On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:09 AM Ted Smith <[1]tedks@riseup.net> wrote:

     I'm a little skeptical of wireless mesh networks as a general
     solution
     to this sort of problem, because they're inherently chatty, and have
     very limited reach.
     I think a better solution is local wired networks with something
     like
     Freenet running over them providing distributed censorship-proof
     storage. The next challenge is to synchronize contents between local
     Freenet darknets over sneakernet, which I don't think has been done.

   Interesting. I would have thought wired for longer distance
   communication, with local mesh networks for the "last mile."
   Do you have some thoughts on how to set up a local wired freenet? Back
   in the days of modems over content-oblivious phone lines, freenets were
   easy because phone lines in bulk were pretty cheap per line, and pretty
   much everyone had a land line. In this day and age of video and
   high-resolution images, that no longer seems like an option.
   Whenever I think of "mesh" I think "mobile mesh," which is just part of
   the picture. The mesh networks I've actually seen in action are static
   "meshes", which are only really called that because the ISP puts
   omnidirectional antennas on some of their customers' roofs to
   daisy-chain other customers off of, not because they use any kind of
   dynamic mesh routing protocol. This approach might actually work for
   setting up a freenet: negotiate directly with local businesses
   (particularly public places like coffee shops) and residents to set up
   local hotspots, then put up high-gain directional and omnidirectional
   antennas on a different band or at least channel to handle the longer
   distance links.
   Of course, the businesses/residents involved are probably going to be
   primarily interested in access to the "regular" Internet, but that
   doesn't stop you from using strong encryption on the links themselves,
   tunnelling onion/mixnet networks, offering local services in private IP
   space, etc. Over time, you can replace tunnels over the
   government-controlled Internet with wireless links or leased lines with
   strong crypto. It won't stop the network from getting shut down if the
   links are specifically cataloged and targeted, but it seems like
   current "internet kill switch" proposals primarily focus on the layer 3
   infrastructure, not on the link or physical layers. And certainly not
   on RF.
   But even if you do that, if you are offering a "public" service, and
   you actually get a lot of users, it seems likely you'd end up being a
   victim of your own success, noticed by regulators and then forced to
   comply with the same regulations that cover the Internet, including any
   retention and "kill switch" requirements. You might be able to mitigate
   some of that by encouraging mac address spoofing and end-to-end
   encryption, but that doesn't stop a government from taking over one of
   the local services and putting a gag order on the operator, then
   tracking someone to a specific coffee shop and sneaking up behind them
   and pinning their arms to their sides so they can't wipe their machine.
   Having a dead man switch/"panic button" on any local servers, routers,
   etc might help with that, particularly if there's plausible deniability
   there. "Sorry, can't comply with your retention order because our hard
   disk just died and it's going to take us months to get the server back
   online." It works for the Chicago PD with their constantly
   "malfunctioning" dashcams, so why not for us?
   One side benefit of bringing back freenets in a big way might be the
   ability to push back against regulations that have compliance costs. If
   a bunch of people voters care about are dependent for their Internet
   access on freenets that would have to shut down if they are required to
   retain logs for years and set up systems for easy law enforcement
   access, politicians might think twice about pushing for such things.
   Provided they can't get away with characterizing freenets as dens of
   "hackers", drug dealers, terrorists, and child pornographers of course.
   Which is why it's important to remain connected with society and not
   become hermits hiding out in Internet backwaters.
   There's always more social/community-oriented solutions ala Max
   Hernandez's Thieves Emporium where you have secret access points and
   people need to be vouched in, but that is incredibly hard and would
   likely remain quite small, because the probability of infiltration
   approaches 100% once you get into the thousands of participants. And of
   course, if it's small and secret, nobody will notice when it and its
   operators/users quietly get disappeared.
   Obviously these approaches are orthogonal to one another, and you can
   use any combination of them.

References

   1. mailto:tedks@riseup.net