CNN.com - WiFi activists on free Web crusade - Nov. 29, 2002 (fwd)

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, Dave Howe wrote:

> ah. Sorry, I don't think of dns as a name service (apart from once
> removed) - we are talking DHCP or similar routable-address assignment.

You can use GPS as naming service (name collisions are then equivalent to 
physical space collisions). You can actually label the nodes 
automagically, once you know that it's a nearest-neighbour mesh spanned 
over patches of Earth surface. You can use signal strenght and 
relativistic ping to make mutual time of flight triangulation. It is a 
good idea to use a few GPS anchor nodes, so that all domains are 
consistent.
 
> Indeed so - but of course the current internet *does* work that way,
> so any new solution that advertises itself as "Free Internet access"
> *must* fit into the current scheme or it is worthless.

I think it can fit.
 
> Unfortunately, such abstraction fails unless the *sender* knows how to
> push the packet in the right direction, and each hop knows how to get
> it a little nearer; this more or less requires that each node be given
> a unique identifier compatable with the existing system, and given the

No, an orthogonal identifier is sufficient. In fact, DNS loc would be a 
good start.

The system can negotiate whatever routing method it uses. If the node 
doesn't understand geographic routing, it falls back to legacy methods.

> existing system is still ipv4, there are problems.