[red0point]

Do you have any information about the privacy achievable by Meshtastic?

From a quick glance it looks like it‘s using static NodeIDs derived from the Bluetooth MAC address in the always unencrypted Packet Header.

So not only can you sniff these messages from far away at greatly simplified complexity when comparing to cellular communication, but also tie it to the hardware that you carry with you.

Mesh networks sure have its uses, but I‘d be wary of their offered privacy in the presence of adversaries you could be facing at protests!

[AnarchismIsCool]

For the next few years it's fine. Functionally the feds just don't have the infrastructure to care about Meshtastic. In a decade maybe that'll change but two decades in the best they can do against drones is receive the ID DJI manufactured ones voluntarily broadcast and lookup the owner if they registered it correctly.

They're far dumber than most people give them credit, unless you off a rich guy they just don't have the resources to even think about penetrating anything but cell networks.

The encryption is pretty good, they're not likely to break it any time soon. The device MACs are whatever, unless you go to protests then go wandering around an urban area with the same radios for an extended period of time they're not going to do shit about it. They would have to geolocate from the RF emission and that's difficult to do to an accuracy necessary to uniquely identify you. Further, LoRa is still a bit of a pain to work with outside of using vendor chips which don't have non-cooperative DF capability so we're in the realm of expensive custom solutions from an RF shop which is far more money than the feds are willing to spend to dragnet a couple people.