Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
1–10 of 36 posts
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#2This is a good article grounded in actual experience.
As the former operator of the w8lvn packet radio bbs, i can heartily relate to you haven’t lived until you’ve hunted down transient connectivity problems resulting from RF weirdness in urban areas.
And he details real-world experience like "omnidirectional antennas suck".
Essentially, physics is not on your side here.
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#3This is a good article grounded in actual experience. As the former operator of the w8lvn packet radio bbs, i can heartily relate to you haven’t lived until you’ve hunted down transient connectivity problems resulting from RF weirdness in urban areas. And he details real-world experience like "omnidirectional antennas suck". Essentially, physics is not on your side here.
A directional antenna or two with some kind of actuator might help. A couple of cantennas that could aim themselves could solve a lot of problems. But there's still a lot of problems left. Ultimately, you either get really poor bandwidth, or can only have static assets (like movie files, which don't need to change over time and can be cached by someone nearby with a few big hard drives).
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#4I'd like to note that every single item listed in this is a technical barrier. There are no political barriers, there are no wealth or resource barriers. RF is free to use on the spectrum we need it to work on (ok, until that's illegal). It's that it's a hard, hard problem to solve and it hasn't been solved yet. Do not let that stop anyone from continuing to do work on this: maybe it will get solved.
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#5[deleted]
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#6This is a good article grounded in actual experience. As the former operator of the w8lvn packet radio bbs, i can heartily relate to you haven’t lived until you’ve hunted down transient connectivity problems resulting from RF weirdness in urban areas. And he details real-world experience like "omnidirectional antennas suck". Essentially, physics is not on your side here.
A directional antenna or two with some kind of actuator might help. A couple of cantennas that could aim themselves could solve a lot of problems. But there's still a lot of problems left. Ultimately, you either get really poor bandwidth, or can only have static assets (like movie files, which don't need to change over time and can be cached by someone nearby with a few big hard drives).
Sounds like a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_defined_antenna would be perfect here.
Use omni to find nodes (low bandwidth, high noise), then make the antenna directional for the full communication (higher bandwidth, lower noise).
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#7This is a good article grounded in actual experience. As the former operator of the w8lvn packet radio bbs, i can heartily relate to you haven’t lived until you’ve hunted down transient connectivity problems resulting from RF weirdness in urban areas. And he details real-world experience like "omnidirectional antennas suck". Essentially, physics is not on your side here.
A directional antenna or two with some kind of actuator might help. A couple of cantennas that could aim themselves could solve a lot of problems. But there's still a lot of problems left. Ultimately, you either get really poor bandwidth, or can only have static assets (like movie files, which don't need to change over time and can be cached by someone nearby with a few big hard drives).
Directional antennas don't help create a "mesh", since they (by definition) only connect stations in a direct line with each other -- a mesh is supposed to connect to multiple other stations, so that if one goes offline, a route can be found through another. A directional antenna will only (typically) connect to one other node.
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#8I'd like to note that every single item listed in this is a technical barrier. There are no political barriers, there are no wealth or resource barriers. RF is free to use on the spectrum we need it to work on (ok, until that's illegal). It's that it's a hard, hard problem to solve and it hasn't been solved yet. Do not let that stop anyone from continuing to do work on this: maybe it will get solved.
I generally agree, but I tried to shed some light on the fundamental physics/math behind why building such a network is impractical. In any case, it might one day be possible, but I think a better use of resources (especially for non- and semi-technical people) is to contribute to the social movement around Internet free speech and to build real-world political networks.
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
A directional antenna or two with some kind of actuator might help. A couple of cantennas that could aim themselves could solve a lot of problems. But there's still a lot of problems left. Ultimately, you either get really poor bandwidth, or can only have static assets (like movie files, which don't need to change over time and can be cached by someone nearby with a few big hard drives).
Sounds like a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_defined_antenna would be perfect here. Use omni to find nodes (low bandwidth, high noise), then make the antenna directional for the full communication (higher bandwidth, lower noise).
Even an electronically steerable antenna would help, but then you start running up the cost of equipment. Interference is still an issue since one must always be listening from all directions for possible transmissions. Spectrum and time scheduling remain a (NP-)hard problem as well. You're up against fundamental laws of physics and computer science: pick your poison. :)
Re: Why wireless mesh networks won’t save us from censorship
#10I'd like to note that every single item listed in this is a technical barrier. There are no political barriers, there are no wealth or resource barriers. RF is free to use on the spectrum we need it to work on (ok, until that's illegal). It's that it's a hard, hard problem to solve and it hasn't been solved yet. Do not let that stop anyone from continuing to do work on this: maybe it will get solved.
Without having real detail knowledge the problems seem somewhat solvable. It just appears that technology/protocols were not made with that intention in mind and are not some challenges where we would need to invent nuclear power first to get it started. I think the idea has to grow over time and we shouldn't try starting with wrong expectations such as covering a whole city from the stand, but starting with the local University campus would be a first significant step in the right direction.