We read:
"Governments and corporations have more control over the Internet than ever. Now digital activists want to build an alternative network that can never be blocked, filtered or shut down
Just after midnight on January 28, 2011, the government of Egypt, rocked by three straight days of massive antiregime protests organized in part through Facebook and other online social networks, did something unprecedented in the history of 21st-century telecommunications: it turned off the Internet. Exactly how it did this remains unclear, but the evidence suggests that five well-placed phone calls—one to each of the country’s biggest Internet service providers (ISPs)—may have been all it took.
The Internet was designed to be a decentralized system: every node should connect to many others. This design helped to make the system resistant to censorship or outside attack.
Yet in practice, most individual users exist at the edges of the network, connected to others only through their Internet service provider (ISP). Block this link, and Internet access disappears.
An alternative option is beginning to emerge in the form of wireless mesh networks, simple systems that connect end users to one another and automatically route around blocks and censors.
Yet any mesh network needs to hit a critical mass of users before it functions well; developers must convince potential users to trade off ease of use for added freedom and privacy....
What mesh networks do, on the other hand, is precisely what an ISP does not: they let the end user’s machine act as a data relay. In less technical terms, they let users stop being merely Internet consumers and start being their own Internet providers. If you want a better sense of what that means, consider how things might have happened on January 28 if Egypt’s citizens communicated not through a few ISPs but by way of mesh networks.
At the very least, it would have taken a lot more than five phone calls to shut that network down. Because each user of a mesh network owns and controls his or her own small piece of the network infrastructure, it might have taken as many phone calls as there were users—and much more persuading, for most of those users, than the ISPs’ executives needed.
Much more here
10 comments:
This is how the system was supposed to work back when the DoD developed it (I know it wasn't them directly, but I give them credit because the paid for it). To truly become the force it could be, for good or ill, this is the plan that it has to follow. Otherwise it's just another arrow in the governments quiver full of tools to control and spy on it's citizens.
I notice a lot of quiet from the normal trolls here. I assume that is because they can't find anything in this topic to spark their interests. Not surprising since there is nothing to race bait, gay bash, or malign another faith over. Just a topic of actual importance that might require actual thoughtful consideration.
The mesh network seems to be similar to distributed file sharing systems, like bittorrent. Each node in the network actually has a job to do in the system.
Now if we can just get Microsoft, Oracle, Google, AT&T and Apple to keep there mitts off of it, it might have a chance to work.
The goverment and espcialy the leftists UN wants to monitor the internet and persicute all those who refuse to obey BIG BROTHER
One problem I see with this... where would Egyptian users get the wireless connection from? to make this work you'd need a string of repeater computers/routers leading all the way out of the country. I great idea, but the "critical mass" mentioned here would have to be every 10th user to make this actually work. That's a LOT of users willing to share their network connection and open themselves to hackers. In addition, personal routers/computers just don't have the bandwidth to deal with a situation where the local ISP are down, can you say 110 baud modem?
Nice idea, in practice it's just not feasible.
Look for the egtptian to revert to clubs
@Anon 5:17- From EVERY device in range of their device. Every modem, laptop, desktop, pad, smartphone, car, ect....
Every device hooked to the system would be part of the system, adding processing power to the net. Small devices would contribute little (phones, pads, even watches now) while larger mobile platforms (cars, laptops) would add more and fixed units(desktops, building networks, vending machines, and billboards) would add even more since they have a permanent power supply. Only actual physical isolation would cut the system (middle of ocean).
Is this system foolproof? Of course not. And if it was nature would design a more effective fool. But it is a good bit more robust than what we have now.
Are there technical issues? Yes, but take a quick look back at the progress communications technology has made in the last decade. The problems are not insurmountable.
Are there security issues? Of course, because people keep acting like people you will always need to safeguard your data. But is that a reason to pass up a chance to actually have the freedom of speech and information access that a truly unbound personal global computer system could provide?
W^4 (Wireless World Wide Web) is possibly the only chance we have of keeping the governments and corps from smashing free speech into the ground over the next twenty years or so. Let's get cracking...
yeah they love night clubs
Shit A freakin' cubic Brick JR. You linked to an 'anti-semitic' blog that asks questions as to 'jewish' intent regards global governance of the lesser thans.
Are you out of your PC mind ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QipAa-8orxQ
In fact it kinda calls for a celebration, that you've gone at least a mile down the road to what might constitute the truth of things.
Dear 9:46 pm
They did not author that article. It originally went up on CNN or somewhere
I just got to it via Google
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