Cyberpony Express: Free and Off-Grid Communications

Cyberpony Express

This project began as a discussion around a campfire at a land project in Tennessee, where people discussed how we could build an off-grid internet to enable secure, off-grid text messaging between intentional communities without using the public internet or other fragile infrastructure.

It was immediately obvious that this would also be enormously beneficial for things like disaster preparedness and response.

Further conversations led to the idea of hosting the nodes of this network in community gardens which are already hubs of communications and resource distribution.

The Cyberpony Express was born!

LoRa

The technology we are using for the Cyberpony Express is called LoRa or long-range radio. This is an open-source technology which uses a free, open-source software stack called Meshtastic to enable secure, end-to-end-encrypted communication between devices across distances of twenty miles or more.

The network we are building will be free and public, enabling anyone to communicate securely without needing to use the internet or public cell phone networks.

Additionally, it natively supports mesh networking, meaning you're able to reach people several hops away across multiple nodes. A city like San Francisco is only seven miles across, meaning this technology is enormously powerful in terms of enabling secure and resilient communications, especially during disasters.

Next Steps

The High Desert Institute is partnering with Burning Man, Burners Without Borders, and The Multiverse School to throw an initial workshop at Burning Man Global Headquarters on March 13th at 7pm. This will cover the plans, the technology, and the partnerships we've been working on developing so far.

Donations to this GoFundMe are restricted and can only be spent on installing Cyberpony Express nodes. We are also launching an online store where you can buy assembled nodes, stickers, or stickers which sponsor the installation of a node.

Follow us on Tiktok, Twitch, and Substack for updates!