How to Use ATAK with Meshtastic

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground today we're going to be showing you how to use mesh tastic along with AAC chances are if you're watching this video you know what AAC is or at least have heard of it before but if you're new to mesh tastic a brief description of how mesh tastic works and what it is is needed before we go into the tutorial mesh tastic is an off-grid open-source communications platform you can research this yourself a little bit more on mesh tastics website but short version of how M tastic works is very simple so say you need to send a message from one person to another Well ordinarily you could use text messaging using cell towers or you could use some kind of internet-based chat like you know signal or telegram or something like that but what if the cell towers are down or the internet is out or you're in an area which doesn't have either of those well mesh tastic can bring the infrastructure to you all you need to do is pair each device with a small mesh tastic board and messages can be sent between those two boards using Bluetooth to connect to each smart device and you can use the app on the smartphones to send the messages so that's basi etween those two boards using Bluetooth to connect to each smart device and you can use the app on the smartphones to send the messages so that's basically how mesh tastic works it's very simple mesh tastic itself is a very basic mapping software with a very basic messaging service but what if we could take mesh tastics ability to use these mesh tastic boards here these little $25 radios essentially is what they are uh what if we could take those and use another app with that say AAC well let's Jump Right In and figure out how to do that on the hardware side of things you really only need two things you need a smart device that is capable of running Android um you can use any kind of operating system I'll show you what operating system these are running on in just a second and the other piece of Hardware that you need is a mesh tastic device now for our demonstrations here this is just a standard mesh tastic device um that has been modified just a a little bit um to uh turn the screen off and to have a series of batteries behind it so uh but other than that this is just your standard uh mesh tastic device so obviously at minimum you're going to need two smartphones and two mesh tas uh but other than that this is just your standard uh mesh tastic device so obviously at minimum you're going to need two smartphones and two mesh tastic devices uh that's really all you need to get your basic Network going but you can of course add as many as you want as time goes on and when it comes to software you're going to need three things as well now before I mention that I just briefly want to mention that this particular device is even running normal stock Android this is CeX OS this is just uh one of the um degoogle operating systems it is a uh competitor to graphine OS and lineage OS uh CX is just the new hotness in that regard this can change uh just wanted to point out that you don't even need standard Android to run this uh so this is just a simple file browser application to show you the three pieces of software that you need also I should mention you don't even need to be connected to Wi-Fi to do this this you can do this entire uh process Wi-Fi free which is great um because all you need to do is have these three files on a thumb drive pass that off to someone and you can get this set up from absolute Bare Bones nothing without using Wi-Fi in an AER environment i les on a thumb drive pass that off to someone and you can get this set up from absolute Bare Bones nothing without using Wi-Fi in an AER environment if you need so the three pieces of software you're going to need are of course the mesh tastic app so that's the very first one there again mesh tastic as of the release of this video it um it's not in the Play Store right now you have to side load it from GitHub so again the link to that will be in the description just like always secondly uh is AAC now AAC is in the play store but I have found that their latest version which I think is 4.5.1 or two or something like that uh that didn't work for me uh again this is one of those things that is a little a little frustrating for people who are trying to get this up and going you have to have the right version numbers for everything some versions don't work with some phones it's a little bit frustrating at times but fortunately as of 4.5.0 uh the team here has had no problem getting this to work so again mesh tastic whatever latest version you want to get a the AAC app which I have again side loaded because I don't want to download it from the Play Store I want to choose what version I wa ou want to get a the AAC app which I have again side loaded because I don't want to download it from the Play Store I want to choose what version I want and again this operating system doesn't even have the play store so you kind of need to side load it on this particular operating system and then thirdly is a plugin you're going to need a plugin for AAC that will allow it to talk to mesh tastic and we will will again put the link to all of this in the description below so the first step is to install mesh tastic so we're going to go ahead and click the APK there and we can go ahead and go through the uh package installer process uh you might have to go into your settings depending on what version of Android you have you might have to go in there into your settings and click allow uh