Topic: Mesh Network at OWS

[BMG]

http://mashable.com/2011/11/14/how-occupy-wall-street-is-building-its-own-internet-video/

Wilder and his friend Charles Wyble are the founders of The Free Network Foundation. In mid-October, they assembled two modems and six radio antennas to create the Freedom Tower, Occupy Wall Street’s public WiFi source. Their foundation has been paying about $80 each month to keep New York City’s resident protesters online.

Their larger goal, however, is an ambitious one: creating a new kind of Internet, with an off-the-grid component just for OWS.

When their work is done, the pair hope to have created a decentralized peer-to-peer network that provides discounted Internet access across the country, via what is known as a mesh network.

Mesh networks connect multiple nodes to one Internet access point. Think peer-to-peer file sharing networks such as Bittorrent, but physical connections. Many individual computers in the network can connect to the source — in this case the Internet access point — through connections with each other. In this way, many computers can share one access point.

Mesh networks are also considered more secure than traditional connections. Two computers connected to the same mesh network can communicate directly, instead of sending their messages via a remote server where it could theoretically be intercepted or blocked. Indeed, mesh networks have often been discussed as a way for demonstrators to keep their communications private and secure.

[rickl]

Indeed, mesh networks have often been discussed as a way for demonstrators to keep their communications private and secure.

Or anybody, not just demonstrators.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

[BMG]

I have to agree rickl. 

[Libertas]

Couple small hiccup's here though,aren't there?  First, this sounds like a closed loop system, so outside of it being a neat little club, no PR value to it as an outreach tool, right?  They would still need access to the open grid to disseminate their propaganda and incur the routine risks it presents.  And second, all it would take is just one infiltrator to plant a nasty virus and the whole thing goes kaboom, right?

I would favor encryption in the electronic frontier as well as low-tech techniques like one-day codes and other such simple but effective methods ala the OSS days over relying too heavily upon technology.

[AlanS]

I just want to know who's paying for it. Bandwith isn't free.

[charlesoakwood]

Is there any WTSHTF practicality to this thing?

[Libertas]

I dunno, I'm still fuzzy on the connection piece of this, how does it bypass the existing internet architecture and The Big Switch?  I think Ham radio and simple codes could be more effective.  Time top brush up on our Morse Code and encryption skills.