Decentralizing the Internet So Big Brother Can’t Find You

[J.A. Terranson]

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011, John Case wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Feb 2011, J.A. Terranson wrote:
> 
> > This seems preety hefty on ambition and pretty low on details.  Is he
> > planning on these wal-wart "servers" acting as TOR nodes?  Universally
> > accessable wifi spots?  FreeNet nodes, or LAFS servers?
> > 
> > I think what bugs me the most here is that the basic premise appears
> > intrinsically flawed: On Inet-1, everyone can see who you are - it's an
> > artifact of the construction goals originally designed for.
> > 
> > I'd want to see some more meat and less fluff before I looked any deeper.
> 
> 
> The (obvious) meme going around is "we'll just set up a mesh".
> 
> You can stop reading when you see that.  A mesh network that does the things
> these people want it to do is currently rocket-science hard.

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 
still have trouble with simple IP, and they have "trained [or] experienced 
'engineers'".  It's a silly call to arms at this point.

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.
 
> 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.

//Alif

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