Yes. I do apologize for the documentation being sparse. I'm developing the Tier 1 provisioning scripts, and documenting at the same time. Plus, unfortunately, I have a full-time life. But once I finish the Tier 1 stuff, I can delegate duties out to those with an interest :D
Yup. It's all run via SSH. The preferred server is Taylor UUCP, which is super flexible. I've sent an e-mail to the developer, Ian Taylor, to hopefully revive that project and breath some life into UUCP. It's a fantastically resilient protocol and will run over damned near anything. We've even had some talk of running UUCP over ham radio links!!!
All the Tier 1 hosts are mesh interconnected, so even if one goes down, it doesn't take huge swathes of the network with it. With how the Internet is shaping up to be, if Google goes down, it's taking a huge piece of the network with it. This is really intended to reawaken the DIY ethos the Internet was founded on. Mostly public nixes and tilde servers, but anyone with some dedication can be a Tier 1. We've kinda democratized it that way.
And no, you don't have to be the "right kind of freedom fighter". The Tier 1 operators have a gentleman's agreement to let anything pass through their node to the broader network unless it's something like CP or flagrantly against the law (or spam)
It's an exciting project! It really is a network for the modern nerd, and is ripe for all sorts of projects!
Please join us on IRC @ irc.tilde.chat or subscribe to the project mailing list at uucp@lists.tildeverse.org
See ya on the network! :D