When the Internet dies, meet the meshnet that survives | Hacker News Reader

When the Internet dies, meet the meshnet that survives

newscientist.com

72 pointsLibertatea14 comments

Perhaps it's a good idea to have random take downs of the internet in large areas for extended periods of time so that there is more motivation for people to create a second, non-centralized single-point-of-failure single-point-of-control internet.

We have to prepare for the inevitable future reality where many layers of government can terminate the internet connection of any person based on what content they are providing, or what service they are serving.

When an evil agent discovers the power to shut down my internet connection, or the internet connection of an entire area based on what people are doing on it, it is only a matter of days or weeks before that power is wielded to expand their power and create money from thin air through it. If the internet is to become a medium through which people think through, it must be as reliable and un-stoppable as two people talking and listening in a private room.

>Perhaps it's a good idea to have random take downs of the internet in large areas for extended periods of time so that there is more motivation for people to create a second, non-centralized single-point-of-failure single-point-of-control internet.

That's not a good idea. That's a very bad idea, considering how much critical infrastructure, globally, depends on the internet working -- what you're suggesting, to even work as "motivation", would be akin to randomly poisoning pharmaceuticals to discourage overdependence on antibiotics.

That said though, if such a change could be pulled off without essentially destroying the economies of whole countries, I would be all for it.

>considering how much critical infrastructure, globally, depends on the internet working

This is the very bad idea.

Perhaps. But solving one evil with a greater evil can't be a valid solution.

Already done: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

It's just a memory of its former self, but still in use today.

What on Earth makes people think a finnicky meshnet that requires a high density of nodes will survive a Sandy-like disaster? Doesn't seem like the most obvious use-case for meshnets, wouldn't people be better served getting ham licenses and learning how to improvise antennas in an emergency?

That depends on the types of devices you use for creating it. You can get a km out of an ordinary router with a directional can antennae. What distance do you think is required for it to be viable?

>You can get a km out of an ordinary router with a directional can antennae

With a line-of-sight and some careful positioning, maybe.

There are numerous examples of people using traditional radios to coordinate disaster response [1] (actually why ham licenses are issued IIRC), this seems like a more complicated, error prone, cool-kid-hackerspace solution. What advantages does a mesh network have over traditional radios (which have bands allocated for this) for disaster response? How well will a mesh network hold up if half (or more) of the nodes fail due to power loss, flooding etc?

Mesh networks are cool, and I'm all for decentralizing communication, but their usefulness for disaster preparedness seems very dubious to me.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communi...

Ongoing innovations in open firmware like OpenWRT allow deployment of reasonably robust routing schemes, such that the mesh nodes themselves compute the routes most efficient for transport (and also repair those routes when nodes go down). Groups like Commotion Wireless, Freifunk, Funkfeuer, and LirbeMesh all deploy firmwares derived from OpenWRT to this purpose. The actual capacity, range, and sensitivity of the radio hardware used, whether unlicensed or not, will still be gating factors. Along with ambient noise levels on whatever bands are used.

Not to say that what happens with the military will impact those watching Netflix, but the infrastructure of the Web is vulnerable...

Article from Foreign Policy magazine

The Best Defense The future of war: You better be ready to fight like it's a pre-electronic age

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/04/18/the_future_o...

"...Major battles in the 21st century will be confusing and disorganized affairs more similar to the clashes of a pre-digital age than the ‘network-centric' combat we've become accustomed to. A new generation of offensive technology targeting the electromagnetic spectrum -- systems such as cyberweapons, electronic jammers, anti-satellite missiles, and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) munitions -- will deprive militaries of the sensor and communications links they rely on. Forget 24-hour streaming video from a Predator drone. Armies of the future may struggle just to use their radios.....

Being dependent on large monolithic corporate entities for your mostly private communications is probably not good for your security and privacy. Mesh networks or something similar sounds just fine to me.

This is what Internet was supposed to be from the beginning; a reliable network with multiple paths between nodes so that the removal of even a large number of edges would not prevent packets getting through.

Actually for low rate communication in a disaster zone store and forward text messaging via mobile telephones would surely work more easily and could be combined with the mesh to enable greater coverage.

And yet Google disables ad-hoc wifi on Android mobile devices...

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