57 karma · joined July 11, 2015
I'd go source-routed isochronous streams, rather than address-routed asynchronous packets.
I haven't updated my blog in a few years, but I'm still working on building the above when I have the time. (IsoGrid.org)
I've read the exact opposite: That it's hard to find any _real_ risks for eliminating human-biting mosquitoes. I define real as killing near 3k children a day.
I agree with you, I would also rather be reading about a stable and popular implementation of a scalable mesh network. However, there is no such thing. TCP/IP is the closest I've seen, but I think we can do better.
I'm looking for folks who might be interested in helping out. I was raised under Windows, but I want to use free (as in freedom) software, so integration has been a bit slow going as I learn how to use Linux.
A second (or third) ISP isn't going to suddenly show up at my house because it doesn't make economic sense. In the same way that two railroad lines don't get built between the same two cities.
A real scalable mesh protocol could change the economic calculation.
We wanted anyone to be be able to be a first-class citizen of the Net. But we ended up beholden to our Monopoly ISPs. TCP/IP only gives first-class status to ISPs, not to us. BGP doesn't scale if we all tried to have our own first-class routers.
Yes, things are getting better in all sorts of industries; a similar boom occurred with the wide-scale deployment of the 19th century Railroads. But things got better still with the deployment of automobile roads.
I propose we do the same with a globally scalable mesh network.
Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks!
I wish them well, it's good to have lots of people working on this from all angles.
IP allows a maximum of 255 hops for any packet. This inherently restricts the topology of the Internet: As it stands, it can never be a world-wide decentralized mesh. Instead, you end up with large hubs and choke-points. The IP addressing scheme also makes it very difficult to have a mesh: IP addresses are assigned hierarchically. The name "Inter-Net" describes the problem directly: The Internet isn't a global network that just anyone can contribute or connect to; instead, the Internet is just a protocol for inter-connecting the world's centrally owned and operated networks. With the IP Internet forced topology, Economies-of-Scale make massive centralized services cheaper than distributed services (even if similarly massive). The obvious result: Comcast is your only ISP at home.
Disclosure: I've been working in my spare time for years on a solution, and I think an isochronous source-routed stream-based protocol is the only solution. I've got a proposed spec at IsoGrid.org
I am happy to report that I do have some code nearly ready to share. Though it's still of the prototype/experiment variety (not even remotely production ready). I'll send it out in the next few weeks. Without help, it will still be many months until I have a full stack prototype.
If the 'Foundation' thing turns you off, would you suggest I change it? And if so, to what? But now that you mention it, I should probably at least register the trademark, what do you think?
Is there an implementation: Not yet. I have a prototype implementation of a link layer and I've prototyped parts of the network layer and transport layer. But only enough to convince me that the general isochronous design is workable.
Yes it uses Source Routing: I've spent the last few months working on the (extremely important) scalability question. Section 13 of the spec deals with this in detail, essentially specifying the 'BGP' of IsoGrid (HashMatchLogMap) so that nodes don't have to specify their own 'hosts' file. I think I've come up with a protocol that scales O(log(N)), where N is the number of nodes on the network. It will definitely have a large constant: The base algorithm starts with just always tracking the 10k or more nodes that are cheapest to access. The algorithm scales because the addresses of nodes contain a Geolocation component, which means it's easy to ask for directions from nodes that you already know about that are both physically and logically (HashMatch) closer to a desired node. My next step is to start implementing this protocol such that I can test it on a simulated large network (I'm thinking I'll build the simulated network dataset from OpenStreetMap).
Not sure what you mean by 'tool', but micropayments are sent along with the data. If a node only has one link to the IsoGrid (Comcast), then they are doing it wrong: The node should use the cheapest routes that meet the desired latency/bandwidth requirements. Competition means that "highway robbery" should cease to become a viable business model. If a node along a route decides to just steal the entire micropayment (rather than just their part) then data stops flowing on that route: The source uses other routes and the robber ended up stealing from it's own neighbors.
The site (and my proposed Protocol Stack Spec) is at isogrid.org. If you find the cause righteous, I'd love the help!
I've proposed a scalable mesh network, see IsoGrid.org
“The economics of the internet favor natural monopolies, the absence of a competitive business environment can result in more concentrated markets, benefiting incumbent firms. Not surprisingly, the better educated, well connected, and more capable have received most of the benefits – circumscribing the gains from the digital revolution.”
My assertion is that this is actually due to the nature of the TCP/IP protocol. IP addresses are assigned hierarchically and packets have a hop limit. Together, this makes a mesh network impossible. The TCP/IP Internet is an engine that centralizes power. I'm working on a side-project to create a (free and open) scalable (wired) mesh network protocol.
I'm really glad I saw this, it'll make a perfect citation for my requirements doc. Anyone disagree with the above? I'm looking to try to strengthen my arguments.
Inside joke: I recently published a network protocol that relies on sending words isochronously between switches.
I'll take this as validation that I'm on to something :-)