Provided is process of operating a wireless device configured to act as a node in an ad hoc multi-hop mobile network, the process including: snooping, with a wireless device, a packet transmitted from a sending node to a receiving node in a multi-hop wireless connection, the sending node and the receiving node being in a different location; extracting from the snooped packet an identifier of the sending node and an identifier of the receiving node; determining based on the identifier of the sending node, the identifier of the receiving node, and a record in memory of the wireless device that the wireless device is part of a multi-hop wireless connection including the sending node and the receiving node; determining that a signal strength of a signal conveying the snooped packet exceeds a threshold; and transmitting a kill packet to the sending node and the receiving node that reconfigures the multi-hop wireless connection to bypass the receiving node.