Cyborg Resilience Co-lab — Media

CNA Coverage: Lee Tzu-Tung’s Solo Exhibition “Mercy and Vengeance in the Bardo” in Sweden

2026-07-01T00:00:00+08:00

Thank you to CNA for the coverage!

CRC artist #LeeTzuTung recently presented the solo exhibition Mercy and Vengeance in the Bardo in Sweden. Through artworks and workshops, the exhibition considered forms of violence ranging from gender-based violence to posthuman warfare, as well as how people can seek possibilities for healing and resistance within them.

Among the works, The Temple of the Wandering Daughter continues our shared exploration at CRC of posthuman warfare, drones, and the politics of technology. As war becomes both “remote” and “everyday,” and as machines, algorithms, and infrastructure are increasingly weaponized, how can we rebuild relationships, memory, and resistance?

Rti Coverage: Taiwan’s Community Meshtastic Coverage Has Reached 80%

2026-06-15T00:00:00+08:00

Special thanks to Rti for its coverage!

“Sean Ching said that the community had only about 50 members in its early days but has now grown to nearly 20,000 people across Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hualien, and other parts of Taiwan, with an estimated 1,000-plus devices in operation… As more and more people build their own systems, coverage across Taiwan has reached approximately 80%, and Meshtastic can now be used to communicate in most inhabited areas.”

Does communicating by Mesh sound a little more feasible than pulling a battery from an electric scooter?

But how should radio waves that bounce from point to point adapt to cities full of walls and interference, and to the opposite conditions found in rural and mountainous areas?

One session on CRC’s digital resilience track at g0v Summit 2026. The headlines excerpted below capture the report’s key points:

Meshtastic: Build Your Own Offline LINE in One Afternoon for NT$1,000
Meshtastic Taiwan Community Coverage Has Reached 80%
Is Meshtastic Really a Good Communications Alternative?
Do Ordinary People Need to Prepare Meshtastic?

Rti Coverage: Communications Resilience During Internet and Power Outages

2026-06-08T00:00:00+08:00

Special thanks to Rti for its coverage!

“But when a power-grid outage shuts down cellular base stations, how can a household power its Wi-Fi router? Michael explained that routers generally require only 10 to 28 volts, so vehicle battery modules, such as electric-vehicle batteries, are a particularly convenient and readily available source of electricity in an emergency and can ensure that internal communications networks continue to function soundly.”

BUT, but, but—the situation above is only an emergency simulation. Do not reach for the nearest electric-vehicle battery station just yet; be careful not to break the law 🔋

One session on CRC’s digital resilience track at g0v Summit 2026. The headlines excerpted below capture the report’s key points:

Confronting an internet-outage crisis: real-world experience from Ukraine and Myanmar
If every subsea cable is severed, LINE may fail even if its data center is in Taiwan
Ukraine: building domestic communications networks with alternatives to both Facebook and LINE
Could PTT become Taiwan’s version of dComms?
What happens when the power goes out? The Gogoro battery on your street corner
What should we prepare before a crisis arrives?

Offline Mission Accomplished: On-Site Report from g0v Summit 2026

2026-05-24T00:00:00+08:00

Thank you to everyone who took part in the “Offline Action”!

More than 180 participant turns, 67 minutes of relay pedaling, and a total distance of 9.2 km on a flywheel generator sent a steady stream of resilience messages to the Meshbridge message board. Dozens of participants at the venue also connected successfully to the message board over Wi-Fi. Better still, Reticulum robots exchanged 6,759 messages over two days—enough to make us wonder whether they were secretly developing a social circle of their own!?

CRC hereby formally declares: this Offline Action was mission accomplished!

Thanks to #g0vsummit2026 and OpenFun for their collaboration.

Slides from Our Panel Discussion at g0v Summit 2026

2026-05-24T00:00:00+08:00

Presentation links from the digital resilience event series at g0v Summit 2026:

Digital Lifeline: Everything You Need to Know About Subsea Cables

Sean Chou: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pj9pSy5K9w1ehX5dsC7cOoDFwmkwbCS2cEdn2K981sc/edit (All rights reserved)
Athena Tong: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X0F9t83NNC7mw5-82mB0jen2mLDl2EdU/view (All rights reserved)
CHENG PENG: https://paulpengtw.github.io/crccolab-implications-of-internet-traffics-drop-to-50-percent-and-what-to-do/ (License: CC BY-SA 4.0)

After the Blackout: Off-grid Communication Solutions in Ukraine, Myanmar and Taiwan

