Shutting off digital communication is a new addition to the dictator’s tool kit. Fortunately, in a world full of hackers, technology is hard to control, even for autocrats.

Hackers are creating a way for citizens to build their own communication networks from the ground up, using computers, cellphones, and wireless routers. Such networks — called mobile ad hoc networks, or MANETs — would circumvent centralized communication hubs, enabling users to talk and share information in the face of a shutdown.

The Open Technology Initiative — part of the public-policy think tank New America Foundation — recently received a US $2 million grant from the Department of State to help coordinate its MANET development effort, called Commotion Wireless.

Commotion’s ultimate vision is to build software packages for cellphones, laptops, and wireless routers that would be able to create both Wi-Fi and cellular networks on the fly. Once a network is established, even people who haven’t installed the software could connect. And if any node in a Wi-Fi network is connected to the Internet — a router with a directional antenna has a range that is tens of kilometers and could easily cross a border — then everyone in the network would have access.