The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network • Hacker News Board

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#21

Post by peterwwillis » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:14 PM UTC

I'd like to note that "the Internet" is a vast, broadly-scoped amalgamation of routers and different network topologies. They don't use one kind of hardware or software to manage it all. Any successor or parallel alternative network should be as (if not more) flexible to achieve it's goals.

I'd also like to suggest that the network be powered purely by standard Internet client machines and off-the-shelf hardware. Custom software would be necessary, but it's better to rely on a random guy with a quick installer on a USB key than custom hardware mesh routers deployed by professional installers.

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#22

Post by wmf » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:14 PM UTC

law wrote: post #8

After reading the article and skimming some posts on their subreddit, I think the idea generally concerns the capabilities of consumer electronics to 'replicate' the Internet in a completely decentralized fashion. By doing so, there's no central authority managing your packets, and if you want to visit a particular node (i.e., to visit a web site), the problem becomes analogous to the stochastic shortest path problem…

There has been some work in this area:

http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/~caesar/papers/rofl.pdf http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/~pasquini/artigos/sbrc_2009.pd... http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/homes/pbg/papers/Scalable_Routing_on_...

None of these find shortest paths; they aim to find paths that are within a constant factor of shortest.

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#23

Post by pyre » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:35 PM UTC

law wrote: post #18

joelthelion wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most NP-complete problems can be approximated quickly enough for practical purposes. Decentralized routing is a hard problem, but there has been a lot of research with pretty convincing results. I'm not sure if it scales to the size of the internet, though.

That's the point, though: I don't know if you can find an 'approximate' solution to decentralized routing, since you need precision. Do you have any peer-reviewed articles evidencing these convincing results? I'd be extremely interested in learning some more about this.

Who is the current centralized authority that figures out the shortest routes today?

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#24

Post by TillE » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:35 PM UTC

mike-cardwell wrote: post #7

conanite wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overlaying on existing infrastructure is a faster way to get up and running, but ultimately a darknet that depends on another network is vulnerable to that network's centralized 'off' button.

This is true. I think it's the only practical approach given current technology though. When somebody comes up with a £50 home wifi access point that has a range of a mile or more inside an urban environment, that is when we'll get a proper darknet.

Why would you need a mile in an urban environment? Trace out a circle with that radius in Google Earth; it's an absurd range.

The idea is that you have a pretty high density of users. 100 meters would be more than enough to cross any street and reach several buildings away in any direction. Even in an American suburb, it'd reach a few houses away. That's a realistic goal: 100 meters, not 1600.

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#25

Post by law » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:43 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #23

law wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point, though: I don't know if you can find an 'approximate' solution to decentralized routing, since you need precision. Do you have any peer-reviewed articles evidencing these convincing results? I'd be extremely interested in learning some more about this.

Who is the current centralized authority that figures out the shortest routes today?

Difference in definitions: I read "approximate solution" as an "approximate route," as in the node choices are approximated (potentially leading to a wrong final node, or losing packets at a dead end). Instead, finding approximately the shortest route that doesn't lose packets and gets you to the correct node would presumably work.

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#26

Post by dwiel » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:46 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #24

mike-cardwell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. I think it's the only practical approach given current technology though. When somebody comes up with a £50 home wifi access point that has a range of a mile or more inside an urban environment, that is when we'll get a proper darknet.

Why would you need a mile in an urban environment? Trace out a circle with that radius in Google Earth; it's an absurd range. The idea is that you have a pretty high density of users. 100 meters would be more than enough to cross any street and reach several buildings away in any direction. Even in an American suburb, it'd reach a few houses away. That's a realistic goal: 100 meters, not 1600.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that part of what makes the longer range nice is that it requires fewer hops and thus lower latency.

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#27

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

mike-cardwell wrote: post #17

conanite wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overlaying on existing infrastructure is a faster way to get up and running, but ultimately a darknet that depends on another network is vulnerable to that network's centralized 'off' button.

Perhaps the best design would allow both. A darknet which seemlessly routes over independent mesh networks and the Internet. Ultimately, the Internet is going to have to play a part in such a network. How else is data going to travel between cities and across oceans?

Between cities? In the cars of people who bring their laptop with them home from work.

Across oceans? Never underestimate the speed of a ten foot container filled with 2 terabyte harddrive :)

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#28

Post by amalcon » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

law wrote: post #8

After reading the article and skimming some posts on their subreddit, I think the idea generally concerns the capabilities of consumer electronics to 'replicate' the Internet in a completely decentralized fashion. By doing so, there's no central authority managing your packets, and if you want to visit a particular node (i.e., to visit a web site), the problem becomes analogous to the stochastic shortest path problem…

You really just need to find some reasonable route. Your current routes are very unlikely to be the shortest / cheapest / metric of choice; they are mostly decided politically.

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#29

Post by mike-cardwell » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #27

mike-cardwell wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the best design would allow both. A darknet which seemlessly routes over independent mesh networks and the Internet. Ultimately, the Internet is going to have to play a part in such a network. How else is data going to travel between cities and across oceans?

Between cities? In the cars of people who bring their laptop with them home from work. Across oceans? Never underestimate the speed of a ten foot container filled with 2 terabyte harddrive :)

This darknet wont be supporting IM then? ;)

Re: The Darknet Project: netroots activists dream of global mesh network

#30

Post by mike-cardwell » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:56 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #24

mike-cardwell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. I think it's the only practical approach given current technology though. When somebody comes up with a £50 home wifi access point that has a range of a mile or more inside an urban environment, that is when we'll get a proper darknet.

Why would you need a mile in an urban environment? Trace out a circle with that radius in Google Earth; it's an absurd range. The idea is that you have a pretty high density of users. 100 meters would be more than enough to cross any street and reach several buildings away in any direction. Even in an American suburb, it'd reach a few houses away. That's a realistic goal: 100 meters, not 1600.

Because none of my neighbours will have the hardware. And if they don't have it, I'm not getting it because it's a waste of my time.

If you expand the number of neighbours to all of those that are within a mile of me, you increase the likelyhood of finding somebody by a large amount. I would buy kit just because I'd be interested in finding these people.

Chicken/Egg etc