How to Access the Internet (A Guide from 2025) | Hacker News Reader

How to Access the Internet (A Guide from 2025)

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114 pointsxaverius55 comments

In South Africa we've got a completely free, community driven and supported Wireless User Group comprising of ~2000 nodes.

Whilst it's certainly not the Internet I've seen a marked improvement and understanding in creating large, relatively free networks. (You still have to buy your own equipment.)

One can only hope that by 2025 the technology will have increased to such a point that it'll be powerful (no line of site required), cheap and abundant. (And in effect, uncontrollable by a single entity, corporation or organization.)

A bit more about the WUG: (http://ptawug.co.za)

They use standard 802.11g/n (5.8/2.4 GHz) Wi-Fi equipment. And mostly Mikrotik router hardware and software.

I'm just a user - So my information might be a bit wrong...

(You still have to buy your own equipment.)

If a society has regressed as much as the one depicted in the article, it's not inconceivable that the necessary equipment would be made illegal (or at least require a license).

A friend of mine has been interested in setting something like this up in the states. Is there a website documenting the process/pitfalls?

I'm just an end user - So I don't know much about the process. Here's the project's website: http://ptawug.co.za

Thanks. These types of things always hit that "this is awesome" spot due to both the engineering and community aspects.

Search the googlephant for wifi mesh setup or related terms.

Take a look at http://www.personaltelco.net/

It may not be exactly what you're interested in, but they have set up a large amount of equipment and may have information that would be useful to you.

This is utterly fascinating to me. What kind of protocols does it use? What kind of use cases have sprung up around it and what roles is it playing in peoples' lives? Is it more of a ham radio kind of enthusiast thing or is it working its way into the general community?

It's standard 802.11g/n (5Ghz antennas) - check out http://ptawug.co.za for more information.

I saw Full Metal Jacket when I was 4 years old and I loved it. I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I laughed.

This scared the shit out of me.

Seconded. It made me feel the same as reading 1984. I hate the future.

Why does the future always have to be negative? (philosophical question) If you look at history, things generally improve over time

Based on what?

reminded me of brain jail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JILWKaQgUC0

"Why exactly is it bad for people to badmouth their governments or big companies online?"

Funny enough, there's a discussion in our local press these days about the "Press" considered to be a vector of insecurity to government/local agencies (e.g. they badmouth justice for being a mock-up).

Somehow, I don't see this happening; there's too much of implied control for this to be a realistic scenario.

It's oddly appropriate that the first comment to this is [deleted]

Nice (but quite scary) article. Reminds me a lot of the 'if the internet were like cable TV/mobile phone pricing' image I saw a while ago: http://imgur.com/5RrWm.png

Needs a think of the children argument to be more convincing.

Setting up your RealIdentity is easy, as your computer (MacOS 15 or ChromeOS7 and higher) will automatically connect...

Hmmm...no mention of Microsoft. Does this mean I'll have to upgrade from ie6/xp before 2025?

We don't like to talk about the great MicroPocalypse of 2015... dark days... Let's think happy thoughts instead! ;)

Does this mean real.com crawled from it's grave? Millions of people tricked into buying RealIdentity Plus?

It's a reference to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act

On the bright side, maybe all those videos from the nineties will have finished buffering.