Mesh Network the Dream: Monero opens the door
This dream began in August 2023 when I tried to connect to the internet every night to learn more about privacy and all the content was blocked, there was only one place where I could access it, it was near a square half an hour from my town but it was a very slow connection and unstable download information. One of my main interests was downloading the Tails software.
An impossible goal to achieve at 1.5 Mbps, I tried it for more than a week with several attempts only partially downloading the batch of files but it was still impossible.
One day I wanted to continue investigating and I managed to "rent" a tourist SIM card thanks to a friend who works as a guide near a very important hotel in "La Habana". After a month of telling him about it, the Sim card was in my hands thanks to the support from an anonymous hero named "Jordan" that I got via Twitter.
He made some recommendations to help me with the idea of ​​downloading Tails from Cuba without restrictions, his initial recommendation was to abandon Twitter chat and use Threema. This application is no free, but he gift me a membership and allowed us to chat weekly about the project and progress. That was very kind from him.
The first donation he sent me was 0.3 XMR in July 2023, from that day I opened my eyes to a new reality that I had never thought about or known. It was a great joy to know that I could receive money from anywhere in the world anonymously and quickly. In my country, 99% of remittances are supervised and controlled by bureaucratic exchange houses with very high commissions (9%-25%).
I was part of the 1% that resisted state control, receiving a completely anonymous cryptocurrency to develop a freedom project. I exchanged this money with a relative in Puerto Rico who sent me the remittance the next day and helps me exchange the cryptocurrencies. As time goes by, I can achieve a more informal and direct market that develops exclusively with tourists and is known to few in Cuba, due to the distrust and volatility of cryptocurrencies.
Since I started looking for privacy, the most important thing was not to leave traces of your connection, although here the controls are extreme, there are also very corrupt officials, a gap that allows access to more benefits and even more so in places far from the center of power.
These gaps have helped us achieve some objectives, the first of which was to obtain a tourist Sim card and the second was to activate it without tourist requirements.
Only at the beginning of the project I only had an old pentium and some very basic elements, but the priority was to download Tails and test the first Tor relay with a new server.
One of the main barriers for this project has been adoption, something that does not change in countries with many more freedoms than mine, but I think that a lot of the lack of adoption is due to the lack of purpose and usefulness. For us, Monero served as the gateway to freedom, facilitating our endeavors.
Jordan contacted me one morning of September to tell me the steps to follow to upload a campaign to collect funds through Monero on a website called Kuno. This was where the history of the Mesh network began receiving the support of the Monero Community 8 moths ago to get one tourist sim card, one (1TB) hard drive and some USB sticks to run Tails.
Jordan vanished a month later, leaving behind a legacy as the project's first hero. Wherever he may be, my gratitude knows no bounds. Thank you, my friend.
Our strategy involving BCH entails conducting fundraisers every 15 days to facilitate incremental updates, ensuring minimal funding requirements and encouraging high transparency. We aim to provide weekly oversight of the network's development activities.
Support us:
bitcoincash:qpamkvvy848rjtlxdk6gt5s0jlejcymgxsejwszyxl
XMR:43mWw4mc8kFGQC7z9iFvZtcqaHFzbrKYmM26mpf2VSHc1XmiBzDqhXQBpppFAEdB5UM9DHavfDEcoXesCCHw4DpmJLmykzp