unknown sources to install apps uh but for the most part you should be good to go you'll get a prompt uh to do that once you have mesh tastic installed you can move on to installing AAC again same process could not be easy install using the package installer and you're you're done with AAG and and before you move on to installing the plugin you might want to go through the process of setting up AAC so ler and you're you're done with AAG and and before you move on to installing the plugin you might want to go through the process of setting up AAC so if you haven't done that before go ahead and check out our video on how to install AAC it's very simple to do once you have AAC fully installed and all good to go and you've started downloading imagery and you're getting your app set up now you can go ahead and click the APK for the plug-in again use uh the package installer to install it now the plugin will not leave an icon it will not leave an app on your home screen uh what you're going to have to do is go back into AAC so let's go ahead and do that now the next step is to get mesh tastic and AAC to talk together so that they can communicate data and send data over uh using the mesh tastic Network that we're creating with our mesh tastic devices so to do that let's make sure that our plug-in is in fact installed in AAC and working so let's go ahead and open up our menu here we're going to scroll down to plugins and we'll tap plugins and boom there we go ACH forward is in it's loaded and uh it's current so this is all good that means everything is functioning as normal with the plu and boom there we go ACH forward is in it's loaded and uh it's current so this is all good that means everything is functioning as normal with the plug-in now we need to configure the plugin to make sure that it does in fact talk to mesh tastic so let's go ahead and do that we're going to open up our menu again we're going to scroll all the way down to settings tap settings scroll down just a little ways until you see tool preferences uh this will allow us to have uh access to this menu which shows the aack forward preferences basically this is just a settings menu for that plugin so let's go ahead and tap that now here we go this is where we can configure all of this stuff to make mesh tastic work so the very first thing you're going to do is select a com device now when you tap that it's going to bring up a menu to allow you to select your mesh tastic device there you go as you can see mine's already paired because we again just to make sure that mesh tastic is working and that's all good um it's already there it's already connected so you don't really need to do too much about that there's also one other thing that you need to do in the AAC app that is very very important at lea so you don't really need to do too much about that there's also one other thing that you need to do in the AAC app that is very very important at least for this version combination again like I mentioned AAC has a version mesh tastic has a version and the plug-in has a version number and they all get updated by different people and different teams at different times and sometimes there's a little bit of wonkiness between all of them um but I've noticed that on this particular version you absolutely have to make sure to set the region inside the aack app even if you have done it in mesh tastic before so this is one of those things that just make sure you do it or else you're not you're going to be frustrated it took me a while to figure this out that you have to actually go inad and select us now you should be good to go um your mesh tastic devices uh once you duplicate this on the other phone will start talking to one another and exchanging data one of the other settings you might want to check and and change is the mode and speed so this is just a standard mesh tastic setting uh basically with mesh tastic you can have either fast or long range but not both um right here in the mi this is just a standard mesh tastic setting uh basically with mesh tastic you can have either fast or long range but not both um right here in the middle uh this medium range and and fast is kind of the middle ground where you're going to get a medium range uh whatever that means for your environment and a decently fast transmission speed this is good for AAC because again if you're using ATAC to send messages in a sort of tactical environment you don't want to send you don't want to have a refresh rate of like a minute or more um that's why the uh longer range settings and these slower speeds are not recommended for use with aack again you can choose whichever speed you want um I found that the medium range works well for me and the rest of the team here uh seems to work just fine and uh it allows us to send messages decently fast but also with a a decently good range as well so once we've got everything configured we've got everything on the same mesh tastic Channel sharing the same QR code and everything we can actually see each other's devices in our contacts so if we go to contacts on both devices here we can see that phone one is there and phone two is there and we could sen ther's devices in our contacts so if we go to contacts on both devices here we can see that phone one is there and phone two is there and we could send messages back and forth actually we could send let's just see here let me go ahead and type one out just to show you the keyboard does work test one and send it and there we go it already appeared on this device over here you just click the little geoch chat icon and there