On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 03:22:49PM -0600, J.A. Terranson wrote:
I'm tired of hearing the current calls for "mesh networks" myself. As you point out, they are *incredibly* complex, and these "wall-wart servers" aren't going to implement that kind of thing IMO. Christ, large ISPs
I fail to see where they're mentioning the word mesh at all. If I would do it, I would just package Tor, Tahoe-LAFS, I2P and maybe a couple other select goodies (tinc, opportunistic encryption, whatever), and put it on the residential Internet. If you recall I repeatedly suggested that here and elsewhere, to the overwhelming sound of crickets.
still have trouble with simple IP, and they have "trained [or] experienced 'engineers'". It's a silly call to arms at this point.
If you're talking mesh, one of the basic requirements is to get rid of central address allocation authority and establish a local-knowledge based routing. If you get that far, the human operator mistakes are removed from the loop.
I was with a group that tried to work out a mesh implementation across a relatively small (~15sq miles) area, and it never came to fruition, despite several years of work on the problems presented.
Do you have a pointer to description of your project, and what went wrong?
It can be done, and I'd be the first one celebrating, but from the mouths of these morons its just mental masturbation.
I don't even see *that* coming from this particular ?press release?. Just a "build it and people will do it" [hrmm.. Build it and They will come". Where have I heard *that* before?] theme, with no particular goal in mind other than wide "implementation (which is glaringly undefined)". Whats the point, and how do I know that these guys are even competent to decide on a goal - just because they're with EFF? A lawyer who likes to code is a *long* way from the kind of talent that can make these little things useful for anything more than maybe [sntp server||dns server-small||etc.). Has anyone looked at the scaling problems of having these warts fully disseminated into the population, and "plugged in"?
Like I said, it sounds like some vague, undefined project that nobody has yet actually looked at with any seriousness.
I can tell you one thing: Eben Moglen is not a stupid man, and he's surrounded with technically capable people. If he can raise the money for 10-100 k wall wart units you can assume people will do useful things with them. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE