Several years ago(2013ish) when the (folded project)Neo900 http://neo900.org/ was taking shape I requested hardware switches on all radio transmitters and a POCSAG pager module on the board. The desire for an optional rx only radio silent un-trackable phone mode evolved into the Neo900's hacker interface where a developmental POCSAG pager module could connect in the future once the phone was available. I had a few interactions with RMS and had an email thread with him where even the 'man who would not own a cell phone' admitted that if his conditions were met he might consider such a phone as his first mobile device.
The head of the Neo900 project, JoergRW, who's work you all probably know from the OpenMokos many of us have played with, sadly ran out of health and had to fold the ambitious project.
I want to see what can be done to get a POCSAG pager module and required software working with my pinephone.
The idea is that POCSAG paging service is still reasonably universal for medical and emergency services and is broadcast from FM broadcast, 400mhz, or 900mhz towers, these pages are passively received by the pager receiver. If using a dedicated chip we were already getting 30 days or more form a AA alkaline cell so power budget is minuscule I believe most hardware comms are simple serial.
Use case:
If I were to soft deactivate my telephony modem I could be radio silent and untrackable, should I be in what I consider a safe location and wish to make a call it is simple for me to automatically soft activate my modem as part of the dialing process script and also soft deactivate when I complete my call. More interesting to us all is that as long as I have a subscription to a paging service I can also receive calls under most conditions, often with better coverage than some mobile telephony providers, by receiving a page with a caller-ID which can be called back quickly with an answer button in the paging rx app. The paging service can also often receive SMS and emails forwarding them to the user, with some middleware these could even be encrypted and decrypted at the phone removing another privacy invasion.
The always on nature of a mobile telephony device is used to track our every move, I want us here to break this cycle.
I believe that one-way paging, wireless peer-to-peer fidonet-like programs like Briar, consideration of integrated or tethered UHF radio tx/rx for amateur radio or unlicensed bands, and perhaps even use of fixed or mobile one/two way satellite data services can free us from many of the tracking and anti-user technologies which have grown up with cellular and internet technologies since the 90s.
The head of the Neo900 project, JoergRW, who's work you all probably know from the OpenMokos many of us have played with, sadly ran out of health and had to fold the ambitious project.
I want to see what can be done to get a POCSAG pager module and required software working with my pinephone.
The idea is that POCSAG paging service is still reasonably universal for medical and emergency services and is broadcast from FM broadcast, 400mhz, or 900mhz towers, these pages are passively received by the pager receiver. If using a dedicated chip we were already getting 30 days or more form a AA alkaline cell so power budget is minuscule I believe most hardware comms are simple serial.
Use case:
If I were to soft deactivate my telephony modem I could be radio silent and untrackable, should I be in what I consider a safe location and wish to make a call it is simple for me to automatically soft activate my modem as part of the dialing process script and also soft deactivate when I complete my call. More interesting to us all is that as long as I have a subscription to a paging service I can also receive calls under most conditions, often with better coverage than some mobile telephony providers, by receiving a page with a caller-ID which can be called back quickly with an answer button in the paging rx app. The paging service can also often receive SMS and emails forwarding them to the user, with some middleware these could even be encrypted and decrypted at the phone removing another privacy invasion.
The always on nature of a mobile telephony device is used to track our every move, I want us here to break this cycle.
I believe that one-way paging, wireless peer-to-peer fidonet-like programs like Briar, consideration of integrated or tethered UHF radio tx/rx for amateur radio or unlicensed bands, and perhaps even use of fixed or mobile one/two way satellite data services can free us from many of the tracking and anti-user technologies which have grown up with cellular and internet technologies since the 90s.