Sean Ching: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OhzajvjjwuUDTEJsLs23il_z6JHUp86_YGE6GeM3hGY/edit (License: Beerware)
Aidan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kf45_w129YS3GOH7H_hPnFn-o1cOOsyC/view
Michael Suantak: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GSPfOFlLUVFZg3a49uUmzgSovpkLntdc/view

Slides on Subsea Cables and Meshtastic Taiwan, Invited by RSF

2026-05-06T00:00:00+08:00

Thanks to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for inviting us to share about the subsea cable issue and the Meshtastic Taiwan community. The presentation slide decks follow:

CHENG PENG’s slide deck: https://paulpengtw.github.io/crccolab-May-6-2026-why-cable-cuts-matters/ (License: CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sean Ching’s slide deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12XXii10OHNy3xO8sI9PzjoscqG5FojyzFT7FaBgDScc/edit (License: Beerware)

Kuma Academy: “When the Internet Goes Down, No One Has a Backup Plan”

2026-04-20T00:00:00+08:00

“It is precisely because the internet is so convenient that when it goes down, no one has a backup plan.”

This observation arose from Sean Ching’s survey and review of Taiwan’s communications infrastructure. Thanks to the efforts of people working in the relevant organizations, Taiwan’s telecommunications networks have not experienced a large-scale outage lasting more than half a day in recent years. If an outage occurs in a major city, it can generally be resolved within 24 hours. Yet this very convenience leads us to take the internet and electricity for granted, like air—so people panic intensely when the internet goes down. For this reason, civil society has begun researching and discussing Meshtastic as another communications backup.

How Far Do Communications Actually Need to Reach?

Most people commute for 30 to 60 minutes each day, equivalent to a typical range of approximately 10 to 30 kilometers. In other words, when a disaster occurs and communications are interrupted during the gap before repairs are completed, people do not need long-distance communications between Taipei and Kaohsiung. They want to know whether family and friends are safe in a short-term, localized emergency—and that is precisely the setting in which Mesh performs best. In theory, point-to-point communications can reach 3 to 5 kilometers even in a concrete urban jungle full of interference. With relay capabilities, Mesh can easily cover an ordinary commuting range; in open terrain, the distance can increase dramatically to 30 kilometers.

Experience from Taiwan’s Community

Taiwan’s largest Mesh Facebook group, “Meshtastic Taiwan Community (Taiwan Mesh Network),” includes many experienced members who can help answer all kinds of questions encountered while operating Mesh. More importantly, Taiwan’s community created the “MESHTW” channel so enthusiasts could contact one another and run tests. A stable communications network has now formed across northern Taiwan. Sean also reminded members of small teams to test their equipment periodically and establish trusted communications networks and rules of use within trusted circles.

The Latest Application: “Meshbridge Message Board”

Using Mesh still requires every user to have a hardware device and a mobile app—but could “a group own just one device, yet share its network and use it to communicate with the outside world”? Motivated by this possibility, Sean and fellow enthusiasts combined Mesh with a Raspberry Pi to complete the Wi-Fi-enabled Meshbridge project. Even users without Mesh hardware can connect directly to the Mesh communications network using their phone’s Wi-Fi, then open a Chrome page to chat and leave messages. By greatly lowering the technical and financial barriers to promoting Mesh communications backups in residential buildings, this is an exciting Mesh development project.

(This article was compiled and written by Kuma Academy.)

DSET Coverage: Comparing Taiwan’s and Ukraine’s Cyber Defense Experience

2026-04-10T00:00:00+08:00

On March 25, DSET Adjunct Research Fellow Jen-Wei Chang represented the institute at the “Digital Resilience Forum,” organized by Cyborg Resilience Co-lab (CRC) under the theme “Subsea Cables and Network Infrastructure under Geopolitical Pressure.” He shared experience from #Ukraine’sWartimeCybersecurityAndCommunicationsOperations and offered policy recommendations for Taiwan.

This Digital Resilience Forum was jointly advanced by communities including Cyborg Resilience Co-lab (CRC), g0v.tw Taiwan Zero Government, and the Open Culture Foundation. It was moderated by CRC co-founder Meichun Lee and Open Culture Foundation CEO Hsin-Ying Lee. DSET participated in the forum’s second session, joining representatives from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, and civil technical communities to discuss digital resilience.

Drawing on cases of wartime cyberattacks in Ukraine, Jen-Wei Chang explained that digital resilience is not improvised only after a crisis begins; it is grounded in ordinary network infrastructure and the capacity for rapid wartime coordination. He said that Ukraine not only has a more diverse network structure and cross-border interconnection conditions, but has also kept critical communications operating during the war through measures including #NationalRoaming, #SatelliteBridging, #EmergencySpectrum, #BackupPower, and #ContinuousRepairs. The latter combined-response approach is especially worthy of Taiwan’s attention.

