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In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

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Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#51

Post by slowpoke »

1010101111001 wrote: post #8

I think it comes down to what the goals are. If the goal is to connect peer to peer with a small group of people you know in person and can trust, I see great potential. People congregate in small groups. Facebook friends, Skype contacts, etc. The advantage here is that third parties like Facebook, Microsoft and a gazillion advertisers are not involved. If it's small like that, it's doable as an overlay without using…

>and where kids are allowed to do all the things they're not allowed to do legally on the www, I see big problems.

How in the seven hells is this a problem of the network protocol? Or any other technology, really? I seriously don't want to take this offtopic, but what you are describing is a problem of the parents/guardians first and foremost, and has absolutely nada to do with the technology we are discussing.

Appeals to emotion like this and the sad truth that they work so well are the exact reason we need decentralized, censorship-resistant networks in the first place. To put it polemically: No, I don't want to "think of the children" because that's the job of their goddamn parents.

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#52

Post by _exec »

CamperBob wrote: post #27

There may be ways to overcome the limitations of mesh networking, as outlined by many people here, but you will need to think outside the mesh, so to speak. It is probably best to think of the mesh as the "last mile" component rather than the backbone. One idea: a $5 laser pointer can be modulated at well over 100 Mbit/s. Everyone in an urban area who can see one side of a building can bounce laser beams off of it. (…

I'm really interested in testing this idea, do you have any links / papers / online projects? All I can find on Google is audio-over-laser projects..

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#53

Post by vidarh »

VigUi7vv8G2 wrote: post #41

Wow, I was just in the IRC channel and people there are saying they don't want exit nodes because of "liability". Completely ridiculous.

Really? What is ridiculous about it? In the face of potential laws like SOPA which requires restrictions on routing traffic to certain destinations, it would seem that worrying about the potential liability of a network with exit nodes allowing traffic to the "regular" internet is exactly something one should worry about.

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#54

Post by skymt »

4dr144n wrote: post #42

The problem has already been fixed. In South Africa, there is a mature, established private Wireless network spanning huge urban areas AND interconnecting them. It's based on cheap 5GHz hardware and directional antennae (mostly yagi). Details here http://www.ptawug.co.za/

The problem isn't how to create a large-scale wireless network. That's not simple, but it's been done. The problem is creating a large-scale, ad-hoc, mesh wireless network, without a central hub that can be shut down.

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#55

Post by samarudge »

Forgive my ineptitude, but how does this differ from 'The Deep Web' available on Tor minus the cable coming out of your house?

While I agree SOPA is a terrible idea, internet censorship and having a central controlling organization (Or group of organizations) isn't such a bad thing. Look at Deep Web, it seems, to me, to be primarily used for illegal operations (drugs trade, child pornography and other nastys). The way I see it, this effort would be much better applied to resolving the issues we have with the current internet, reducing centralization and reliance on ISPs rather than "to shit with the working system lets start again".

And that's not even touching the technical aspects, the internet as we know it still isn't anywhere near perfect (IPV4 as an example). Are they expecting this to happen overnight? Some of the greatest minds of the last few generations have worked to make the internet what it is now, if university's are "experimenting" with this stuff it's clearly a long way from a realistic option.

That being said, wireless technologies are always improving. I'm sure the military already have some similar mesh based network (all be it on a smaller scale) far more advanced than anything we've seen (Assuming this since the majority of technological advances in communication originated from or were improved by the military). It's by no means a worthless project but I think the idea that in 6/12 months you can buy a box that gives you access to an un-modorated, unfiltered, private internet is a little ridiculous

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#56

Post by agentultra »

Not only is the idea itself not unique; other hackers have been working on this for at least a decade with little practical success. It's hard enough covering a city with wifi let alone connecting a mesh network over the air.

Rushkoff and others think it's just a matter of time... I remain skeptical.

How many of the groups members have worked in telecommunications and understand how antennae work, how signal broadcasting and processing works, how OTA protocols are implemented, etc?

You can't build the kind of robustness that we enjoy today out of commodity hardware. If you want a decentralized darknet, you'll probably have to dust off that 56k modem and get used to using fidonet again.

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#57

Post by ap22213 »

These meshnet projects are interesting, and I wish them well.

But... we (democratic republic countries) already have governmental structures that allow for changing laws. Let's just organize and change the laws.

Aside from the industry-paid demagogues' rhetoric of 'STEALING' on the internet, we have to objectively think about this problem. We, the public, define the laws. We define what 'stealing' is. If a majority of the population is violating the so-called law, and it's hard to identify the specific victims of the law or even particular damages, then it's probably not a useful law anymore. Instead of jumping into a subversive massive campaign to overthrow the existing system, let's just use the tools that have been created to deal with these types of situations.

The simple fact is that the Internet and digital content has dramatically changed the way that intellectual property works, and the laws haven't kept up.

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#58

Post by wladimir »

agentultra wrote: post #56

Not only is the idea itself not unique; other hackers have been working on this for at least a decade with little practical success. It's hard enough covering a city with wifi let alone connecting a mesh network over the air. Rushkoff and others think it's just a matter of time... I remain skeptical. How many of the groups members have worked in telecommunications and understand how antennae work, how signal broadcas…

You can't build the kind of robustness that we enjoy today out of commodity hardware.

And that's not needed either. The purpose is communicating with each other in cases that the government brought down or is heavily filtering the internet (like happens in Egypt, Libia, etc), or in case of a disaster. It doesn't have to be as fast, or robust as the internet. 56k is plenty enough if you just want to send messages or small photos.

And in places no internet connectivity exists at all, it's better than nothing. We're just very, very spoiled.

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#59

Post by ap22213 »

ap22213 wrote: post #57

These meshnet projects are interesting, and I wish them well. But... we (democratic republic countries) already have governmental structures that allow for changing laws. Let's just organize and change the laws. Aside from the industry-paid demagogues' rhetoric of 'STEALING' on the internet, we have to objectively think about this problem. We, the public, define the laws. We define what 'stealing' is. If a majority o…

Let's imagine that some big corporation invented a way to produce free energy, and at the same time, they also influenced current laws to ensure that their patents would never expire.

Would we build all sorts of back-channel technological methods to use these patents anyway so that we may avoid jail and fines? Or, would we simply say, "hey - sorry the idea of 100 year patents just doesn't make sense any more. We're changing the law."

Re: In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam

#60

Post by rjbond3rd »

ap22213 wrote: post #57

These meshnet projects are interesting, and I wish them well. But... we (democratic republic countries) already have governmental structures that allow for changing laws. Let's just organize and change the laws. Aside from the industry-paid demagogues' rhetoric of 'STEALING' on the internet, we have to objectively think about this problem. We, the public, define the laws. We define what 'stealing' is. If a majority o…

I like your civic-minded approach. But isn't it a bit idealist while the laws are written by the lobbyists of entrenched multi-billion-dollar businesses? I sincerely hope that's not the case in your country but it's definitely the case in mine.

It seems to me it's the (possibility of) technological circumvention itself which renders the laws outdated. If that's true, then the laws will always lag behind to the point of absurdity (as appears to be the case now).

Suing grandmothers, software patents, suing farmers downwind of the pollen of patented plants, etc. Where's the hope of changing those laws which are backed by multi-billion-dollar industries until lobbyists and campaign contributions are banished from our law-making process?

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