On 11/15/19, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
This Fund, and perhaps implied offer, seems to have arrived at just the right time. I have proposed that an alternative to TOR be constructed, and that is certainly not an idea that is new with my proposal. Anybody who is uncomfortable with TOR should want to see real competition.
I think we should appply for some of these funds.
Yes, strong alternative and in fact entirely new and open fully independant competition in this space is very much needed.
I have found, by obtaining a quotation, that the hardware costs are probably going to be $80 per node
What's the spec?
People could host these nodes at their businesses and homes
Any good overlay network is encrypted so comes with deniability, same for any storage elements on disk. Generally, except for "liability" of an exit function which may or may not be present, and simple blocking of otherwise useful IP's by blacklists, anyone can run one. No different than any other overlay today.
This would powerfully motivate people to offer to host a node, because they would be getting the 1 gigabit service upgrade essentially for free.
"We'll pay for your upgrade for one year!"
This might also provide funds for development of the software, which is a task in itself.
10 cypherpunks writingcode for subsistance room and board for a year is $125k. That's a reasonable side gig stipend, but go with say $250k if you want people to be more full time at it. Lots of options within that bottom line figure... 5 x $50k, etc.
A subsidy of $25/month is about $300/year, and multiplied by 1000 nodes amounts to $300,000, or a total of about $380,000 for the first year.
Can anybody imagine a more worthy, concrete proposal to accomplish what this 'Unknown Fund' proposes to accomplish? And its yearly cost represents less than 1/2 of a percent of the proposed fund.
In a lot of the grantmaking biz, capital outlay is often easier for entities to write than ongoing funds. Assuming this Anon entity is real, it may be wise to assume and plan, that it being anonymous, may not prefer to stick around for very long. Also, an $80 HW appliance may support one network well and be adoptably cute on the desk, but it's definitely going to bog down when trying to run multiple overlay networks nodes on it... storage, messaging, cryptocurrency, etc. And it probably would have trouble meeting whatever needs may come at 5-10 years. Unless viewing the $80 one as a disposable to be tossed for a hotter new $80 one every N years... It may be better to drop around $300 or so towards a mini-ITX platform spec that can support multiple different software networks at the same time. As well as some external expansion for WiFi and SDR interfaces via some USB ports. So with being a little more generous on the HW buy and the SW dev, that gives around $850k... still well under $1M or 1.4% of the fund. Maybe you'll want to stick a $120k second year $10/mo internet subsidy tail into that $1M, and throw the remaining $30k at advocacy, talks, training. Various ways to do $1M quite effectively.