you go test one let's go ahead and respond uh aack is pretty cool because it has these little little icons here you click send Roger and then wait just a second and it should come through on this other device here decently quickly so that's pretty cool uh you also don't have to send just text messages back and forth using the mesh tastic devices to communicate you can send other data as well so let's go ahead and illustrate that let's drop a point here let's drop an enemy contact off to the off to the West here let's get rid of that and let's say all right cool uh this particular phone just saw this particular contact at this at this grid location let's go ahead and send it to the other device so uh let's go ahead and tap your icon there open up the icons menu and t at this at this grid location let's go ahead and send it to the other device so uh let's go ahead and tap your icon there open up the icons menu and there we have information about the point now what you can do is Click down here at the bottom you can set it to Auto send so that if I change the location of this it will send it automatically which is pretty cool as you can see boom it already appeared on this device but if you wanted to specify who in your group it's sent to uh you can send it to specific contacts and I'll send it again and there we go these devices are again communicating on just mesh tastic which is pretty cool so that's how you can use mesh tastic to send and receive data back and forth now of course the the more amounts of data you use the quicker you're going to run through your mesh tastic battery and your phone battery as well so that's something to keep in mind so why would something like this be useful well there are many different reasons but especially in today's world I think a lot of people are trying to figure out ways of making their Communications a bit more secure a bit more censorship proof uh especially without using cellular or internet-based T figure out ways of making their Communications a bit more secure a bit more censorship proof uh especially without using cellular or internet-based Technologies and mesh networks just the very nature of how mesh networks in general work is very good for that so what would this look like in real life well let's say that we live here in this city and we have a group of friends who live in various places across town and they need the ability to communicate with each other and share information and share data without using the internet and without using a cell tower now you can use radios for that conventional handheld radios but what if you want to use your handheld radios for like voice Communications and you don't want to have to constantly send each other updated positions and things like that well a mesh Network like mesh tastic would be great for this because if every single person had a mesh tastic device and had aack running and things like that they would be able to share their location and other data with each other seamlessly this would allow each person to serve as a node so that everyone can talk to everyone else this means that mesh networks like mesh tastic are very ver this would allow each person to serve as a node so that everyone can talk to everyone else this means that mesh networks like mesh tastic are very very resilient especially when operating in less an ideal conditions or in non-permissive environments for instance if this guy right here gets either struck in some kind of war zone or gets raided or something like that and that node goes offline well the rest of the network can still survive without that particular node now again everyone has to have at least a few connections to a node so like this guy up here uh if if he is not connected but to just one person and that node gets taken offline well he's kind of out of luck but again this is where the resiliency of mesh networks come in because all you would need to do is set up an additional node uh somewhere else in the city to bridge the gap and then there you go this guy is connected to everybody else once again and considering the highly mobile nature of mesh tastic it's a simple little device it's very cheap they cost about 25 bucks and the software is all free so really you can set up a lot of different repeaters all over your city and that way you can make sure that you have a and the software is all free so really you can set up a lot of different repeaters all over your city and that way you can make sure that you have a very very resilient network but that's just mesh tastic that's just what mesh tastic can do by itself why do we need it to talk to AAC AAC is a very specific Suite of software the TAC Suite of software is is made for a very specific use for a very specific set of users mostly a military use and really AAC isn't really worth very much unless it can communicate with other Tac devices if you're by yourself and you're using AAC on your phone and you don't have it connected to anything else you don't have it connected to a server or via a radio to anybody else you're going to find that AAC is a little bit lackluster you're going to find that it doesn't really have very much use but if it's connected to other devices in a mesh Network like mesh tastic ah well there it could shine so let's say that this group of friends is living in the worst case scenario which would be in a war zone let's just say this city turns into a war zone and this guy right here is you know doing his job and he is setting up an observation post to kind of monitor tr t say this city turns into a war zone and this guy right