[HacDC:Byzantium] Re: [HacDC:BOD] Inquiry from website... Byzantium at Occupy S17?

Thu Aug 23 13:20:28 PDT 2012

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Hi Ryan,

This is Ben the Pyrate. I'm glad you're interested in Project Byzantium.

On Thu, 23 Aug 2012, Ryan Bennett wrote:

> Hey There,
> Not sure if this is the proper channel to reach The Doctor, Haxwithxe, and Bed The Pyrate, but I figured I'd try.

Well you reached me, at least. I'm forwarding this on to the Project
Byzantium mailing list to bring everyone else in the loop. There is a
lot of good information in your email which I believe will be of
interest to everyone. You can join our mailing list by signing up at the
following link:

http://groups.google.com/a/hacdc.org/group/Byzantium/?hl=en

> My name is Ryan, I'm
> a member of a hackerspace in Boulder CO called Solid State Depot, and I've recently come across Byzantium through the r/darknetplan
> subreddit. I'm hoping to attend the Occupy anniversary event in NYC mid-september, and as I've long been interested in meshnets and
> decentralized communications, I'm trying to assemble a suite of tools to bring with me to the demonstration. I realize that Byzantium
> (as well as just about every other tool I've been looking at) is in super-alpha stage and not ready for primetime, but my thinking is
> that the more stress testing that can be done, the faster the project will progress. In addition, I think that Occupy would be an
> incredible place to plant seeds and get people involved and interested in the project for further applications.

I agree, that sounds like a great place to test and demonstrate a
project like Byzantium. As long as there is the understanding that
Byzantium is still in development and not ready for use in life-or-death
situations.

> I wanted to get in touch with you first to ask if anyone from HacDC will be making the trip to NYC for S17,

I am not planning on attending, but perhaps other members are? We still
have a number of v0.2a CDs left over and I would be willing to send them
up with someone so they can get into the hands of testers.

> and also to mention some of
> the other projects that I'm looking to bring with me. Perhaps this email can serve as some food for thought regarding apps that may
> make valuable additions to the Byzantium distro... Any thoughts on how I might duct-tape these projects together within the framework
> of Byzantium, or indications of severe problems with my thought process would be much appreciated, as I am very much a novice when it
> comes to the nitty-gritty of coding.
>
> Tent http://tent.io/
> "Tent is a protocol for open, decentralized social networking. Tent users share content with apps and each other. Anyone can run a Tent
> server, or write an app or alternative server implementation that uses the Tent protocol." --between Byzantium and Tent, I believe a
> core framework can be set up to allow serving over the meshnet. Forgive me if Tent is redundant to features already implimented in
> Byzantium.

Yep, we have heard about this one but so far there is no code, only some
documentation on the protocol. We're not certain wether or not this is
redundant with other solutions we have also been looking at. We are
planning to keep an eye on their developments.

>
> Forban http://www.foo.be/forban/
> "Forban is a kind of p2p (peer2peer) filesharing application for link-local and local area network. Forban works independently from
> Internet and use only the local area capabilities to announce, discover, search or share files." --Forban, at least in theory,
> automatically copies newly discovered files to a local drive from a fellow forbans /share folder. Forban's inclusion in Byzantium would
> potentially would be helpful, partly because I believe that if Forban can be installed on Android, phones can act as data bridges
> between otherwise isolated pockets of meshed laptops/netbooks by means of...

I was not aware of Forban, but it certainly does look like something
that might be useful to us. I will look into it further and perhaps we
can try it out at our development sprint this weekend.

>
> Serval  http://www.servalproject.org/
> "a mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones," Serval allows for the creation of an ad-hoc network directly between
> phones allowing voice and text service within the mesh. Voice has a significant lag, but they have a feature in development that's
> basically an in-house version of forban for transferring files along the mesh. I'm going to send them an email to see If I can get my
> hands on it early, but failing that I need to find a way to run the forban Python script on an android in parallel with the serval mesh
> app. Serval can use either OSLR or an older version of BATMAN. If Byzantium could interact with this network in any way, I would be
> very interested.

Yes, we're aware of the Serval project and we're also eager to make sure
that our networks can interoperate seamlessly. They are doing a lot of
good work and we are keeping an eye on them as well. We may incorporate
some of their software into future versions of Byzantium.

