughs filled with sponsored garbage. Once-free resources were first locked behind one-time purchases, and now they're all switching to subscription models, forcing activists to give up identifying personal and financial information. Decentralized infrastructure like cryptocurrency is being smeared, when it's not banned entirely.
All of this leads me to a hypothetical. Suppose the US government said tomorrow that it was implementing a Great Firewall similar to China's, or that it would essentially carve out its own intranet like Russia or North Korea. What would a software survival kit look like in 2025? What could we use not only to ensure the health of communications infrastructure, but avoid surveillance and repression by the state?
Smartphones running mainline Android or iOS would likely be out of the question entirely. They are simply locked too tightly with commercialized software and firmware. Surely Apple and Google, being American companies, would come under the control of such a tyrannical government, which would inevitably lead to the compromise of these devices at the lowest level. Therefore, let's assume we're working with full computers. Even there, Windows and macOS already implement tons of telemetry and spyware; it's probably safe to assume that no information stored on those platforms would be secure.
I think establishing a decentralized and secure form of communication would be paramount. Many tools already exist for that, some more "normie"-friendly than others. Chat services that can use Bluetooth, such as Briar, would be a good choice, allowing messages to be sent over many different protocols.
Once communications are established, file sharing will be very important. I don't know of many options here, especially ones that are easy for non-technical people to use. NNCP is by far the most powerful file-sharing tool I've used, and an airgapped system running it would be incredibly secure, but NNCP is extremely difficult to set up and configure correctly. A program like Tribler, which focuses heavily on anonymity, might be better.
As much as I love the PirateBox, however, a modern deployment of it would not suit the current technological climate. It uses plain HTTP and does not offer any kind of user authentication. While it avoids all contact with the mainline Internet, any nearby agency could simply connect to the network and see everything therein.
This is an issue I wish I saw more literature about. The need for ordinary citizens to protect themselves from authoritarian regimes has not gone away. If anything, it's gotten worse over the last 15 years. Everyday people need to understand what tools are available to help them stay safe in a world increasingly filled with bad actors.
What services and software would you put into a survival kit? I'd love to hear about it.
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[Last updated: 2025-11-11]