here is you know doing his job and he is setting up an observation post to kind of monitor traffic and see what's going on here and there and let's just say that he Witnesses a mechanized infantry unit moving across this bridge well if he has aack using mesh tastic as the radio what he can do is drop that on his map and boom that gets instantly sent to every other node in the network all without using the internet and all without using a cell tower this is very handy especially if you're living in a non-permissive environment or you're trying to plan for the worst case scenario and make your Communications plan a lot more survivable and resilient even in the worst case scenario and speaking of worst case scenarios let's throw in another Factor electronic warfare let's say that an enemy jamming unit moves into this area and starts just jamming the signals uh from this side of the city south of the river here well of course you're going to have these two nodes within the realm of jamming uh go offline but as you can see the rest of the network still functions so obviously if there's any kind of jamming these mesh tastic devices jamming uh go offline but as you can see the rest of the network still functions so obviously if there's any kind of jamming these mesh tastic devices put out such a very low power there's really no way that you can overcome jamming of of really any kind uh with a mesh tastic device but again if that jamming were to go away uh these nodes would again reconnect to the rest of the network which is very handy handy but jamming itself is going to be very very difficult to do as we'll touch on here in just a second but what if there isn't jamming going on what if we have a more likely scenario such as enemy interception and Direction finding units moving into the area so you've got an electronic surveillance station set up that's just listening for any kind of signals in the area and you've got a couple of Direction finding units that are sweeping around trying to find out where signals are coming from well for one mesh tastic signals are in encrypted with AES 256bit encryption so it's going to be almost impossible for anyone to break that communication there are I'm sure there are ways it can be done but for the most part like we've mentioned before AES 256 is really the best you're go communication there are I'm sure there are ways it can be done but for the most part like we've mentioned before AES 256 is really the best you're going to get and AES 256 is really so secure that I personally wouldn't really worry about it I'm not worried about it myself what I am worried about is Direction finding that's a much more big threat because it doesn't really matter if you encrypt your signals with the most best encryption you could possibly find if someone can narrow down your uh transmission site well that can give you that can give an adversary information about you but here's the cool part about mesh tastic mesh tastic uses the 9915 MHz band here in the United States in other countries that's different you have to buy different mesh tastic device depending on where you're at in the world but for the most part every country has a very very small part of the bandwidth uh part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is for uh commercial use this is a set of frequencies a very small range that can be used without a license in the United States provided you abide by power levels you can't go out blasting 1,000 Watts on 915 megaherz that's just doesn't work like that but th n the United States provided you abide by power levels you can't go out blasting 1,000 Watts on 915 megaherz that's just doesn't work like that but the reason that this is so significant is that so many other different kinds of sources use 9915 MHz everything from traffic toll booths to Smart devices like a refrigerator or something like that or uh your electronic um power meter uses these a lot of times to transmit data wirelessly uh traffic lights in some areas use this so really a lot of devices in a city especially in a modern world use 900 the 915 MHz band to transmit on so what does this mean for direction finding well with so many different kinds of devices running on 915 MHz if someone were to try to Direction find 915 MHz signals in a city this is what it would look like they would find signals everywhere this means that for all intents and purposes 915 MHz and specifically mesh tastic devices that operate on these frequencies have what we call a low probability of intercept meaning that we recognize that in the world of radio communications there is no real way to make a radio signal impossible to detect by an outside force you're always if transmitting something on the r o communications there is no real way to make a radio signal impossible to detect by an outside force you're always if transmitting something on the radio waves you're going to someone else is going to be able to pick that up but mesh tastic devices since they use this very unique frequency and it's a very hard to detect frequency in the first place but it's also there because there's so much background noise and mesh tastic is using so little power to transmit this means that mesh tastic is a great great option for communicating in an environment in which you know there's electronic surveillance so with all of this being said is mesh tastic and AAC together a complete solution to a Communications problem the answer to that is no attac and mesh tastic even by themselves or even when working together are not a complete solution we actually see this a lot in the