He further noted that although Starlink is important, it is not a stand-alone solution that can operate independently of existing infrastructure. Taiwan’s urgent priority is to build a national network architecture that is multilayered, uses multiple providers, and can allocate resources by priority level, while taking stock of risks involving coordination across operators, routing sovereignty, and domain governance.

Because Taiwan relies heavily on subsea cables for international communications, core issues that must be clarified early include maintaining priority for essential traffic, service outages that overseas rerouting may cause, and whether critical control layers can operate independently within Taiwan. Communications governance issues involving DNS and BGP also require international cooperation. Incident reporting, forensic collaboration, and overseas backup mechanisms between Taiwan and its allies still need further institutionalization and transparency.

Jen-Wei Chang said that Taiwan’s next step should place “continuous operation” at the heart of digital resilience, strengthen redundancy at critical nodes, and use combined exercises across agencies and operators to transform international experience into locally viable solutions.

(This article was written and compiled by DSET.)

Event Recap: Digital Resilience Forum, First Session

2026-04-01T00:00:00+08:00

As a child, I thought that when a subsea cable broke, the internet broke: I was on this side, and the world was on the other. As an adult, I thought that full signal bars meant service, never realizing that the homepage was on this side while the data was on the other. Only after the first subsea cable forum did I understand that a real disconnection does not mean having no signal. It means everything appears connected, yet everything you can use is on the other side of the sea.

Highlights from the speakers in “Section 1: Subsea Cable Topics and Technical Reports”—to understand subsea cables and internet risks, let us look at this side, here at home, before looking at the other side overseas.

Three Speakers and Two Projects on the Structural Risks in Taiwan’s Domestic Internet

The complexity of “internet services” comes from connections both within Taiwan and across borders, as well as an intricate layered structure. Even if only some subsea cables are severed and outbound internet traffic falls by 50%, users may still experience internet services failing layer by layer under conditions of “congestion collapse” and as authentication and authorization credentials expire one after another. Identifying which layer fails, what it affects, and how it can be reinforced is the key to an effective response.

Risk 1: Domestic internet routing and peering are matters of business models. If local telecom providers do not peer with one another, or if they “cannot agree on transit fees,” services that could have interconnected within Taiwan may instead be routed through overseas paths such as the United States or Japan before returning. Ordinarily, this adds only 20–30 milliseconds, but the risk rises rapidly once traffic is throttled or subsea cables malfunction.

Risk 2: Subsea cable information is opaque, making problems difficult to see. The composition and segmented functions of domestic and international subsea cables are complex. Before a dynamic subsea cable map existed, telecom companies often shifted responsibility for slower internet speeds to upstream or downstream vendors, digital service providers, or other outside parties, making it difficult for ordinary people to pinpoint the problem accurately. Once open-source intelligence (OSINT) and other public geospatial data are consolidated into visualized information, subsea cable status becomes trackable. This can help everyone recognize that slower internet and failed services are not necessarily problems with a single provider or website.

Risk 3: Taiwan has not sufficiently inventoried essential digital infrastructure services. The “Digital Service Resilience Testing” project surveyed the homepages of the 2,000 most commonly used website services and found that 89% of websites are at risk when subsea cables are severed. Any involvement of layered infrastructure such as domestic and international data centers, nodes, cloud services, hosts, and servers can expose a service to disruption; cloud services, for example, are highly concentrated among providers such as Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare. At the same time, the 11% that passed the test are not necessarily truly safe: their databases, apps, third-party resource services, and other pages may not be hosted in Taiwan. Taiwan’s real problem is not simply whether subsea cables will break, but which services matter most, where their chains of dependency lie, and how many are already bound to infrastructure overseas.

What Taiwan Should Do Next

Make subsea cable information and measures more open and transparent, including abnormal conditions, repair progress, and risk explanations. Taiwan should also promote routine testing and disclosure so that vulnerabilities in essential digital services can be seen before an incident occurs.
Expand domestic peering channels and encourage cooperative interconnection among telecom providers. This would reduce the amount of traffic that could be routed domestically but is instead forced overseas, lowering risks when subsea cable capacity is constrained.
Inventory the dependency chains of public infrastructure and essential digital services as soon as possible, and establish backup plans inside and outside Taiwan, including data centers, cloud services, authentication mechanisms, and critical systems that support people’s basic needs.
Much—more—public education, so that society understands the relationships among subsea cables, the internet, and digital services.

