On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 11:11 AM grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:
On 2/10/16, Ted Smith <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
The cost of wiring to your neighbor is similar to wireless, yet wired will always perform better, is vastly more private and tap evident. Use wireless for shots where you cant secure legit or guerrilla wired rights. Performance matters when the airwaves are full of noise and you're running layers of required overlay routing / crypto net / fill traffic over it, not to mention your data.
Your immediate next door neighbor, yes. But forget crossing a street or wiring the house two doors down if your immediate neighbor doesn't agree. One should definitely use wired links when possible, but this problem is why the telcos and cable companies are able to maintain their local monopolies/oligopolies.
storage. The next challenge is to synchronize contents between local Freenet darknets over sneakernet, which I don't think has been done.
If the network filestore overlay splits and spreads random blocks across nodes, sneakernet will just add random avg replication, afaik no networks or storage have that capability to plugin? Of course if you trust the anonymity of your overlays, anyone can host unsplit copies of anything they want. Then, other than again needing a network with a plugin capable datastore, if it's not encrypted unknown to you, you'd have to trust getting it in person, which probably rightly isn't going to happen unless you're already BOFs with MAD.
Sneakernet replication is an interesting option if your goal is to be hyper-local and disconnected, like a micropower FM station or something. There are villages in Africa that send and receive email using a similar system, where a van with a server and wifi drives from village to village, exchanging files with a local village server using something akin to UUCP, or the van itself acts as a hotspot for villages without a local server. Could do the same thing with attribution-resistant bootleg servers planted in stealthy locations.