military as well an over Reliance on AAC is currently resulting in a lot of cool dudes losing a lot of skills the number of special operators that get lost because they were relying on attack alone to navigate is astounding So currently our military forces are dealing with a loss of skills due to an overreliance on this kind ying on attack alone to navigate is astounding So currently our military forces are dealing with a loss of skills due to an overreliance on this kind of technology so if we were to rephrase the question a little bit by saying is mesh tastic and attac a good way to supplement your other comms while providing an infrastructure for sharing geospatial data well the answer to that is yes but again in the civilian sector another downfall rears its ugly head and that is that a lot of people think that aack is the greatest things since sliced bread simply because they see a cell phone on a cool guy's plate carrier remember AAC was developed for the military for military use it's great that today we're seeing people make this software suite more useful for the civilian sector that's great and we would love to see more of that but do not feel pressured to use aack if you do not have a use for it a lot of people get caught up in using aack just for the sake of the technology and because it's cool and they don't actually have a real end use for it remember no Communications plan is foolproof there is no perfect solution to any of this in the communications world we unfortunately have to live w t remember no Communications plan is foolproof there is no perfect solution to any of this in the communications world we unfortunately have to live with compromises on pretty much everything there is no goldilock Zone when it comes to Communications this radio is not secure enough or this radio is too expensive or impossible to buy as a civilian or this one has expensive accessories to make it work or batteries that are hard to find and this setup is no different one glaringly obvious vulnerability of this system is the Bluetooth the connection between the phone and the mesh tastic board again it doesn't matter how secure your mesh tastic 9915 MHz communication is if someone close to you can easily exploit that Bluetooth connection a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and some people might find that vulnerability unacceptable I myself would agree that Bluetooth in a combat situation is probably not ideal but what about anything less than a total war situation I'm myself willing to live with the mcon concerns that Bluetooth brings in some situations but others may not other people might not have a problem with the Bluetooth seeing as the dod is itself incorporating Bluetoo rings in some situations but others may not other people might not have a problem with the Bluetooth seeing as the dod is itself incorporating Bluetooth into a lot of their new devices but they might be skeptical of the aack app itself since it is created by the military there is a lot of mystery there that's its own can of worms and some people might not like that either and that's fine I think that Sid loading the app and never turning on Wi-Fi seems like a a good option but some people might not want to do that the point is mesh tastic might be a good option to actually get some use out of the tools that AAC provides in a mostly seamless way I honestly think that this combination is the first major breakthrough that makes attack worth it for civilian use I can take this setup and be sitting at a coffee shop observing and collecting information and no one would be the wiser because I can keep the mesh tastic board in a pocket I'm just some guy flipping through a smartphone at a coffee shop good luck trying to Route cables to a radio in an environment like that and with that I can communicate to a buddy across town who's out for a casual hike and doesn't want to bring several poun in an environment like that and with that I can communicate to a buddy across town who's out for a casual hike and doesn't want to bring several pounds of tactical equipment along I can cover an entire city with dozens of mesh tastic devices functioning as repeaters for a fraction of what even just one high power repeater would cost and since they are so small even with an attached solar panel one could hide them in a lot of places where a repeater might not be able to fit and if one gets detected or stolen or lost it's not a big deal because it only cost me 25 bucks yeah the Bluetooth is a bit unfortunate for some situations and sure AAC isn't perfect or even useful all the time every situation will be different and everyone will have different levels of what they deem to be acceptable levels of risk would I trust my life to this setup no but I also wouldn't trust my life to AAC running on a government phone hooked up to a $5,000 radio either it's a communication tool to make some things easier that's it and now that we've been testing AAC with mesh tastic for a few months now this seems like this might be pretty handy to have especially at the price point of buying a $25 board a ing AAC with mesh tastic for a few months now this seems like this might be pretty handy to have especially at the price point of buying a $25 board and some free open source software which is why we wanted to show everyone how to link up AAC with mesh tastic because even though this is really still in development this technology works very well right now and will only get better over time so check it out and see if AAC and mesh tastic could be valuable additions to your Communications plan