Constraints Imposed by Governance beyond Taiwan on Subsea Cable Issues

Constraint 1: National borders. Under the United Nations system, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea established boundaries for maritime jurisdiction: territorial seas may extend no more than 12 nautical miles, while contiguous zones may extend to 24 nautical miles. Thus, although subsea cables may appear to be borderless infrastructure, a nearby government cannot simply send a ship to repair a break wherever it occurs. Maritime jurisdiction, vessel authority, and international coordination are also involved. These constraints greatly limit subsea cable tracking, protection, and repair, make it difficult to grasp conditions promptly, and often require catching perpetrators in the act before they can be held accountable.

Constraint 2: Financial realities. Public authorities cannot simply send government vessels into another country’s waters to address subsea cable problems. Could the private sector solve the problem through commercial ports? Once commerce is involved, funding comes first. Large work vessels truly capable of repairing subsea cables have a basic construction cost of approximately US$100–300 million, while specialized work vessels cost approximately US$15 million per year to operate. Moreover, telecom companies earn most of their revenue from laying new subsea cables, not repairing them, which makes maintenance itself less likely to become an area the market naturally prioritizes.

Managing Digital Infrastructure with a “Disaster Prevention” Mindset

Because the governance constraints described above make rebuilding and maintaining subsea cables extremely difficult, risk management should follow a linear before, during, and after-disaster framework.

Before a disaster: Reduce the likelihood that subsea cables will be damaged—raise the cost of sabotage through fines, confiscation of tools, deeper burial, physical protection, and early-warning systems. At the same time, minimize impacts by continuing to add backup cables, maintain systems, and back up data. International cooperation should also be encouraged, matching resources so that operators can build more subsea cables and maintenance systems.
During a disaster: Once a subsea cable is interrupted, the priority is to switch traffic to backup cables or systems as quickly as possible, while tracking the situation through the subsea cable information section, operator reports, and interagency collaboration.
After a disaster: Taiwan still relies on foreign repair vessels for support. Beyond accelerating repairs, the more important work afterward is to review the cause of the interruption, press the industry to strengthen security protections, and continue promoting interagency collaboration.

Community Perspectives and Lessons from Other Countries

From the community’s perspective, the concern behind the subsea cable issue is how society can continue to function when the internet goes down or slows dramatically. Rather than discussing only the worst-case scenario, it is more important to turn risks involving different degrees of interruption and different causes into scenarios; identify the most probable, highest-risk situations requiring priority response; and then use community collaboration and practical exercises to turn responses from ideas into practice. Conditions along the First Island Chain are relatively similar, so Taiwan can refer to the disaster-preparedness exercise strategies and cooperative repair and defense measures used in countries such as Japan and the Philippines.

The Ukrainian case suggests that Taiwan should learn to think in terms of “combined attacks” and “whole-of-society resilience.” Ukraine has faced not only cyberattacks, but simultaneous pressure on government digital services, power systems, and physical infrastructure. Ukraine can locate off-site backups in European Union countries—but what can Taiwan do? Comparing these real-world cases further underscores the need for Taiwan to think ahead about cross-domain collaboration: whether data center control layers can operate within Taiwan, how essential traffic should be allocated, and how central and local governments can coordinate with one another during outages of different scales.

Rti Coverage: Digital Resilience Forum — Subsea Cables, Traffic, and Response Strategies

2026-03-27T00:00:00+08:00

Thank you to Rti for its detailed coverage of our event! Here are the key points:

Internet Access May Fail Even If Not All Subsea Cables Are Severed

Even if only half of the subsea cables are severed and Taiwan is not completely cut off from the world, collapse caused by congestion could bring the fundamental functions that keep the internet running to a halt. For users in practice, the experience could be just like a total outage.

Routing Traffic Overseas Is “Less Efficient and Riskier” but More Profitable

Internet service providers can manage traffic by allowing more important content to take priority over certain uses. CHENG PENG emphasized that in a crisis, ISPs can choose “whom to save.” This also highlights how ISPs ordinarily have the power to decide to “route your traffic overseas and then back again, rather than peer locally.”

There Are Multiple Ways to Respond to Subsea Cable Outages

Hsin-I Chen said that people previously viewed subsea cables as a commercial issue and only realized in the past two years that “subsea cables are also part of geopolitics.” As Taiwanese society pays more attention to subsea cables, it can strengthen measures to protect their security while also raising the cost to China of taking action against them.

He then offered two recommendations:

The Ministry of Digital Affairs could publish more real-time data about subsea cables, allowing developers to connect through APIs and learn “where a cable broke,” “why it broke,” and other information, thereby strengthening public awareness and vigilance.
Taiwan should build more subsea cables, particularly in the “waters off the east coast,” where the sea becomes deep immediately beyond the coast. Compared with the waters off western Taiwan, cables there would be less vulnerable to damage, making the area highly suitable.