Reticulum, an encrypted heterogenous mesh network protocol | Hacker News Reader

Reticulum, an encrypted heterogenous mesh network protocol

github.com

95 pointsSkyMarshal14 comments

How large can these networks be in practice?

I know a major issue with most mesh protocols is that when the network is both big and dynamic configuration traffic will start to swamp data traffic.

Another issue in most mesh protocols is susceptibility to Sybil, flooding, cache pollution, and other denial of service attacks by well-resourced adversaries. It's really hard to create a distributed permissionless system that can't easily be attacked in those sorts of ways. Proof of work and similar schemes are really the only ways we've found so far and those are expensive and cumbersome.

Any mesh network used by dissidents is going to be targeted for denial of service attacks.

Even ignoring the concept of adversaries, wireless mesh is difficult to scale. Throughput and range are inversely proportional. Environmental conditions can attenuate signal. Propagation of routes is tricky as the network grows. It makes sense for something like starlink where there is LOS and ownership. But for modern day bandwidth requirements wireless mesh doesn’t make sense. Useful for smaller deployments where the data payloads are small and the max hops is limited.

Very cool. I always eyeball anything like a mesh network, living in a rural area that's prone to earthquakes. A ham license helps, but would be curious about any similar solution that people have actually deployed at the scale of a small community.

Might want to check out js8call, great for emergencies. Great propagation, supports async communications, as well as bouncing through nodes (every client can be a repeater). Bandwidth isn't great, but it can be a robust way to get a message across a decent chunk of the planet with minimal power.

Thanks! It's more ham-specific than I had in mind, but always willing to add another bookmark to the list.

Does this not break HAM license rules if you used it over (for example) amateur radio equipment?

Fantastic project either way, would be great to set this up for a global team to assure privacy of communications.

It's the responsibility of the radio operator to check, which is always a caveat when playing with these kinds of technologies.

> Does this not break HAM license rules if you used it over (for example) amateur radio equipment?

When the Apocalypse is here and the Internet is no more, no one will care

More here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/tqhtgt/i_made_the...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88g7pb/this-prepper-is-build...

I wonder if the name is a reference to Anathem?

I was going to say exactly this! Just finished a re-read last Saturday.

If there's a reticulum somebody's going to make a syndev whose sole purpose is to spew crap into it. Then somebody else is going to make an Artificial Inanity system to plant misinformation in the enemy’s reticules. And then that praxis is going to leak to the commercial sector and spread to the Rampant Orphan Botnet Ecologies. Never mind.

Rather prophetic, considering that Stephenson wrote this in 2008.

Where are our Ita? Are we upwick or downwick from Arbe?

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