
3 Projects to Create a Government-less Internet - klintron
http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/3-projects-to-create-a-government-less-internet.php?utm_source=ReadWriteCloud&utm_medium=rwchomepage&utm_campaign=ReadWriteCloud_posts&utm_content=3+Projects+to+Create+a+Government-less+Internet
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sdkmvx
This is great and all, but I feel like someone should point out that at some
level, you need service to your house. In the US at least, AT&T (or some
company that was formerly AT&T) owns most of the last-mile wires, so anyone
who can control the last-mile wires ultimately has control over the network.

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EwanG
Actually in a properly setup mesh network you DON'T need service to your
house. You just need to be within distance of the next node that can pass your
packets along.

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joe_the_user
So, the scenario is, when you main wire is cut, your router has different firm
in place when lets it talk to your neighbor's router which talks to his
neighbor's router which talks to a packet radio router. And that lets
everyone's packets go everywhere?

Slow but it seems possible.

The problem I'd see is a government aiming for control would clamp down on the
international packet radios immediately and not wait till it want to shut off
the net.

Still might be worth a try.

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wladimir
Even if they manage to clamp down on all international access nodes, it'll
still be very useful as a local communication/coordination network.

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elliottcarlson
Why don't they mention a well established project like Freifunk?

<http://wiki.freifunk.net/Kategorie:English>

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klintron
Because I didn't know about it =) I've found a few more active mesh networks
from around the world, so I'm doing a follow-up story. Thanks for leading me
to Freifunk.

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cyrus_
How much bandwidth could we squeeze out of long-range packet radio
technologies? Even big commercial shops like Verizon and AT&T have to be
careful about bandwidth usage on their networks.

What we would really have to do is take over one of these existing companies.
Sprint, for example, has a market cap of $13B. I'll start a Kickstarter
project.