>
> Potential Apps to run/deploy over a Byzantium mesh network
>
> Smallest Federated Wiki http://wardcunningham.github.com/ --A decentralized wiki service. Open source, might be handy to have as a
> starter app. uses JSON and Ruby.
>
> BTLIVE http://live.bittorrent.com/
> --Bittorrent style video streaming, so support for videocasting by end users yet, as this project is under development and not open
> source, but it or something like it would be of enormous value as a n app on the ground. Open source projects that might be more
> deployment friendly are 
>
> GoalBit - http://goalbit.sourceforge.net/ or FreeCast http://www.freecast.org/ --Both of these projects operate over the existing web,
> but a) implementation via byzantium would be excellent in bridging the gap between the meshnet on the ground and the greater world
> population and b) if they could be deployed over a meshnet then news could spread very fast and effectively through video from one
> corner of the network to another, keeping everyone on up to date on the latest developments.
>
> Ushahidi http://ushahidi.com/products
> "Tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories." --This
> open-source platform allows for real-time crowdmapping and news updates from the ground to a centralized map. The usefulness of this
> as, at least in regards to Occupy, is incredible. If This platform, or something like it, could be deployed on a Byzantium node and
> federated in a way that each instance stores the mapping data and forwards it to other instances, then each pool of laptops on the
> ground can have a map of what's going on where in their immediate vicinity, plus either forwarding the data via Serval/Forban to other
> pools, or upstreaming to a Ushahidi instance that aggregates the sum on the WWW.
>

Thanks, the above projects are all very interesting and definitely
in-line with what we're trying to offer. We will try to evaluate and
intregrate these into future builds.

>
> BitCoin - http://bitcoin.org/
> -"Bitcoin is an experimental new digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses
> peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by
> the network. Bitcoin is also the name of the open source software which enables the use of this currency." --Might be getting a little
> ahead of myself here, but Bitcoin has a fascinating structure for currency generation and transaction. From my understanding, the
> minting of the currency is made possible by the facilitation of transactions involving existing bitcoins. As the project is
> open-source, a clone of it that could operate over a mesh-network, or a scaled down version of it that could work within Byzantium,
> could be a feasible way of facilitating bartering on the ground, first with digital services, and eventually with analog services and
> commodities.

Bitcoin is quite a fascinating idea in many ways, however I don't think
it is very relevant to Byzantium's core mission. I'm very sure it could
be operated over a mesh network like Byzanitum. However, I don't really
see how Bitcoin would be useful from an emergency response perspective.
I could be wrong and I would be glad to hear opposing arguments. However,
for now I don't think it will be part of the standard distribution. (Of
course, there's nothing stopping you from installing it yourself or
making a re-spin of our distribution.)

>
> I hope I haven't completely overloaded you with text. A lot of this is more food for thought than anything, but to whatever extent I
> can put any of this together by mid September for the Occupy event is what I'll do. I really think this would be an incredible testing
> ground for a lot of these projects, just as I think these projects would be a valuable addition to the Occupy toolbelt. I'll be getting
> in contact with the teams working on each of them over the next several days with similar emails outlining the suite of tools I have in
> mind, and encouraging them to support operability over the Babel protocol used in Byzantium. Hopefully all you brilliant folks can find
> a way to make your software work together. It may even be worth reaching out to them directly. I understand that open-source projects
> are often done in spare time on shoestring budgets though, so I don't expect all of this just handed to me because I wrote an email. If
> all you can do is wish me good luck, I'll take that too.

We are currently doing our best to reach out to other mesh networking
projects and communities to collaborate on a set of standards and best
practices for interoperability. We are working on a proposal which will
be presenting in early October. Byzantium is somewhat narrowly focused
on one piece of the problem-set, so we are eager to collabroate with
complimentary projects who are solving other pieces (such as Serval and
Commotion Wireless). However, we are currently working in our spare time
on almost no budget so don't expect overnight progress.

Our next release won't happen for several months so the v0.2a release
will still be the most current version in mid-September. We don't have
the resource to make an updated release for S17. Even if we did, there
haven't been any significant changes to warrant it.

Good luck, and please let us know how Byzanitum does "in the field". We
are always eager to see user feedback and bug reports.

>
> Once again, let me know  if anyone from HacDC or the Byzantium project is planning to attent S17 in NYC, as I'd love the chance to meet
> up and do some old school analog social networking.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Ryan
>
>

Thank you,
Ben the Pyrate

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